So what? Unless it has a clause that allows licensees to use a newer version of the license at their will (like GPL optionally has), it doesn't matter who "controls" the license at all. It has no impact on you and your work. You used a specific set of rules as a license for your work and unless you explicitly allowed it, these rules don't change.

Well, at the very least it seems unwise. Your core business shouldn't be put at the mercy of a competitor.

I see the new management of Wizards of the Coast as now arguing that "the OGL was never meant to fund competitors [to D&D's owners]". It seems they are echoing my sentiments!

Whether what they are attempting is lawful is besides the issue: what matters is that Paizo and whoever wouldn't be at risk had they not chosen a license designed by -- and completely controlled by -- their business competition!

> Your core business shouldn't be put at the mercy of a competitor.

Of course, but that's not what happens when you use someone else's license at all. And no, whoever used OGL with their project is not at any risk at all - unless they used or made derivative works of existing WotC's content licensed under OGL, in which case they had no other choice than to use OGL anyway.

Hard to understand what all the ruckus is about then.

> Of course, but that's not what happens when you use someone else's license at all. And no, whoever used OGL with their project is not at any risk at all - unless they used or made derivative works of existing WotC's content licensed under OGL, in which case they had no other choice than to use OGL anyway.

Other people in this comments section are arguing otherwise! Whose interpretation should I trust? Yours? Theirs? Wizards'?

Are they? I've read several lengthy threads by now and haven't seen such stance being proposed.

The issue with Pathfinder is that it was a derivative work of D&D, and although it has been rewritten since it's not clear whether the rewrite still is or not. If it is, then it couldn't be licensed on anything else than OGL and may be affected by OGL 1.1; if it's not, then it's simply unaffected by OGL 1.1 (or at least not in a way that will cause any troubles), since it's not up to WotC to decide how is this work being licensed.

> Are they? I've read several lengthy threads by now and haven't seen such stance being proposed.

Yes, they are. Use CTRL+F to find out. People here are arguing this can be interpreted to impact even games that are unrelated to D&D mechanics or setting. People are freaking out in a sense that would seem disproportionate if this only affected Paizo.

Also, please read the open letter mentioned in the link.

Of course, feel free to argue with them (either the commenters here or with the authors of the letter) if you want, but please not with me: I'm the one asking questions, not offering explanations.

The only sin of the open letter is apparently to mention games as examples that aren't bound by OGL but were simply released under the terms of OGL; it makes sense otherwise (I'm not familiar with those games enough to know whether that's their actual status though). It's pretty obvious that if I make a fully custom game and release it under OGL 1.0a now, WotC has nothing to do with it. Because of OGL's wording, someone may be able to use my work under the terms of OGL 1.1, which may be undesired from my point of view, but this doesn't influence the fact that I'm still offering it under OGL 1.0a to anyone who wants to choose that version of the license.

To guard myself from such situation, I'd have to state that I'm licensing it under OGL 1.0a only, at a cost of potentially making it incompatible with content released on a future version of the license - just like some GPL projects do (most notably Linux, which is GPLv2-only).

> I'm the one asking questions, not offering explanations.

And I'm offering explanations :)