Forking the OGL

[2WS-Steve]

Much of the 4e SRD news seems reasonable or at least acceptable to me -- but my really big concern is that it seems like they're forking the OGL.

It sounds like the 4e OGL will be something entirely new -- and since you can't place new restrictions on material released under the old OGL (I guess 3e OGL is what I'll call it), that means that all the terrific material released under the 3e OGL is now isolated and basically unaccessible going forward unless their original creators get out and re-release it under the terms of the 4e OGL. And a fair number of the people who released interesting stuff have left the business end and may very well not have the time to devote to putting together a re-release.

That seems like a substantial loss.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Section 9 of the OGL should make it un-forkable.

 

[Oldtimer]

Section 9 of the OGL should make it un-forkable.

That's what we all thought, but the current leadership at WotC seems to think differently... :\

 

[BryonD]

Section 9 of the OGL should make it un-forkable.

Depends on how you define "forked".

If the 4E SRD is released under a fully new OGL then the old OGL will still apply, but only to an obsolete game rule set.

 

[Kesh]

I'm not so sure it's a "substantial loss." It's going to cut out a lot of the crap that previously existed, but it'll also cut off a few other good games with it. I have a feeling games like Mutants & Masterminds will survive just fine until d20 Modern 4e comes out, while games like True20 will continue to use the old OGL entirely.

One mistake made is stating that:

that means that all the terrific material released under the 3e OGL is now isolated and basically unaccessible going forward unless their original creators get out and re-release it under the terms of the 4e OGL.

The old OGL & SRD are still open and cannot be revoked, so people can publish under these as long as they want. It's just that if they want to use material developed for 4e, they'll need to adopt the new OGL/SRD and its restrictions. Given Wizards developed the OGL in the first place, I'm sure there's going to be a legal clause that allows material published under the old OGL to be "ported" to the new one without violating anything.

 

[Sitara]

That only applies to 3E OGL.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

That's what we all thought, but the current leadership at WotC seems to think differently... :\

Huh?

In any case, material that’s open under the 3.5 OGL remains open, and there will be no language in the 4e OGL to restrict 3.0 or 3.5 products.

 

[Corinth]

I have yet to see what prevents someone from buying a PHB in August and spending a long weekend retyping the missing bits from the 4.0 SRD, rewording things as he goes, and releasing the ungimped SRD under the 1.0 OGL.

 

[Oldtimer]

That only applies to 3E OGL.

So section 9 of the 3E OGL (version 1.0a) - which talks about newer versions - only applies to that version?? Yeh, that makes a lot of sense...

 

[BryonD]

I have yet to see what prevents someone from buying a PHB in August and spending a long weekend retyping the missing bits from the 4.0 SRD, rewording things as he goes, and releasing the ungimped SRD under the 1.0 OGL.

Just guessing, but OGL might be a bit of a misnomer this time around.
It may be that the 4E OGL/SRD simply permits a method to use 4E mechanics without ever declaring it "open".

I guess someone could try an OSIRIC approach, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.