Bayushi_seikuro
Hero
Very good point about the WWW. As a business person, Williams may have seen the strategy of suing websites and having C&D letters handy at all times as being part of the perceived/received wisdom that if you don't protect your IP at every step of the way, you could lose the ability to profit off it.The overprotectiveness of TSR's intellectual property may not have been new, but L. Williams tenure at TSR coincided with the rise of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. It was an exciting time and people wanted to make websites for their D&D games. From what I have read including in threads on this site, people received legal notices from TSR that they would have to take all D&D content off their website or face legal action. So there was the birth of a new medium combined with TSR's heavy-handedness in policing its IP in this new medium. I believe this generated considerable ill-will toward Williams among D&D players.
An interesting thought would be ... what if TSR had thought of something along the lines of the OGL back then? A way to get in, have some element of quality control, give out little scraps but keep tight reins on things like Beholders... I do agree with the general consensus that Gary was a gamer and not a business man, and she was a business person and not a gamer and that if they had found a way to work together...
But, then again, if my grandma had wheels, she'd be a bicycle. YMMV