New GSL Announcement

I'll keep up w/things as they develop over the next day or so, but I can wait 36 hours till I'm home from work Monday afternoon to get some solid answers. Thanks for establishing a time for answers Scott, esp one that is a week and a half earlier than the Friday a week after GAMA ends

Regarding the "what is open?" question, I've always held to the OpenGamingFoundation.org definition. It's very short and they list several licenses that qualify ( http://opengamingfoundation.org/licenses.html ):

1. The license must allow game rules and materials that use game rules to be freely copied, modified and distributed.
2. The license must ensure that material distributed using the license cannot have those permissions restricted in the future.

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If the license is revocable, then it's not Open.

AZRogue said:

Because a lot of big, quality companies would be absolutely nuts to quit their successful lines under the OGL just to print some stuff using the more restrictive GSL for the unproven 4E system. So, in one stroke WotC may have guaranteed quality 3rd party publishers BECOME competition instead of enlisting their aid in promoting 4E and taking the system further.

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This is true, but would also be the case if 4e were completely non-open. I think the debate within WoTC was probably between completely-closed and slightly-open, and slightly-open won, because slightly-open offers the possibility of gaining full control over certain 3pps like Necromancer who have bitten the lure. If 4e were completely closed, Necromancer would have had to stick with 3e and the OGL. With 4e slightly open, WoTC gets Necromancer to cease trading 3e, while WoTC gains the power to subsequently revoke the 4e license and put Necromancer out of business, putting WotC in a very strong position.

I think though that slightly-open may be the worst of all worlds for the general consumer, as it will minimise the actual variety of product on the market. Fully closed would have guaranteed plenty of continuing OGL/3e content. Fully open would have guaranteed plenty of 4e content. Slightly-open will reduce the amount of 3e content greatly in return for a limited amount of 4e content.

S'mon said:

Slightly-open will reduce the amount of 3e content greatly in return for a limited amount of 4e content.

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Probably, though that works to WotC's benefit as 3e content is competition while 4e content (even in limited quantities) will drive core book sales, as one will still need the core books to use it.

S'mon said:

This is true, but would also be the case if 4e were completely non-open. I think the debate within WoTC was probably between completely-closed and slightly-open, and slightly-open won, because slightly-open offers the possibility of gaining full control over certain 3pps like Necromancer who have bitten the lure. If 4e were completely closed, Necromancer would have had to stick with 3e and the OGL. With 4e slightly open, WoTC gets Necromancer to cease trading 3e, while WoTC gains the power to subsequently revoke the 4e license and put Necromancer out of business, putting WotC in a very strong position.

I think though that slightly-open may be the worst of all worlds for the general consumer, as it will minimise the actual variety of product on the market. Fully closed would have guaranteed plenty of continuing OGL/3e content. Fully open would have guaranteed plenty of 4e content. Slightly-open will reduce the amount of 3e content greatly in return for a limited amount of 4e content.

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I think you're probably right. For my own preference, I'll take some 4E material instead of none, but would have liked some products from publishers who are unlikely, now, to make the switch. So, that's a bummer. I'm still very interested in how this all plays out.

One thing you can't deny: this has been, and continues to be, a very interesting time. I don't think I've read this much DnD related material, or visited DnD message boards, so much in several years.

Morrus said:

Eh? You think WotC should give away their rules, but if others use the rules WotC has given away, they shouldn't have to give anything back? Would you like Scott Rouse's car, too? I mean - WotC isn't a charity!

No chance that will happen. Even the most benevolent busines in a world wouldn't just give everything away unconditionally. What would be the point of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars developing it in the first place?

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You're missing my point.

Realistically Morrus, the viral thing doesn't do anything really for WoTC product strategy. The only time they ever used OGL released content in official products is Monster Manual II (for just 2 monsters) and Unearthed Arcana. And the GSL is not "giving away their rules", it is a license.

I'm not saying people can't do it as viral, but rather let Wizards allow the individual writers/publishers to declare whether or not they need to share it. That will actually be an incentive to publishers to use it. There might be a clause saying you can't legally challenge WoTC if they use your content, to legally protect themselves (in case of "parallel development"). That's all they need to protect themselves. (And it would be a rare case if they did it, since businesses usually don't like the mess of using somebody else's work in that manner).

