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Sunk cost fallacy. ;) That money is gone no matter what, all that matters is whether even .3X cost is less than the benefits. I suspect it's not.

I know this is not likely to make much of a difference, but I would suggest that WotC look hard at the amount of internal resources and energy they're devoting to trying to sort out the GSL, the ongoing negative publicity that they're getting from it, and the likely investment required to sort...

Except there's an official SRD now, which includes almost everything from the rules and is entirely OGC. As I understand it the Evil Hat guys had this pointed out to them after the book was released and have stated that it was never their intention to lock down the game.

No it doesn't. A FAQ is just a set of responses to frequently asked questions. Until recently this question wasn't being asked. It tells us broadly what WotC thinks about using older material with a new version of the OGL, but says nothing about the reverse. FAQs are not legally binding; only...

Don't read too much into the wording of the FAQ. It's not a legally binding document and probably hasn't even been reviewed by a lawyer. I know (because I was on the OGL lists back then) that the language was written with the intention that you could use an earlier version of the license with...

IANAL but my understanding is that it operates in both directions, and I remember discussion when the OGL was drafted stating that it was intended to do so. I note that it doesn't use the word "subsequent" in that section, which would probably be required to make it forwards only.

Until we see the license, who knows? If it's legally a "new version" of the existing OGL then section 9 should come into play. WotC have not been clear about this but i would assume that if they want it to legally be a distinct license, Hasbro's lawyers will find a way to make that happen.

All I'm telling you is that in my conversations with an IP lawyer, I was informed that the concept of derived works in actual case law is not simple or straightforward. In particular, what presentation means is a very slippery concept under the law and there are not many precedents in case...

WotC has stated that the text of the "new OGL" will be under NDA until June. Not just the SRD, but the license as well.

Short answer is talk to a lawyer before you assume that game rules aren't copyrightable (at least at the scale of a whole RPG). I did have the benefit of actual legal advice on "derivative" works a while back. It wasn't in regard to RPGs, but the upshot of it all was that case law on what is...

My personal suspicion is that the SRD will allow referencing of classes and class abilities, powers, magic items, monsters and so forth, but will leave out combat, detailed skills and descriptions, and so forth. In other words, it will give you just enough information to write up statblocks for...

Legally speaking, yes. WotC doesn't have to prove that it wasn't derived from the SRD as they are the copyright holders. The OGL only applies to OTHER PEOPLE who want to use that material. Ryan Dancey's claim was actually that if WotC tried to publish a version of D&D in the future that wasn't...

Legally speaking, the SRD is derived from D&D, not the other way around. WotC can publish anything it wants without it being OGC. If what you're saying were true everything WotC published for 3.5 and other d20 games would be Open Content.

No, actually it doesn't. WotC is the copyright holder of the content released as the 3.5 SRD under the OGL. As the original copyright holder, they may produce derivative works of that material without that material itself being open. Similarly, Green Ronin can produce Freeport stuff without...

Yeah, but the sentence is tied to the preceding paragraph, so I'm not actually saying anything different than you are. All I'm saying is that WotC's staff likes 4e and they're not going to say it's not ready for publication--in fact, I would be surprised if any of them think they might NOT be...

WotC could certainly survive indefinitely with no D&D sales--D&D is not their biggest income stream (I'm pretty sure Magic is significantly bigger). That said, I agree that there's no possibility of the launch being delayed. The marketing budget is in place, the printer time has been paid for...

Yes, but it didn't get released that long before the game itself. I think it was only made available a month or two in advance.

GDW's going out of business was unrelated to TNE. I understand that the biggest factor was buying a warehouse that turned out to be contaminated and therefore unusable. But yes, my first reaction to hearing the FR changes was that they were essentially doing to it what TNE did to the Imperium.

I'd be deeply, deeply amazed if they don't get it out in June. As others have said, there's no question as to whether the game will be released on time. The only question is whether everything will be fully playtested and edited.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me at least it's not adding influences that are the problem. Additional options are fine. The problem is that they're changing the game in ways that will make it significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to play a game in the style that all previous...