OGL To Be Renamed Game System License (GSL)

[Lizard]

I can't read their minds about that, but when confronted about the technical problems with "closing" the OGL, they seemed surprised. I don't get the idea that the current staff really got the technicalities of the license that their predecessors wrote.

That's....interesting.

I mean, the legalities of the OGL are a matter of public record and constant debate, and the "any version" clause was a major selling point, a way of protecting early adopters from sudden shifts in the license. To be ignorant of it, and yet, in charge of implementing it for 4e is...well...insert some adjective of your choice here.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

OK, so we know the following:

- The new license is called the GDL, not the OGL.
- This means you can't interchange it with the earlier OGL license.

Do we actually know anything else about it that isn't rumor, hearsay, and speculation? Something that isn't merely supported by off-the-cuff remarks which could mean any number of things?

Since I plan to publish under the GDL, I'd dearly like to know.

 

[Psion]

That's....interesting.

I mean, the legalities of the OGL are a matter of public record and constant debate, and the "any version" clause was a major selling point, a way of protecting early adopters from sudden shifts in the license. To be ignorant of it, and yet, in charge of implementing it for 4e is...well...insert some adjective of your choice here.

I'm not really surprised. They cycled out a lot of their staff, especially after Hasbro took charge. In the days when they were continually adding material to the SRD/MSRD, that would have been unthinkable. But after that stopped, and Andy Collins expressed umbrage over people reproducing UA... you could begin to sense that the new guard didn't have the appreciation of the OGL that the old guard did. (And/or perhaps, their corporate masters didn't.)

 

[Darrin Drader]

Yes, but we're talking about statements made in August of 2007 by people who are still there and still in charge of 4e, with no evidence such statments were made without authorization.

WotC is pretty careful in how they phrase things, particularly when legalities are involved. This just means that when they say something, they might be withholding information. There might be an angle there that you aren't considering and they don't expect you to consider. I'd be willing to bet that if you go back and look at their actual statements, you'll see that they haven't actually contradicted anything.

 

[Lizard]

WotC is pretty careful in how they phrase things, particularly when legalities are involved. This just means that when they say something, they might be withholding information. There might be an angle there that you aren't considering and they don't expect you to consider. I'd be willing to bet that if you go back and look at their actual statements, you'll see that they haven't actually contradicted anything.

Go here: http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e#ogl

"There may not be a D20 STL in 4e just the OGL Nothing has been decided with respect to the d20 STL."

Emphasis mine.

NOTE: The STL is noted as being "undecided". It is very clear that, as of August, 2007, WOTC was planning to use "the" OGL -- not "a license", but THE OGL. Those are the words. They were delivered, as others have noted, to an audience composed mostly of businesspeople representing competitors of WOTC, and delivered by the employee charged with dealing with the issue of the license. This isn't some random developer posting on his personal blog "I think there'll be some kind of open whatsis, I dunno". It's an official statement of a business plan, and it was allowed to stand for five months, long after any internal debate might have changed it. If "We didn't understand how the license we wrote worked" is their excuse, I sure hope no one sues them, because the judge will hurt himself laughing.

 

[The Little Raven]

Which works better:

Well, Pale already answered with what I would have.

And secondly, this doesn't change my direct point: people who reprint whole chapters, word-for-word (like in the WoW RPG) without a single change simply to be able to call it a "complete" game.

If WOTC didn't want to continue the OGL, they had a chance to say so -- in August, when they said, contrary to the current facts, that they WOULD be continuing it. Changing things now makes them look as bad as people speculated they were when the OGL was first announced and "WOTC will STEAL your GAMES!" was the cry from the suspicious.

The OGL is continuing. It's not changing at all.

And your fixation on the fact that they said "OGL" is approaching obsession. Yeah, they said OGL, because at the time, the term OGL was the only point of reference they really had that dealt with the idea of sharing a game's system with others. It's kinda like how people use the term Kleenex (a specific brand) to refer to all tissues, despite Kleenex being a distinct kind of tissue (as the OGL is a distinct type of "open" license).

And listening to the actual 4e OGL panel, you will get the clear and distinct knowledge that they are not putting 4e under the previous OGL, but a new one (which later was renamed the GSL to avoid people using the "I can use any content under any previous version of the OGL" argument to reprint large chunks of 4e as well).

 

[Dragonblade]

Go here: http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e#ogl


Emphasis mine.

