Jon_Danger's page

Mission Accomplished.

At the very least this will give companies like Paizo more time to plan a transition off of 1.0a, as it is clear WOTC is ready at any moment to revoke free use of that license.

13. Termination: This License will terminate automatically if You fail to comply with all terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License.

This is probably the strongest argument as to why they can't deauthorize OGL 1.0a, since they mention it is perpetual, and they do not have an end date listed, you have to look at what termination clauses exist.

Like, they had a section on how the license can be terminated, and they don't have "make a new version" as one of them. WOTC will argue they are not terminating, only de-authorizing. But that has the same functional effect.

Still, awesome move that is going to cost a ton of people a ton of money and a bunch of lawyers to get settled.

I mean, shouldn't Paizo just create their own OGL, and tell all of the 3rd party creators to start working on content for PF 2.5e, and just take over what WOTC has decided to throw away?

They will create their own new game system.

Lol. I took this as an opportunity to order a bunch of 2E books I didn't have hard copies of.

Been on the Paizo train when my group switched from 3.5e, will continue to support them wherever this new OGL situation takes them.

I mean this all comes down to legally can you unathorize something that is irrevocable?

Unauthorizing OGL 1.0a is functionally identical to revoking the license. So is it even something they can legally enforce?

Grankless wrote:

"perpetual" does not mean "irrevocable".

An article by an IP lawyer on the subject.

True, but there is no language within the perpetual license on how specifically to revoke it, thus certain conditions must be met. That is a tough road to hoe for WotC as there is a two way quid pro quo in the license and all they can do is throw money at lawyers to drag it out and wear down the opponents before a decision is ever made. Again, the EFF is the best bet here because any decision on this will have HUGE ramifications for open source software licensing and they have won against bigger entities than WotC/Hasbro.

Thanks for sharing.

It is pretty clear that the legal standing WOTC has to revoke a previously listed as unrevocable agreement is hazy. It has been pointed out that irrevocable could reasonably be interpreted as authorized forever. Those terms are often legally interchangeable.

They are using creative language in the proposed OGL 1.0a to try to put the lid on pandoras box. It will be very difficult to argue this in court in good faith.