From:	Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject:	Idea - Meta Index
Date:	Fri, 23 Jun 2000 17:42:56 -0400

> >When I'm playing or writing about Shadowrun, one of the things that I
> >frequently think would be really useful would be some sort of
> >master index that spans all the books and sourcebooks and novels
> >and stuff.

> http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~jhary/Shadowrun/index.html

I enjoy the file above, but it is not detailed enough for me. I want
something _really_ detailed. I'd like to be able to find every casual
reference made to, say, Somalia.

I've been considering starting a project like this for nearly a year, off
and on. On June 6, I sent an e-mail to FASA to ask permission to start such
a project. I have not heard back yet. Here is a copy of the letter I sent:

>>>>>>>
Mr. Mulvihill -

I am interested in starting an open source, internet-based project to
compile a massive, complete index of every Shadowrun project ever published.
Since there are some trademark and copyright issues in doing this, I am
writing to get your opinion on (and, hopefully, permission for) undertaking
such a project.

The project will be called ISIS (Internet Shadowrun Index Service). The idea
is to get Shadowrun enthusiasts to volunteer to find and add index entries
for a few pages of a Shadowrun book. With a number of people doing a few
pages each (with ISIS mediating to make sure pages weren't duplicated), a
large number of entries could be collected. ISIS would combine all of these
entries together to build a complete index, in various formats.

It is important to note that these entries would _not_ reproduce verbatim
text from any Shadowrun book. They would be typical index entries, such as
"Corporate Court, founded" or "Knight, Damien". No summaries of stats
or
rules would be present, only page references of where to find rules or other
information. The indent is not to reproduce Shadowrun products, but rather
to allow players and (especially) GMs to find tidbits of information in the
thousands of published Shadowrun pages.

For example, say you remembered some mention in some book about the
Communist government of Malaysia being overthrown. You read it a while ago,
so without a global index, you need to guess to figure out which book.
Cyperpirates seems the most-likely, so you comb through it. You can't find
it, but does that mean it isn't there, or that you just didn't see it? This
kind of stuff happens to me all the time, and it is extremely irritating to
have to waste time to find this kind of stuff.

With ISIS, you could find an item like "Malaysia, government overthrown" and
discover the reference is on page 43 of the original Seattle Sourcebook.

I have set up the bare bones of a web site describing ISIS in more detail.
The site is not yet finished, and nothing links to it at the moment. One
thing the site needs, for example, is the standard statement about Shadowrun
being FASA's registered trademark. The URL for the site is:

[URL removed. Sorry all. I want to keep it private for a while.]

The "Join" and "Guideline" pages contain the most information. The
Guidelines page describes how the index will be divided into "source files"
and how these will be contained in a public source control archive.

I would very much like to use the services of a web site called SourceForge.
This site hosts open source projects and includes space to host the source
code (as a CVS archive), as well as a number of maintenance tools which
would make the management of a project like this much easier. SourceForge
can be found at:

http://www.sourceforge.com/

One requirement of SourceForge is that projects it hosts must conform to
some OpenSource license. ISIS will be generating computer code to build the
indexes (and perhaps an application to make adding them easier). I would
like to use the GNU Library or `Lesser' Public License (LGPL). The text for
this license can be found at:

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.html

The license for the index data itself is more tricky. The index is bound to
contain words trademarked by FASA, such as Matrix, and ISIS neither intends
nor desires to challenge such trademarks. In my opinion, what makes the most
sense is the Open Content license. This license is good for this type of
information, because it allows transfer and duplication of the data, but
also protects copyright and prevents anyone (even ISIS) from charging a fee
for the data. The text of the Open Content license is:

http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml

The Open Content license also allows derivative works (with restrictions).
This is important to ISIS, because the whole point of the index is to
produce index data that people can use how they want to. For example, maybe
someone will build an interactive web engine that searches the index in some
way.

The issue of ownership is also tricky. In my opinion, the best thing would
be for FASA to claim ownership and copyright on the data and then release it
under the Open Content license and give ISIS permission to manage it.

Provided we can come to some sort of arrangement, once ISIS is given
permission to begin, the expectation is that there would be no need for FASA
involvement. Naturally, if FASA wants to get involved at some level, that
would be great. My point here is that ISIS should not _require_ any mind
space or time from your busy staff.

Please let me know what you think of this proposal, in particular the
licensing and copyright issues.

Thanks,

Lester Ward ("Wordman")
http://divnull.com/lward
<<<<<<<

I don't know if FASA's lack of reply indicates that they are not interested,
that they never even read the mail, or if they are just to busy to respond.

A question for you all: I believe that, even if FASA does not give an
official go ahead, it is still legal to create such an index. Does anyone
know the law on this? Does an index count as "fair use"? Naturally, I'd much
rather do it with FASA's permission.