So one of my big focuses in a lot of my projects is less about open sourcing my code (though that’s important) and more about open sourcing my underlying data. To be honest most of the time while I like my code, it’s not really all that special - just about any competent developer could reproduce something close enough. What is special is my data which enables my project.

This idea of data being important is a double edged sword. On one hand it means that when I can open source data then other developers are improved by it. On the other hand, open sourcing anything is that much more of a battle. One of my recent battles has been trying to get the Dungeon’s and Dragon’s Fifth Edition Systems Reference Document (basically, the open source version of D&D) into a consumable data format (ie JSON) instead of a PDF.

Of course, I’m not the first person to have done this process, rather, I’m seemingly the first person to release said data. So far it’s been good - I had a pretty good run with releasing the spells and haven’t had any woes from it. I’d like to extend that to the other data in the 5e SRD.

My ability to release the spells was greatly simplified by the ever awesome ephe who had carefully transcribed the SRD into markdown with consistent enough formatting that I was able to (with permission) convert everything to JSON. I’ve found a few people who have moved other sections of the SRD to either JS or JSON or other formats, and am trying to get their permission to open source and release it.

Failing that I have a hare-brained scheme to build out a simple react frontend connected to couch ala pouch (teehee) and bribe a few folks with steam giftcards to do the grunt work. I’d rather not try to go down that path since it’s management exercise and violates the *nix tool philosophy (use tools over labor) but it may be the only way.

Anyways, if you’re reading this and happen to feel like contributing, hit me up. I took the time to hookup some email ala me at this domain.

:heart:,

VH