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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Garnfellow" data-source="post: 4156875" data-attributes="member: 1223">I suspect there are probably at least two factors at work:Key Decision Makers at WotC Didn't Fully Understand the OGL. Maybe you could call this incompetence, but that seems a little harsh. In the afterglow of the GenCon announcement, most people overlooked that the WotC reps seemed to occasionally confuse basic terms like SRD, OGL, and the d20 STL. These are rookie mistakes, but in the feel-good vibe of the moment, not many people called attention to these gaffes. In retrospect, I have to wonder if these confusions were symptomatic of a more general misunderstanding. Perhaps some "Key Decision Makers" mistakenly thought it would be very easy to just tweak the OGL a little and Ta-Da!: a much more closed version. When the lawyers were finally let loose on this task (probably in the early fall of 2007), they reported what we've basically figured out ourselves: it would be very hard to build in additional restrictions to the OGL. Hence the abrupt shift to the "GSL," a new license altogether.There is a Struggle within WotC Regarding Open Gaming. We've always known that the OGL and the theories behind open gaming have been somewhat controversial within WotC.  And we also know that most (all?) of the "old guard" OGL advocates have left WotC. Presumably these departures were  followed by a shift of the corporate vision away from open gaming. The SRD, for instance, hasn't been updated since, what? 2004 -- four years ago.But at the same time, there has also been an infusion of talented former freelancers who cut their eyeteeth writing OGL and d20 material for third parties. And I would expect these folks would see value in the OGL and would speak up for it. So there's plenty of reason to think that there is enough diversity of opinion within WotC that the fate of the OGL/GSL has been subject to a pretty rigorous internal debate.If you take these two factors into account, and add in the fact that WotC is probably very busy getting 4e out the door, and if you assume typical corporate inertia, then it's not so hard to imagine how the OGL question might have been pushed and pulled and deferred over and over again.(Which doesn't mean this situation is right or even excusable. Just that it's understandable. There's no need to conclude "WizBro is teh Stupid" or "Wi$ards are being evil!")</blockquote>

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