The SRD and "ongoing" core rules

[Knight Otu]

I agree that it looks GOOD as a probable condition. However, this means that WotC will have to pay someone to do regular updates. Or change their system to allow more "automatic" updates once books are created.

That was part of the crux with the 3.X SRDs I believe, the need to "clean" it of IP and the like, passing it to Legal, etc. A lot of work for a free document, which explains why a lot of rumblings on SRD updates turned out to be hot air. Now, I believe the "Core SRD" will be ready shortly after launch as it has been the case with the 3.5 SRD, but I'd expect that any following SRD updates, if they happen, may be at least a month past the book release. An automation may help, but I doubt it.

Then again, perhaps the new cosmology and the like are being released wholesale along with specific names and they were created/chosen for precisely this reason, minimizing the necessary work?

 

[Desdichado]

This is the GOOD scenario. But can we really hope for that?

Yeah, why not?

Seems to me the only real constraint is a workload related one. And honestly; they could just wait until some fan did the work, double check it for accuracy, and then get most of that done for free too if they really wanted to.

 

[Knight Otu]

I believe that Orcus said one time that he feels (and has suggested to WotC) that the 4E SRD is just a listing of what is allowable in the WotC books. In my mind, it would be easier if WotC just said this, this, and that is open content in their books instead of every book being closed content.

Yeah, I read that, but I don't think that this is the path that WotC will take. Such a listing may be easier to write, but I believe it is a lot safer for Wizards and more convenient for publishers if Wizards maintains a full SRD. If they say "The class descriptions are open content" and something in the class description is almost clearly IP (say, a college of wizards), is that piece of text open? With a full SRD, the text that is in there is open, no questions asked.

 

[Bacris]

I believe that Orcus said one time that he feels (and has suggested to WotC) that the 4E SRD is just a listing of what is allowable in the WotC books. In my mind, it would be easier if WotC just said this, this, and that is open content in their books instead of every book being closed content.

As a player and as a publisher, I would love if this were the scenario. Sure, you can reverse engineer or re-engineer a lot of the 3.x splatbooks, but there's a difference between being similar and just supporting the RAW. For example, I'd love to do psionic support for Magic of Incarnum, but can't without re-engineering it. Same with Tome of Battle. Sure, I can create something similar, but I can't reference any of that content that fans like. And while WotC may not have felt supporting Incarnum was worth the investment, the smaller publishers could have, and there was definitely a vocal (if small) segment of the fan-base looking for just such support.

I don't need it in the "official" WotC SRD, just that it's open content Just like UA's open content listed on the fan SRD sites, it could work the same way.