Forking the OGL

[Kevin Brennan]

They are not building 4e "from scratch." They are building 4e from 3.5, and 3.5 is Open. This means that 4e must be Open.

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 invoking the OGL to do so, Sword and Sorcery can do something with Scarred Lands, and so forth. You only need the OGL to use somebody else's content.

WotC has the legal right to produce a completely closed 4e. Now, it's possible that someone could clone it under the OGL, but that's a different question.

As for the rest of it, you're right that if the new OGL is a "version" of the existing OGL then people can legally republish anything released under it using the existing license. My assumption is that the new OGL will be set up in a way to ensure that it's not legally the same license. On the other hand, it's also possible that the new SRD will be sufficiently limited in scope that it won't matter.

 

[Kevin Brennan]

But the definition of OGC is already "any work covered by this License, including translations and derivative works under copyright law". Surely most of the rules of 4e would be considered derivative works? For those you cannot redefine anything.

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.

 

[2WS-Steve]

They are not building 4e "from scratch." They are building 4e from 3.5, and 3.5 is Open. This means that 4e must be Open. And while WOTC is under no obligation to release any kind of SRD, it will be possible to derive 4e compatible Open Content.

I don't think that's the way it works. 3.5 was derivative of 3, but it wasn't open until they added the 3.5 material to the SRD.

Likewise, 4e won't be open until it's material is declared open under some open gaming license.

Someone might be able to argue that they can independently derive 4e compatible stuff from the 3.x SRD, but that might be a hard legal line to push if there are some real differences.

You have obviously not read Section 9. It states that you can use ANY Open Content released under ANY version of the OGL under the terms of ANY version of the OGL. It's really very clear.

My guess is that the open license for 4e won't be called a new version of OGL 1.0a (or whatever it's labelled). It will be a legally different license with some similar wording/concepts -- and thus the old section 9 won't apply to it.

This analysis ignores the viral nature of Open Content. Going this route would require WOTC to argue that 4e is not Open despite being obviously derived from existing Open Content.

Technically, WOTC isn't deriving from open content. It's deriving from its own internal rules or copyrighted books using normal copyright laws.

Likewise, you can publish stuff derived from your original contributions (not SRD based) in the Heroes of High Favor or Grim Tales books under any license or no license whatsoever, just like I could write and publish a fantastically unsuccessful Second World novel without using the OGL as long as I didn't use D&D rules or some of the more peculiar D&D-isms, such as spell names and so on.

Again, the main problem I think this causes is that, let's say I want to republish a 4e compatible Second World Sourcebook using the new open license, but I'd like to also include Green Ronin's version of the Serpent People like I do in the current version, I wouldn't be able to unless Green Ronin gave me special permission or released a new version of the serpent folk under the new license.

In GR's case that's probably not a big deal since they're around, but a number of good publishers have wandered off to other things and might not want to hassle.

And, perhaps a Serpent Folk update would require few enough changes that I could be confident that no-one will hassle me for making it 4e compatible under the old OGL -- but if those changes start getting more elaborate and specific, maybe adding Warlock class levels (which are only open under the new license I assume), that's going to get pretty dicey.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Or what Kevin Brennan said

Hey, I was typing while he was posting!

 

[Yair]

Legally speaking, this is impossible.

Practically speaking, it is possible (if only because it will be largely self-enforcing).

I still don't think that's what we'll see. We'll see a new OGL with sufficient enticements to encourage its use over prior versions.

I doubt it. It smells to me like a new license entirely.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

If in fact 4e was not Open by default, and/or WOTC didn't want 4e to be Open, they would have plenty of other ways to close it down without resorting to arcane interpretations of the OGL.

I think at the moment the evidence points to the most generous reading of their intentions, which has the added benefit of being in line with the most common sense reading of the license (and the larger legal issues at hand).

 

[Reynard]

The OGL will be under NDA along with the rules.

That's too bad. I would have been very interested to see what it entailed. Thanks for the answer, though.

 

[Oldtimer]

Legally speaking, the SRD is derived from D&D, not the other way around.

I suppose I cannot deny that fact, but can you really call it "derived" when it's just a re-publication of the relevant bits of the D&D rules? Almost everything in the SRD is found verbatim in D&D (with the exception of a few spell names). Could you really say that a 4e rule was derived from D&D, but not from the SRD, when it's expressed in exactly the same way in both works?

I thought this was what Ryan Dancey meant when he said that the genie was out of the bottle.

 

[JohnRTroy]

One thing to also consider is if all the radical changes to 4th Edition, such as the way spells, wizards, classes, races, etc., work, if there can be a true clause for calling it "derivative". They're even changing a lot of the "fluff". I now suspect one motivation (but perhaps not the chief one) is to truly seperate this edition from being derivative of the other editions.

It will be interesting to see if the 4e books have the clause saying the work was derived from Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and the 3e rules were created by Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams, and Monte Cook.

If they don't include it, they may say the work is not sufficiently derivative.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

One thing to also consider is if all the radical changes to 4th Edition, such as the way spells, wizards, classes, races, etc., work, if there can be a true clause for calling it "derivative". They're even changing a lot of the "fluff".

It will be interesting to see if the 4e books have the clause saying the work was derived from Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and the 3e rules were created by Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams, and Monte Cook.

If they don't include it, they may say the work is not sufficiently derivative.

If some company besides WOTC created 4e (with such details as we know now) would you consider it a derivative work of 3e?

Clearly so.

More to the point, WOTC makes no bones that 4e is derivative of 3e. They have stated several times that 3.5 products were "testing grounds" of 4e ideas (Bo9S, etc.)