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<blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 6276404" data-attributes="member: 2525">It's not.&nbsp; In a free market, all companies do all their own R&amp;D, market research, testing, use of historical data and trends, etc..The OGL allows companies to skip a huge portion of normal free market capitalism.&nbsp; They get to simply use a brand name and then make their own generic version of it without the heavy cost of getting to that invention in the first place, circumventing the entire point of the intellectual property laws.And I am saying for WOTC, that was bad.I am making no judgement if it was good or bad for consumers - I am purely speaking about whether it was good or bad for WOTC.&nbsp; And I think it was clearly bad for them.&nbsp; For them, it was not smart business.And as to the retort &quot;well if they had continued to follow the OGL...&quot; I think it's noteworthy to look at the history of WOTC and Hasbro and predict it would not be something they would want to follow indefinitely and they would want to be free to use other means of developing a product.&nbsp; The OGL locks the indefinitely into one type of method, and one particular product line.If the OGL had an expiration date, it would make more sense to say they should follow it.&nbsp; But with no expiration date, it was inevitably a harmful thing, even had they followed it for a decade.&nbsp; They can never choose another way to do things without serious negative ramifications, which is anti-capitalistic.&nbsp; If you look at other open source things out there, they usually are for products which themselves have a natural expiration date due to technological advancements (software, hardware, etc..).&nbsp; Indefinite open source, however, isn't a great idea (from the companies perspective) for copyright written word.&nbsp; Because it never expires, always locks the company in to one method, and never gives them the advantage of their own hard R&amp;D and pre-invention work.Very credible rumors.&nbsp; Two independent known publishers came out and said they had spoken directly to Mearls and he'd told them there would be an OGL or something very similar and to go ahead with their development projects.&nbsp; However the one caveat for both was this was a long time ago, and things could theoretically change since it wasn't a written agreement or anything.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mistwell, post: 6276404, member: 2525"] It's not. In a free market, all companies do all their own R&D, market research, testing, use of historical data and trends, etc.. The OGL allows companies to skip a huge portion of normal free market capitalism. They get to simply use a brand name and then make their own generic version of it without the heavy cost of getting to that invention in the first place, circumventing the entire point of the intellectual property laws. And I am saying for WOTC, that was bad. I am making no judgement if it was good or bad for consumers - I am purely speaking about whether it was good or bad for WOTC. And I think it was clearly bad for them. For them, it was not smart business. And as to the retort "well if they had continued to follow the OGL..." I think it's noteworthy to look at the history of WOTC and Hasbro and predict it would not be something they would want to follow indefinitely and they would want to be free to use other means of developing a product. The OGL locks the indefinitely into one type of method, and one particular product line. If the OGL had an expiration date, it would make more sense to say they should follow it. But with no expiration date, it was inevitably a harmful thing, even had they followed it for a decade. They can never choose another way to do things without serious negative ramifications, which is anti-capitalistic. If you look at other open source things out there, they usually are for products which themselves have a natural expiration date due to technological advancements (software, hardware, etc..). Indefinite open source, however, isn't a great idea (from the companies perspective) for copyright written word. Because it never expires, always locks the company in to one method, and never gives them the advantage of their own hard R&D and pre-invention work. Very credible rumors. Two independent known publishers came out and said they had spoken directly to Mearls and he'd told them there would be an OGL or something very similar and to go ahead with their development projects. However the one caveat for both was this was a long time ago, and things could theoretically change since it wasn't a written agreement or anything. [/QUOTE]

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