For all the OGL detractors out there, please read the above post again. Even if you're not a Paizo customer, you'll be hard pressed to find a gamer who isn't or who hasn't heard about the quality of their products, or a 4E fan who hasn't wished for Paizo-developed 4E content.
IMO, if the only benefit derived from the OGL was to enable Paizo to exist in its current form, then the OGL was a smashing success.
Well, my "detractions" aren't really detractions, per se, just criticisms.
I never said the OGL wasn't good for some companies. Clearly, for some companies, it did good, like James Jacobs says. For Paizo, the OGL is really what kept them in business.
But the key thing is, I noticed that the business people describing it are describing it from a business and economic perspective. This is where my criticisms come in. When talking about the OGL, there seem to be two main perspectives, similar to the differences between the free software and open source views. Free software people believe in the ideological value of supporting it, while open source advocates believe in it for economic and other reasons. Based on the behavior I see on-line, I find the former perspective a little naive and bordering on the Fanatical, and the latter much more even and pragmatic.
Similarly, when OGL seems to come up there are two perspectives. There are people who believe in the ideology--they think releasing OGL is superior, is what should be done, etc. This seems to be what most of the game FANS think.
Then there are the various businesses. They are more pragmatic--they have to be. They support the OGL not so much for ideologies, but because it makes sense. But then again, the OGL is not needed for every game. Like Green Ronin, if Paizo makes a new game, does that mean it's automatically going to be OGL? It will probably depend on things.
I mean my own view, I am more or less ambivalent about the whole thing. If the OGL is a success or failure, I don't care, but that doesn't mean it's 100% good or 100% bad. I think it did some good, but I have doubts about it's long term benefits or whether or not it is an overall net positive for the industry. And I think some of the proponents--coming from the fan perspective--have trouble seeing this.
A recent article I saw talked about the various economic factors between closed and open:
The tradeoff between open and closed cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog
If you think the OGL is cool, that's fine. But if you want to debate things like economic effects and benefits and things that usually can be measured like how it affected retailers, businesses, etc., I think a more critical eye is needed, and I think we need to remove emotional attachment to an ideological stance when discussing these items. For example, was WoTC really "misguided" for removing it, or does having a more closed network lead to more success in the long term?