With 1.2 being an OGL and 1.0a allowing the use of any authorized OGL, can you not simply use it?
I'm not sure
how we can use 1.2 for including works by 3PPs released under 1.0a.
For one, it's a grant direct from WotC to us, with no viral component that sublicenses the content to the next reader.
Secondly, there's no equivalent to Section 15 where we list the other works we're using. It's written without any concept of content other than a) the licensed content from WotC, b) our own content, c) things we're using under other licenses (which are then not included in this license, but in a seperate license page we'd have to add.
While it calls itself "OGL 1.2", it's an OGL in name only. The very functionality required for it to serve as a 1.0a replacement is missing (section 15, the identification of what is Open Game Content/Product Identity, the ongoing grant from us to the reader, etc.). The only way to do that is to include a separate 1.0a license page that
can cover those things, specifically for the non-WotC stuff. But then we potentially open ourselves to WotC telling us 1.0a is not authorized, and how dare we print it alongside 1.2. Despite me being confident they can't actually stop us doing that, legally, it's likely going to stop most of us from trying.
I'm willing to be corrected on this, if someone can explain what my licensing section at the end of a book will look like in order to satisfy both WotCs and the 3PPs licensing requirements. Right now, there appears to be no way that does not end up violating either our agreement with WotC (at least in their eyes), or our agreement with the 3PP.
Taking to Twitter just now, there's 3PPs now convinced that 1.0a content is lost forever and locked off eternally unless the original creators relicense it under a different license. Plans appear to be a mix of:
- Forget 1.2, and keep using 1.0a anyway.
- Use the ORC for the SRD plus 1.0a for 3PP content thus having no WotC license to worry about.
- Abandon all previous content under 1.0a as "lost"