Any guess as to when the GSL will terminate?

Nagol · Apr 20, 2014

Just musing about Next's ramifications.

Has there been any talk to terminating the GSL?

Morrus · Apr 20, 2014

Hope not. We'll be screwed if so - got half an adventure path to finish!

fjw70 · Apr 21, 2014

WotC said they plan to continue supporting all editions. Revoking the GSL would be hard to justify with that stated direction.

Nagol · Apr 21, 2014

fjw70 said:
WotC said they plan to continue supporting all editions. Revoking the GSL would be hard to justify with that stated direction.

The GSL requires more business processes on WotC's side than the benign neglect type licence like the OGL. There are the requirements to receive Statement of Acceptance from prospective licensees and current licensees whose information has changed, for example, and there are trade dress considerations with the compatibility logo and trademark usage guidelines.

I could see them terminating the license while still selling 4e through dndclassics.com and saying the edition is still supported.

It is also possible they will simply alter the license or extend new terms to current licensees that negate the need for processes on their end, but I consider that less likely -- a fair bit of work with limited business value for WotC.

delericho · Apr 21, 2014

Is there anything to be gained by cancelling the license?

One thing they might well consider is to simply stop processing any of the book-keeping associated with the license - meaning no new licensees, no updates to contact information, etc - but leaving the license itself in place for current users.

(The alternative is to kill the license completely, which would probably affect very very few users, but affect them quite badly - and would probably lead to a PR hit far out of proportion with what's reasonable.)

Nagol · Apr 21, 2014

delericho said:
Is there anything to be gained by cancelling the license?

One thing they might well consider is to simply stop processing any of the book-keeping associated with the license - meaning no new licensees, no updates to contact information, etc - but leaving the license itself in place for current users.

(The alternative is to kill the license completely, which would probably affect very very few users, but affect them quite badly - and would probably lead to a PR hit far out of proportion with what's reasonable.)

They gain the ability to retire business processes currently in place. It's not much of a saving, but it is some. More important than the partial FTE, the simplification means fewer areas for consideration, record retention, and failure points.

If WotC stops processes unilaterally without updating the license then there can be more licensees -- the license goes into effect after the applicant sends in a Statement of Acceptance (SoA) unless WotC sends back a rejection. Now they could modify the business process to have someone always send back a rejection for a new SoA, but that still is a process that would need monitoring and staffing and doesn't address updated SoA receipts (address change, company name change, etc.).

delericho · Apr 21, 2014

Nagol said:
If WotC stops processes unilaterally without updating the license then there can be more licensees -- the license goes into effect after the applicant sends in a Statement of Acceptance (SoA) unless WotC sends back a rejection.

Ah, fair enough. In that case, unless 5e is under the GSL, I'd expect a cancellation at some point (soon-ish).

fjw70 · Apr 21, 2014

They could roll the 4e GSL into whatever they are doing for 5e. Whether that be a new GSL or OGL or whatever. Since they have said they don't care what edition you play as long as you play D&D then it would make sense to have some type of license for all editions.

Nagol · Apr 21, 2014

fjw70 said:
They could roll the 4e GSL into whatever they are doing for 5e. Whether that be a new GSL or OGL or whatever. Since they have said they don't care what edition you play as long as you play D&D then it would make sense to have some type of license for all editions.

It's possible, but I would doubt that direction. The main problem is licensee's products almost certainly will be incompatible with Next's game engine (the GSL restricts game term definitions to those published in 4e, for example). Bundling 4e products with Next would lead to market confusion and annoyed customers.

If they are concerned with 4e licensees their best approach is to update the terms of the GSL to prevent new licensees and negate WotC's business process requirements. Having dealt with larger companies, that is a lot of internal work so I don't hold out much hope they choose that route. They may, if they feel responsible or feel there will be serious PR implications, but I don't think that would be too likely. More likely, those affected would be something between annoyed and devastated, but the market at large would shrug and say "that is what happens when dealing with licensed products".

*edit*
One simple approach would be to change to license to prevent new licensees and not touch anything else for a year or so while giving a general timeline for when current licenses will be revoked. Limited work on WotC's end and limited disruption to the current licensees.