Yah it stinks. If 4e had had a real srd there might still be support for it even under a more restricted gsl license.Thank you. I was out of 4e when the real gsl made its debut. Seems far less helpful than I had hoped..
But it worked the way wizards wanted it to work. They stopped publishing 4e and no Pathfinder type clones showed up so as far as they're concerned it worked.