Most of the major products (from the major publishers) don't much other OGL content other than the SRD--from a practical perspective it is consumer unfriendly since assuming others have purchased another third party book is not practical. Perhaps the key exception in the industry is Tomb of Horrors, but that product was designed to reprint old AD&D monsters for 3e, and had a special license to do so.

I forget who said it, but one person noted that in the cases of using OGL content, he always asked permission, regardless of the license, simply because it was "the right thing to do". What this would do is enforce that in the license itself.

Orcus said:

Guys, please please please take it easy on Scott and Linae. They are in a tough position.

I know for a fact that they helped make openness* for 4E a reality. My guess is that was an epic level battle. In fact, I hope they leveled and got some great lewt when they won that fight.

They deserve our goodwill. I'm as frustrated as the next guy, but please dont accuse Scott of hiding behind anything.

Clark

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Clark, I assume you got your rose-tinted glasses on, because this not openness. It's a license offer with some rather heavy opportunity costs and no security. It has nothing at all to do with open gaming.

I know you've been hailing Scott and Linae as the saviours of open gaming, but if they really fought for open gaming and this was all they got, that's a near TPK in my book.

I wonder what their opponents were trying to achive and if that really would have been worse. A closed 4e would, IMO, not have been worse. This is at best a sort of "let's kill half of the kittens" type of compromise.

The way it seems to be going now, I'd rather see them throw away the GSL, close down 4e and go their own merry way. Then we wouldn't have this OGL poison pill to worry about.

Oldtimer, I disagree on almost every count. I'm unable to see how a license that is going to allow - heck, ensure - 3rd party support is better than one that doesn't. Don't get me wrong; I think it makes much more sense if we're misinterpreting a few comments, and it is just individual products that can't be both 3e/4e.

I think it will behoove us not to jump to conclusions until Scott gets back to us with the license in front of him. Clark's right in this regard; both Scott and Linae have been championing the GSL inside of Wizards, fighting to make sure it's as open and fair as possible. They're smart people. I'm not going to assume the license requires voluntary abandonment of the OGL until that's confirmed by them.

I'd also like to ask that we stay away from personal comments like the "rose tinted glasses" one. Clark's a lawyer. I suspect that makes him as cynical as the rest of us.

Piratecat said:

Oldtimer, I disagree on almost every count. I'm unable to see how a license that is going to allow - heck, ensure - 3rd party support is better than one that doesn't. Don't get me wrong; I think it makes much more sense if we're misinterpreting a few comments, and it is just individual products that can't be both 3e/4e.

I think it will behoove us not to jump to conclusions until Scott gets back to us with the license in front of him. Clark's right in this regard; both Scott and Linae have been championing the GSL inside of Wizards, fighting to make sure it's as open and fair as possible. They're smart people. I'm not going to assume the license requires voluntary abandonment of the OGL until that's confirmed by them.

I'd also like to ask that we stay away from personal comments like the "rose tinted glasses" one. Clark's a lawyer. I suspect that makes him as cynical as the rest of us.

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I expected that some people would disagree.

In my post I assume that the company-by-company decision of GSL vs OGL is true. If not, that would change things a bit. I might be jumping to conclusions, but this interpretation has been flying around for enough time now, that Scott or Linae could easily have refuted it if it wasn't true. Therefore I assume it's true. (And hoping I'm wrong.)

I know Clark's a lawyer and probably doesn't even own any "rose-tinted glasses". I wasn't implying anything sinister, but Clark seems to have a different perspective on the merits of the GSL, so I tried to use an english expression for that different perspective. I hope I didn't come across as offensive. Nuances of a foreign language can be tricky.

Regarding if any license is better than none at all, my opinion is that a license that poisons the extant OGC is far worse than no license at all.

jdrakeh said:

Probably, though that works to WotC's benefit as 3e content is competition while 4e content (even in limited quantities) will drive core book sales, as one will still need the core books to use it.

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Yes, it can benefit WoTC but still be bad for the gaming public as a whole. Less 3pp 4e content might be good if less meant higher average quality, but slightly-open will likely dissuade many of the best 3pps from participating, driving down quality too.