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Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.
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<blockquote data-quote="Enrahim2" data-source="post: 8888512" data-attributes="member: 7039850"><p>I think there is also another sett of extremely important distinctions here:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What do wizard say</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What did wizard intend to say</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What will wizards do with what they said</li> </ul><p>In consumer software there is very standard that licenses of use are extremely one sided. This as opposed to business-level software which tend to give a more balanced set of rights. Nevertheless there are extremely rare with cases where the software companies actually abuse the excessive rights they grant themselves via these licenses. The basic way this can work is that there is a built up overall trust, along with the notion that if the license granter oversteps the consumers can punish them more than they are likely to punish them.</p><p></p><p>The OGL version we see now seem to me to be closely following the consumer software license sensibilities. There are however a couple of problems: One is that the software ecosystem has had years of building trust, gradually making the terms more and more draconic. Some times certain companies seemingly overstep the normal acceptance like blizzard with the Warcraft III update, but after a while the situation settles down, and trust is being buildt as the expected potential abuse doesn't happen after all.</p><p>In the TTRPG space we have no culture for this kind of one sided licenses, and the kind of goodwill and trust do not exist between the relevant parties. Wizard hasn't proven themselves sufficiently. Hence we envision them doing obviously abusive things with the powers we invest them, like ad hock changing the license to kick out a single individual. This is fully possible with software licenses. People are banned all the time - potentially losing hundreds of hours and quite a bit of monetary investments as well. Still there is no big outcry. There is still a basic trust that is strong enough that people are willing to keep doing that investment.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand there are also larger stakes at play here than in the typical consumer license case. In particular many of those targeted by the commercial agreement are operations of a size where business grade license philosophy (but not the enterprise grade of custom agreement) would make a lot more sense. Those just can't afford to take the risks of signing away their rights as causally as a happy non-commercial hobbyist signing yet another customer license with no rights attached.</p><p></p><p>So wizard say "is no longer an authorized version"</p><p>What they intended to say: "You cannot use oneDND and other 1.1 stuff under 1.0a"</p><p>What will wizards do with what they said: This is where their real moral test is. They by now realize that formulation invests in them a lot more power than they likely intended. Are they going to go down the trust building path of sticking to their original itentions, in a hope that it will get them closer to the day the people they want to take the deal (talented hobbyists doing free for them) trust their itentions enough to go for it. Or are they going to fall for the temptation to do the thing few software companies have dared - exploit the situation in the now, and put the put the plans requiring trust further into the future? I guess we soon will see.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Enrahim2, post: 8888512, member: 7039850"] I think there is also another sett of extremely important distinctions here: [LIST] [*]What do wizard say [*]What did wizard intend to say [*]What will wizards do with what they said [/LIST] In consumer software there is very standard that licenses of use are extremely one sided. This as opposed to business-level software which tend to give a more balanced set of rights. Nevertheless there are extremely rare with cases where the software companies actually abuse the excessive rights they grant themselves via these licenses. The basic way this can work is that there is a built up overall trust, along with the notion that if the license granter oversteps the consumers can punish them more than they are likely to punish them. The OGL version we see now seem to me to be closely following the consumer software license sensibilities. There are however a couple of problems: One is that the software ecosystem has had years of building trust, gradually making the terms more and more draconic. Some times certain companies seemingly overstep the normal acceptance like blizzard with the Warcraft III update, but after a while the situation settles down, and trust is being buildt as the expected potential abuse doesn't happen after all. In the TTRPG space we have no culture for this kind of one sided licenses, and the kind of goodwill and trust do not exist between the relevant parties. Wizard hasn't proven themselves sufficiently. Hence we envision them doing obviously abusive things with the powers we invest them, like ad hock changing the license to kick out a single individual. This is fully possible with software licenses. People are banned all the time - potentially losing hundreds of hours and quite a bit of monetary investments as well. Still there is no big outcry. There is still a basic trust that is strong enough that people are willing to keep doing that investment. On the other hand there are also larger stakes at play here than in the typical consumer license case. In particular many of those targeted by the commercial agreement are operations of a size where business grade license philosophy (but not the enterprise grade of custom agreement) would make a lot more sense. Those just can't afford to take the risks of signing away their rights as causally as a happy non-commercial hobbyist signing yet another customer license with no rights attached. So wizard say "is no longer an authorized version" What they intended to say: "You cannot use oneDND and other 1.1 stuff under 1.0a" What will wizards do with what they said: This is where their real moral test is. They by now realize that formulation invests in them a lot more power than they likely intended. Are they going to go down the trust building path of sticking to their original itentions, in a hope that it will get them closer to the day the people they want to take the deal (talented hobbyists doing free for them) trust their itentions enough to go for it. Or are they going to fall for the temptation to do the thing few software companies have dared - exploit the situation in the now, and put the put the plans requiring trust further into the future? I guess we soon will see. [/QUOTE]
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Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.
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