Workshop report September 2019

As Genesis 5 is to be released in about 6 weeks from now, more pieces are falling into their place. The focus is obviously on Shadowrun 6, which will be the new key feature of Genesis 5. I have still not implemented all parts (see this post's graphic) and I already got some valuable feedback and bugreports from you, so I am positive about having a usable SR6 generator in October. On the other hand, I see what still needs to be done and sometimes I am not sure if I can manage this in time. But the second half of September will be two weeks of intensive coding, so I hope to make a lot of progress there.

Delaying the new release isn't an option. Pegasus Spiele - the german distributor of Shadowrun - will start selling the SR6 core rulebook on the fair SPIEL 2019 in Essen, starting at the 24th October. Pegasus Spiele provided me with PDFs ahead of time and a contact for rule clarifications/errata und I promised them to be ready for the product launch. So, I need to be ready then. 

When Genesis 5 is released and the first waves of the to be expected reported bugs are fixed, my next project will be the reworking of Splittermond. I learned better ways to write generator code by now and Splittermond has some longstanding bugs and shortcomings that could benefit from that. This will take several month and will possibly interrupted by adding data from SR6 product releases.

Since Splittermond and Shadowrun are some heavy weight RPGs in terms of product output and rule details, it is more than I can handle as a single person in my spare time. I need to make it easier to collaborate, but I haven't decided what is the best option. Essentially it boils down to two questions:

• Will I remain hosted on BitBucket or shall I move to GitHub?

• Can I open the repositories with the XML data as well or do they need to stay private?

While the first is influenced by a lot of factors (Perhaps I should make this an extra post - if you are interested), the later is a legal problem. It would be much easier, if I can make all data public. Collaborators could start their work, without needed to ask me for permission. I would not need to pay $2/month for each collaborator.
On the other hand, there are the licenses holders or distributors, who don't allow complete sets of the RPG data available for the public. While this usually refers to lists (e.g. a complete list of all weapons with their data), it is also valid for XML files with all data, since you can use them to generate such lists.

You could argue that the published Genesis JAR file also contains those data. There is no obstacle preventing an experienced Java programmer to just take those data and published his own software - it would be illegal, of course, but possible.

If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to comment.