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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8892056" data-attributes="member: 42582">You keep repeating IANAL but then assert legal conclusions that to me do not seem warranted by techniques of legal reasoning.For instance, you say " in order to be able to claim that a potentially wizards release of the leaked document is not a version of ogl, it wouldnt be enough to efer to everyday understanding of words in a way that can be important to understand terms across texts. You would need to somehow invoke some overall principle that limits a contracts ability to effectively redefine the term "version" away from everyday understanding within the scope of a single paragraph". What is your basis for asserting this? I've already told you what my reasoning is, and it does not depend upon any "overall principle", other than attempting to construe the text of the OGL v 1.0/1.0a itself.I mean, you have also fairly recently posted this:But I've posted, several times over the past few days, a straightforward construction of section 9 of the OGL v 1.0/1.0a. Here's an example, posted in reply to you:And here's one of the posts that that post pointed to:In those posts, given what I was replying to, I didn't emphasise the need for the variant licence to be a version of the OGL v 1.0/1.0a, but that is also something I have identified multiple times in this thread.Here is an illustration of the question at issue, as I see it:WotC licenses the SRD to X pursuant to the terms of the OGL v 1.0a. X then publishes a work that contains both some of WotC's OGC and some OGC of their own. X does so in compliance with the terms of the OGL v 1.0a, and hence offers a licence in respect of the OGC to all the world. Now WotC promulgates a new licence text, that they label "OGL v 2", and that they declare to be an authorised update to OGL v 1.0a, and that contains the following additional text: "Notwithstanding any other provision of this licence, if a Contributor distributes Your OGC then You must send a cheque for $100 to WotC." Now, Y takes up X's offer, and publishes a work that contains some of WotC's OGC, some of X's OGC, and some OGC of their own. And again, as required by the terms of their licence, Y makes a licence offer to all the world on the same terms. But they set out as the terms of their licence OGL v 2 (purporting to do so under the terms of section 9 of the OGL v 1.0a). Z now publishes a work that contains some of X's OGC and some of Y's OGC. Is anyone - X? Y? Z? - now obliged to send a $100 cheque to WotC?I don't pretend that there is a crystal-clear answer to this question. But I have two thoughts about it.First, I don't think it's obvious that, by agreeing to section 9 of the OGL v 1.0a, X and Y have agreed that WotC and Z have a joint power (operating by way of (i) WotC publishing a licence variant and then (ii) Z using it to distribute X and Y's OGC) to vary the terms of their licence such that in the future they (that is, X and Y) become obliged to send $100 cheques to WotC.Second, one basis on which my first thought can be cashed out is that the purported version - OGL v 2 - is not in fact a version of the licence as contemplated by section 9, one reason being that it purports to change the permissions and obligations of parties in respect of their use of OGC.I don't understand what you mean by your bolded conclusion - eg what is an "automatic legal mechanism"? - and I don't understand the reasoning leading you to it.There is no scope, that I can see, within the OGL v 1.0a, for a version of the licence to cease to be authorised. There is only scope for new versions to be promulgated. And I think the differences between v 1.0 and v 1.0a give an indication of the sorts of things that can vary between versions: in that case, it is the manner in which licensing parties reserve (or don't) their rights in respect of their product identity. Because that is not something that purports to change the permissions and powers in respect of OGC that are transmitted through the network of contracts that the licence is designed to give rise to.I reiterate: the above is not intended to be definitive. Perhaps my first thought is wrong; and even if it's not, perhaps my second thought is wrong. But I have tried to explain the reasoning that leads me to tentatively entertain those thoughts.</blockquote>

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