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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 8904933" data-attributes="member: 2013">I think Steel_Wind has the correct view here, and I think Joe does a good job of summarizing why the OGL 1.0a is so important here. As things stand today, the SRD for 5e is Open Game Content under the OGL 1.0a. This means anyone can legally copy - and more importantly for creatives - MAKE DERIVATIVE WORKS - the 5e SRD. This means, theoretically, that 5e could be forked... and in fact, you could argue that such a fork already exists as Level Up/A5E could already be considered a fork of 5e.In addition, there are other game systems that have been published as Open Game Content under the OGL 1.0a where WotC had no part in developing these systems, and the only way in which it utilizes WotC IP at all is that they used the text of the OGL 1.0a to release their systems under a pre-existing system of copyleft (the OGL) so that anyone who cared to could use this corpus of Open Game Content to create new games.There is now a significant corpus of Open Game Content that has been released under the OGL 1.0a over the past 23 years. Some portion of it is WotC's IP. Some portion of that corpus consists of derivative works of WotC's IP. But there is also a substantial portion of that corpus that is neither WotC's IP nor derivative of it. Under the terms of the OGL 1.0a, everyone is free to draw from the entire corpus of Open Game Content - some of which WotC had absolutely no stake in creating - to mix new games. The current corpus of Open Game Content is a metaphorical "Commons" to which MANY contributed with the full knowledge that their work would be available for others to draw on; in return, they themselves would be entitled to draw upon this "Commons" in the future as well. I have not seen anyone arguing that WotC must release D&D 6e under the OGL 1.0a; to the contrary, everyone agrees they can release 6e under the terms of any license they see fit to, in the same way they released 4e under the GSL.The reason the community is up in arms is that in attempting to say "the OGL 1.0a is no longer authorized" is as follows:1. Attempting to "deauthorize" the whole of the OGL 1.0a means they are effectively attempting to restrict future access to ALL Open Game Content currently in the "Commons," including content they did not create and which is not derivative of their work. This strikes most people as unethical - why should WotC get any say in how a contributor allows other people to use content which was created completely independent of WotC?2. There is a significant portion of Open Game Content currently in the "Commons" that is derivative of WotC content (the 3e and 5e SRDs). Once WotC claims to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a, whether or not it is legally feasible to create future derivative works based not on WotC content directly but on works that work created as derivative works that were authorized at the time of creation, becomes extremely muddied, thus "poisoning" the portion of Open Game Content "Commons" that is derivative of WotC material. This makes creation of any new product based on OGL 1.0a material - WotC or otherwise - more or less infeasible as you now lack the shield of the OGL to protect you if WotC decides to get litigious (note this was never an issue for already-existing products because it would be easy to point to WotC's previous public statements on the matter - e.g. the FAQ written by Ryan Dancey - and get the case dismissed using promissory estoppel as a defense since at the time of publishing there were no public representations to the contrary, which is why the community is unmoved by WotC's promise that already-existing works won't be affected - once WotC officially represents that the material in the 5e or 3e SRD is not authorized for use as Open Game Content, there is no longer the clear line in their statements to rely upon for promissory estoppel).3. WotC's own statements through the years (including the much-cited FAQ) suggested that WotC knew that they were releasing the 3e and 5e SRD's into the Open Game Content pool, their intent was to allow others to use it forever ("in perpetuity") and not "until we change our mind." Nobody has argued WotC couldn't release 6e under some other licensing system. It is clear that what WotC REALLY wants to say is that "you are no longer authorized to use the Open Game Content contained 3e and 5e SRDs" - which they have to know was explicitly not intended to be possible under the terms of the OGL 1.0a - and so they chose to try to do so in a backdoor way by casting it as "revising" the OGL and "deauthorizing" the previous agreement. It's unclear of course whether this attempt will stand up in court, but there's no way to find out without an expensive legal battle and even the threat of their doing so makes it difficult for anyone who is not both strongly convinced that they have the law on their side and has the resources to engage in a drawn-out legal fight to do so. My feeling is that while there is some frustration in the community that they're trying to "take back 3e and 5e" I think people more frustration about the way they've chosen to do it because it maximizes the damage to the corpus of Open Game Content - by attempting to render the entirety corpus unusable except under the most onerous terms, including significant portions of OGC that WotC had absolutely no involvement with creating and have no moral right to exert control over. THIS is what Joe is talking about below: TL;DR: The community is upset because by attempting to "deauthorize" the OGL 1.0a WotC is effectively trying to take away from the RPG community the current and future use of the entire corpus of Open Game Content which THE COMMUNITY HELPED BUILD over the past 23 years under the express promise that the community would have the ability to (re) use that content "in perpetuity" under the same terms they accepted at the time they contributed it, including content that WotC neither created themselves nor was built on Open Game Content WotC contributed. The fact that WotC's lawyers have managed to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt where none existed for 23 years is why, to most people, the only acceptable update to the OGL 1.0a would be something akin to adding the term "irrevocable" so that no muddying of the waters like this can be pulled again.</blockquote>

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