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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 4174801" data-attributes="member: 704">I suspect that Wizards put the "Use one or the other but not both" clause in there, and made the other changes to the OGL / GSL, because the OGL did not have quite the effect they wanted it to have.  Since everyone else as their opinions stated (with plenty of toy analogies), here is my opinion.  Except with a comparison to Videogames instead.Wizards wants to have the same kind of business model as Valve.  They want people to create user mods for their game.  They want to license out the game engine to other companies so they can also make content for that game.  However, Valve does not let someone take Half Life, make an entirely new game, and then sell it in direct competition to their games.The OGL was intended to let other publishers make adventures and other content that could be used in D&D, specifically adventures.  What did happen was other companies tried to create their own source books.  Early on there were alternate monsterous manuals, and prestige class collections.  This was not a big problem for Wizards, since they could still be used with Wizards own books.The publishers of those books realized that the OGL did not really work in their favor though, because people were copying those OGL derived D&D compatible rules and putting them in free rules collections.  This also hit Wizards, but Wizards could dictate what was OGL or not.   But if you published OGL derived material, than your material could be put online for free more or less in its entirety.  So how could a 3rd party publisher prevent their customers from cherry picking their best content from free online sources that they could not shut down?The answer is to create an entirely new OGL derived game.  This is how we ended up with True20 and the like.  This works out because material created for something like True20 is not as directly compatible with D&D.  You can use it, but it takes a bit more work.  It also puts Wizards in the position of publishing material that could be used with their game.The current situation for Wizards would be like people giving away full copies of Half Life alongside their own user created mods.  On top of that, people are doing the equivalent of also giving away or selling games that compete directly against half life.  There is a reason why videogames do not use the GPL license that Linux uses.I have not taken a look at it, but based on what has been mentioned in different threads, I expect that the new GSL license will prevent people from creating entirely new games.  I also suspect it will have clauses that prevent people from essentially copying 97% of the rulebook and making it available for free.Now here is where I get around to making a point rather than just saying things people already know...If a company makes a 3.5 / 4.0 hybrid product, they would have to release some of that content under the old OGL.  At some point, someone would release rules very similar to 4.0 under the original OGL.  This would in turn result in the same problem for WotC.  Within about 1 year or less, Wizards would be right back to the situation of having 3rd parties who cannot create profitable products that directly support 4th Edition, so WotC would then end up with more games competing against their primary product line based on their own rule set.  They do not want that to happen.The "use one or the other rule" is a work around.  It is not a very good workaround, but it is probably about the only one they have which would work.  They cannot stop any company from continuing to use the 3.5 ruleset as the basis of their products.  But they can prevent them from using the 4th edition rule set.  And they can take measures to make sure that the kind of 3rd party products they want to see are not subjected to legalized piracy.The new arrangement will give Wizards and those who work with them the means to create the support products they want under more favorable conditions than the original OGL.  They protect their ruleset, and they protect the kind of works they want to see made to support 4th edition.  Finally, they get to keep all the 4th edition specifics out of the OGL.The OGL was worth trying, but flawed in its execution.  It had a lot of benefits, but also a great many unintended side effects.  The GSL will probably remedy most of the problems for Wizards.  The 'One or the Other' rule is meant to keep the protections of the GSL from being eroded.  But it has the unfortunate side effect of screwing companies who aren't ready or are not willing to abandon OGL based products.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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