An Open Letter on the Open Gaming License, to Wizards of the Coast

Re:An Open Letter on the Open Gaming License, to Wizards of ... by the_af on Monday January 09, 2023 @04:37PM (#34316492)

> I don't know their exact reasoning, but I always add licenses when publishing software I write, and they always are ones I didn't design (because I've never written a license myself). I don't think it's that crazy to use an established license that seems to be working well in a community you'd like to emulate when trying to launch you're own; I doubt Paizo had any more idea than the rest of us that WotC would pull something like this.

I understand this, but you don't use licenses designed by your business competitors whose main product is in direct competition to your own. The analogy here would be Microsoft using a license designed by Apple for Windows and MS Office! Or whatever their major line of products is nowadays.

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Re:An Open Letter on the Open Gaming License, to Wizards of ... by Macha on Monday January 09, 2023 @06:53PM (#34318268)

And yet Apple run iCloud on Linux servers on Microsoft Azure. Is it really that different? (EDIT: Google says they moved to GCP in 2018, but doesn't change the point)

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Re:An Open Letter on the Open Gaming License, to Wizards of ... by the_af on Monday January 09, 2023 @07:22PM (#34318530)

I think it's different. In your example, what is the license Apple is using for its major product that was designed by Microsoft?

A software platform is not a license. But also, Apple moved to GCP, problem solved. This doesn't seem to be the same situation as Paizo's, is it?

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Re:An Open Letter on the Open Gaming License, to Wizards of ... by Macha on Monday January 09, 2023 @07:28PM (#34318579)

If Paizo wholly owns the IP (PF1E: No, SF: Maybe, PF2E: Probably), then they can move to a competing license like CC-BY-SA. That would solve the "cannot distribute their own products" problem, but it would mean their entire ecosystem including third parties would need to propagate that change.

It also doesn't change the fact that Wizards could argue they have an OGL v1.0a+ license, and use OGL v1.1 to put pathfinder 1e srd on their new vtt without paying paizo for example

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Re:An Open Letter on the Open Gaming License, to Wizards of ... by the_af on Monday January 09, 2023 @10:35PM (#34320202)

Yes, now I understand. Thanks for this and your other explanation.

If I were Paizo I would sever Pathfinder entirely from the OGL, especially if they rewrote their game from scratch, and ask modules writers to switch to the new licensing. But what do I know?

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