Quote:
Originally Posted by dmccoy1693  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.
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. |
I suppose that is possible, but it's not
WOTC's style, and yes it could happen in the future, after realigning the planets and calling on Samhain, but its another one of those things that would cause any court to cry foul. But granted, in a very worst-case scenario, if courts were all about supporting the licenser and screwing the licensee at every opportunity, it's possible. I'll call it a big "if", but this is nothing more than a devil's advocate scenario that has no basis in reality, so I'm loath to entertain it as a deal breaker. You can continue to convince others in this thread of such a scenario, but I wouldn't put it on the list of deal breakers. What I see is someone who witnessed a bad dealing with
WOTC and now has conspiracy theories running to Jupiter and back making it look like
WOTC trumps the courts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dmccoy1693 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. |
True20 is not a D20 product. It was created in response to what they didn't like about D20.
Dancey said that the
OGL was about screwing the licenser? No, his plan was that companies would be able to use the licenser's product to the benefit of all parties. The
OGL provides NO benefit to the licenser.
Look, the earliest period of any document is going to have a lot of holes that need filling. Often, as is the case here, phrasing causes stickiness that can take a long time to go away, or in this case: never. The
OGL is far from perfect, and the fact that the network barely comes back to
WOTC is problematic. I don't have the diagram in front of me, but I believe Dancey's diagram put the licenser at the center of the network, but the
OGL in practice puts the licenser on parallel footing in the market to the licensee, meaning they get no greater market share than the licensee, meaning also that they create a competitor to take market share away from the licenser with little to no return. That's losing profit, not gaining profit.
I'm telling you now, we have been around this in several circles already, and I don't see the circles stopping any time soon. I'm getting dizzy here.