NOTE: The STL is noted as being "undecided". It is very clear that, as of August, 2007, WOTC was planning to use "the" OGL -- not "a license", but THE OGL. Those are the words. They were delivered, as others have noted, to an audience composed mostly of businesspeople representing competitors of WOTC, and delivered by the employee charged with dealing with the issue of the license. This isn't some random developer posting on his personal blog "I think there'll be some kind of open whatsis, I dunno". It's an official statement of a business plan, and it was allowed to stand for five months, long after any internal debate might have changed it. If "We didn't understand how the license we wrote worked" is their excuse, I sure hope no one sues them, because the judge will hurt himself laughing.

You don't know what you are talking about. If the judge hurts himself laughing it will be at the plaintiff for bringing such a frivolous suit. Hope the plaintiff can afford to pay WotC's legal fees.

 

[Lizard]

And your fixation on the fact that they said "OGL" is approaching obsession. Yeah, they said OGL, because at the time, the term OGL was the only point of reference they really had that dealt with the idea of sharing a game's system with others.

Because, y'know, no other game companies had ever issued licenses to third parties to produce compatible products, right? Not Steve Jackson Games, not Hero Games, not Far Future Enterprises, and not, oh, what company was that? TSR or something? What game did THEY make again?

Licensing third parties has been around since 1975 or so, when Judges Guild was "authorized" to make D&D supplements. The OGL was unique and different from those prior licenses, and it is not a "generic" term in any sense of the word, any more than GPL or Creative Commons are. WOTC referred to using one license, then chose to use another. Maybe they always planned this; maybe they really were ignorant of what the license they wrote actually said and had to backpedal something fierce when the truth hit them. We will never know.

Face it -- in your eyes, NOTHING WOTC does is wrong, questionable, or even simply poorly handled.

Those poor, poor, kittens.

'nuff said.

 

[Lizard]

You don't know what you are talking about. If the judge hurts himself laughing it will be at the plaintiff for bringing such a frivolous suit. Hope the plaintiff can afford to pay WotC's legal fees.

Company A says to their competitors "This will be our policy, going forward, regarding our licensing of our product to third parties, such as Company B."
Company B then makes business plans based on that public announcement.
Company A suddenly changes their policy, costing company B money.

You don't think Company B has a case? This is pretty standard shady business dealing.

Ever read the huge boilerplate disclaimers most corporations put on any kind of public announcement, denying this announcement actually means what it says, just in case they change their minds later?

It's VERY unlikely anyone would sue over this, since the money just isn't there. But to claim it's not at least borderline is odd.

 

[The Little Raven]

Because, y'know, no other game companies had ever issued licenses to third parties to produce compatible products, right? Not Steve Jackson Games, not Hero Games, not Far Future Enterprises, and not, oh, what company was that? TSR or something? What game did THEY make again?

What do a bunch of closed licenses (all of which involved royalties) offered to specific individual companies for specific products have to do with an open license available to anyone that chooses to follow the rules? Nada.

That's like comparing the GPL to the licenses that id software uses with the people that buy their engines. Yeah, they're both licenses for software, but their similarities end there.

The OGL was unique and different from those prior licenses, and it is not a "generic" term in any sense of the word, any more than GPL or Creative Commons are. WOTC referred to using one license, then chose to use another.

Kleenex isn't generic, but is used as a generic term by most people, just as OGL is used as a generic term by most people to refer to "open source roleplaying games." Your fixation on the belief that when they mention an OGL, they explicitly mean THE OGL appears to be bordering on frothing at the mouth. I mean, if I asked you to hand me a Kleenex while pointing to a box of generic tissues, are you going to give me some dissertation on not calling non-Kleenex brand tissues that, instead of just following the modern vernacular and handing me a damned tissue?

Maybe they always planned this; maybe they really were ignorant of what the license they wrote actually said and had to backpedal something fierce when the truth hit them.

Or maybe they weren't expecting a conspiracy theorist to analyse every minute detail of everything they said and recast it into a way that supports his pre-conceived anti-WotC/4E stance.

Face it -- in your eyes, NOTHING WOTC does is wrong, questionable, or even simply poorly handled.

They put out Pokemon. That alone is a travesty. But hey, people make mistakes.

On the other side of the coin, you seem almost fanatical about your anti-WotC, anti-4e stance that it seems you jump on anything they say, no matter how small or how far in the past compared to the current state of things, and fixate on it to the point of obsession.

Try actually listening to the entire OGL panel at GenCon, since that contains all the actual facts about what they said. It's abundantly clear they're talking about an entirely new license for 4th Edition with the OGL as the closest reference point.