Quote:
Originally Posted by Corjay  A company can't make an OGL of WOTC's product, but why should they be restricted from making a license of their own for their own mechanics and IP? It's meaningless. And I'm not sure about the law regarding it, but even if the law wouldn't see it as monopolistic practices, it seems unethical to me to restrict the mixing of your own license with anyone else's. |
Take WEG's d6 for example. Less then a month before the
GSL's launch, WEG announced the Open d6 project. It would have a whole new license, similar to the
OGL, but different enough to get around the
GSL. (That was before anyone outside of
WotC saw the
GSL and before Gibson gave up on WEG).
Hypothetical Situation: For the sake of argument that that actually happened. Mongoose decides they want Wraith Recon in both
4E and d6. Wizards decides they don't like that and they change the
GSL to include WEG's
OGL-esque license. What then?
Wizards has the potential to include every single licensed product out there. Its even possible that they can write the
GSL to include inhouse systems. Potential abuse of power.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corjay What do WOTC's staff changes and top jobs have anything to do with another company's license? |
The
GSL can be changed at any point in time, without warning. So "
WotC's Goals" today and "
WotC's Goals" future must be taken into account. People forge the direction of a company.
WotC today is different then
WotC of 8 years ago. It is only logical to assume that
WotC future is going to be different then
WotC today. Wizards today might be fine with above hypothetical sitiuation while whoever's at Wizards 3 years from now might not find it such a good idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corjay You said that the OGL was "abuse free". It was only abuse free on WOTC's part. They can't abuse the licensee, but the licensee can very much abuse the OGL and WOTC's product. |
How? By creating True20 and Pathfinder? That was its intended use from the beginning and Dancey said as much before it launched.
Mongoose had a great idea with Traveller. They didn't release the core book in their
SRD, they released the ability for 3rd party companies to make traveller compatable products. They used a Smart
SRD design.
Wizards is full of smart people. They could have made it work.
OGL 1.0A says open material can be published with any version of
OGL license. They could have made
OGL 2.0A that was more restrictive and made the D&DSTL that said you had to use
OGL 2.0A and the 3.x
srd's cannot be listed in the OGL2.0's section 15 in order to use the D&DSTL. They didn't. They wanted some thing they could terminate, at any point in time. Once D&DSTL ran out, people would just go back to
OGL 1.0A. Wizards doesn't want that.