Important! Interview opportunity - what do you want to know about the GSL?

[see]

It's rather unfortunate that GSL drafts weren't released early and often.

It is difficult for the drafting party of any agreement to look at it from a genuine non-drafter perspective; it will often contain some provision that, after discussion, both parties would agree needs to be changed. These issues are identified when the non-drafter sees the agreement and notices an onerous provision, and then are resolved through negotiation between the two parties.

In the case of a general public license, these issues are only identified when a draft is presented to the general public, and the substitute for private negotiations is public feedback followed by revisions and more feedback. See the histories of, for example, the Netscape Public License/Mozilla Public License, the BSD license (credit provisions), the Apple Public Source License, the GNU General Public License version 3.

The GSL has remained hidden in the WotC/Hasbro cloister, and that has not stopped bad PR from rumors and public controversy. It has only prevented any outside vetting that could catch problems in the license. It was and still is a mistake.

 

[JVisgaitis]

You realise that by (accidentally) hijacking the thread you are duty bound to release your wedding video under the OGL!

I caught part of it at the after reception yesterday. No way that's ever going public! I'll post a ton of pictures though...

I love that "Wizards is The Man" thing. You are right on the ball there.

The thing is, I can understand a lot of it, but after all of the times WotC has gone on to prove that they aren't the man, you would think that these comments would be fewer and far between. Examples:

• WotC bought D&D and they don't care about the game and a MTG based RPG is soon to follow.
• WotC is going to add randomization mechanics into D&D.
• WotC is going to make 4e another 3.5 edition and do little to update the system.
• WotC is going to kill off 3rd Party Support for 4e.

Now they have had some questionable calls. The release of 3.5 which they admit was a mistake. The total disregard for the Mac community with the DDI. The revoking of Dragon and Dungeon Magazines from Paizo. In my mind, the jury is still out on D&D Insider and the license is still up in the air. WotC has earned enough of my respect to give them the benefit of the doubt.

While I don't think that everything will be to my liking (how could it?), I do believe that they'll find a middle ground that won't leave a bad taste in my mouth. Just give them some time till they get everything straightened out.

There's a good chance that I won't be able to respond to this thread till Wednesday or Thursday, so I'll see you all then.

P.S. You want to talk about insane and unjust? $9.95 for internet access for 24 hours is pretty ridiculous if you ask me....

 

[JVisgaitis]

-Double Post-

Stupid Disney Internet Access....

 

[Mike_Lescault]

I understand the need to "hedge your bets when predicting the date of major announcements".
However, you are doing a poor job in communicating with the community.

You should be at least be posting once a week saying something like "We are not quite ready to answer your questions, we hope to be ready soon. I will post again on such and such date and give you an update."

To be fair, this is a slightly different situation than say, if the Magic Online servers or D&Di servers were down, and paying subscribers couldn't access them. In that case, I'd be providing hourly updates with what I knew, with a set time when I would post again to give another update, even if that update had nothing new to add.

In this case, while this topic is certainly important to the community, it's really aimed at the third party publishers. Those folks get their information and updates from the WotC staff managing those relationships (Linae, Scott et al). And while I want to make sure the community has as much information as possible, the information is less time sensitive than it would be for someone deciding...oh, whether to keep banging on the "connect to server" button or to go outside and brave that sun thing. =)

-Mike

 

[Brown Jenkin]

To be fair, this is a slightly different situation than say, if the Magic Online servers or D&Di servers were down, and paying subscribers couldn't access them. In that case, I'd be providing hourly updates with what I knew, with a set time when I would post again to give another update, even if that update had nothing new to add.

In this case, while this topic is certainly important to the community, it's really aimed at the third party publishers. Those folks get their information and updates from the WotC staff managing those relationships (Linae, Scott et al). And while I want to make sure the community has as much information as possible, the information is less time sensitive than it would be for someone deciding...oh, whether to keep banging on the "connect to server" button or to go outside and brave that sun thing. =)

-Mike

Sorry Mike but this is one more instance when keeping your mouth shut (or keeping your fingers off the keyboard) would be better. No one was asking for hourly updates or even remotely thought that this was important as a server crash. In this case though WotC made an announcement that when combined with other communications generated a major firestorm and bad PR for WotC. In order to deal with this firestorm WotC came to ENWorld (not the other way around) and asked ENWorld for questions. It was because of the Rouse and his desire to share info, even it it would take a bit, that people were temporarily satisfied and the subject has died down. This does not mean the community is happy or that we have forgotten, just that we are willing to give the benefit of the doubt and and are waiting on the answers to come back. Given the time frame that Scott gave, people interpreted this to mean May 5th at the latest. The impression I got was that people were asking for at least acknowledgment by that date even if the response was that you needed more time. Popping in to neither inform us of the answer or to say that an extension is needed and for how long is not particularly helpful, especially when combined with a post that says instead that you don't think the issue is particularly time sensitive. Obviously you had time to write a reply here, so why not use that time to say what is going on rather than rambling about how this isn't like a server crash.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Brown Jerkin, while you may feel the update wasn't necessary, smetzer a few posts back, stated

"You should be at least be posting once a week saying something like "We are not quite ready to answer your questions, we hope to be ready soon. I will post again on such and such date and give you an update."

...So it seems like people disagree on what WoTC should do.

Obviously you had time to write a reply here, so why not use that time to say what is going on rather than rambling about how this isn't like a server crash.

As upsetting as changes to the GSL might be to the fan base, quite frankly, how WoTC runs their company is not really any of our darn business. I see a lot of people asking for details on "why did you do this", and "who's responsible for this delay", etc.

To be fair to the company, I don't think anybody in PR will answer such questions to the general public. If there are internal arguments in WoTC or Hasbro between individuals, departments, etc, it's just the politics of a company. We don't get to know all the behind the scenes stuff that might have affected the delay in certain movies or TV shows or computer games.

Those of us who will use the GSL and might be affected by it have a right to clear answers about what the GSL will entail--but they don't have a right to know who decided this, why they decided to do things this way, what were their motives, etc, anymore than we have a right to know why Coke took a product off the market or why a Magazine removed a popular columnist.

Based on Mike's reply, it sounds like they are already having private conversations with the various big licensees, who are at most affected by the situation.

Is the situation annoying to any potential users of the GSL other than those early adopters? Yes. But technically nobody outside the NDA were supposed to know anything about the GSL until June 6th.

 

[Oldtimer]

In this case, while this topic is certainly important to the community, it's really aimed at the third party publishers. Those folks get their information and updates from the WotC staff managing those relationships (Linae, Scott et al).

I think you are misinformed, Mike. The last communication from WotC directly to third party publishers was March 19.

Since then it has only been rumours on Internet forums. We are all in an information vacuum these days. WotC has completely failed with any sort of timely updates - to the community or to third party publishers.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Actually, while the community (EnWorld, the "general public") hasn't been updated, I think Scott had sent Orcus some e-mail privately when this whole "GSL requires giving up the OGL" thing was happening. So I suspect there might be some discussions we the public won't be privy to.

If Mike's correct, Scott and Linae might be writing to that list of "early adopters". But then again, Mike should probably clarify that. Even if it's to say something like "the general public will know see the GSL by June 6th, some early adopters will know sooner but are under NDA", or "Everybody will know by June 6th", etc.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Brown Jerkin, while you may feel the update wasn't necessary, smetzer a few posts back, stated

"You should be at least be posting once a week saying something like "We are not quite ready to answer your questions, we hope to be ready soon. I will post again on such and such date and give you an update."

...So it seems like people disagree on what WoTC should do.

Actually I agree with smetzer. I think WotC should provide a weekly update even if it is to say they don't have anything yet. What we got however was not that or any statement that things were delayed again or that we would get a reply on Monday. What we got instead was a rambling statement on how this wasn't as important as server crashes.

As upsetting as changes to the GSL might be to the fan base, quite frankly, how WoTC runs their company is not really any of our darn business. I see a lot of people asking for details on "why did you do this", and "who's responsible for this delay", etc.

To be fair to the company, I don't think anybody in PR will answer such questions to the general public. If there are internal arguments in WoTC or Hasbro between individuals, departments, etc, it's just the politics of a company. We don't get to know all the behind the scenes stuff that might have affected the delay in certain movies or TV shows or computer games.

Those of us who will use the GSL and might be affected by it have a right to clear answers about what the GSL will entail--but they don't have a right to know who decided this, why they decided to do things this way, what were their motives, etc, anymore than we have a right to know why Coke took a product off the market or why a Magazine removed a popular columnist.

That was not my point or anyone else's. We already know there is internal fight and most of us don't care about how or why things are going on internally. What we are waiting on is something that WotC came to ENWorld about. WotC asked ENWorld to submit questions. None of the questions had anything to to do with internal processes, just questions about the license itself, which was what was asked of us as a community by WotC. What we want are the answers to these questions. The questions that WotC wanted us to ask.

Based on Mike's reply, it sounds like they are already having private conversations with the various big licensees, who are at most affected by the situation.

Is the situation annoying to any potential users of the GSL other than those early adopters? Yes. But technically nobody outside the NDA were supposed to know anything about the GSL until June 6th.

Again. Wotc wanted us to ask questions about the license. We did and we are now awaiting answers. If Wotc doesn't want to answer those questions anymore they should say so. We are not asking anymore than what they have said they will give us.

 

[xechnao]

We already know there is internal fight

I don't -or what it could actually mean.