4 ms·

Who could possibly be claiming that WotC is going to go from house to house looking for already purchased material under a license that was entirely legal at th

Who could possibly be claiming that WotC is going to go from house to house looking for already purchased material under a license that was entirely legal at the time? Also, all copyrights and patents are monopolies. To say that D&D has a monopoly on D&D after revoking permission for the public to create content based on D&D can't be controversial.

crooked-v 4y ago
Copyright doesn't cover game mechanics, just the specific expression of them. There are even entire game lines that mechanically recreate older editions of D&D in their entirety, all of which are entirely legal under copyright law.
dragontamer 4y ago
> Who could possibly be claiming that WotC is going to go from house to house looking for already purchased material under a license that was entirely legal at the time? Cool. So I copy Pathfinder 1.0's rules, using the license Paizo gave me in the Pathfinder 1.0 rule manual. Its almost the same system as D&D 3.5, but the license is from Paizo, not from WotC. If WotC lawyers come after me, they can pound sand. > Also, all copyrights and patents are monopolies. To say that D&D has a monopoly on D&D after revoking permission for the public to create content based on D&D can't be controversial. They gave it away using OGL 1.0. There are now game systems based off of Pathfinder (itself, also an OGL game). Does WotC's sudden revocation of the license somehow apply to my Pathfinder books? They didn't even write Pathfinder. It'd be insane for them to try to revoke my Pathfinder license of OGL.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Why is this insane? It seems like you're simply describing derived works. The reason derived works are so reliable in open source software is that the license grants used to do the derivation are irrevocable. But licenses are revocable by default; GPL goes out of its way to be irrevocable. The concern (and Hasbro's recent statements) is that 1.0a does not.
  - Macha 4y ago
    GPLv3 does, but GPLv2 has basically the same language as the OGL v1.0a in terms of the revocability, share-alike nature and "or later" clause, just with GNU replaced by Wizards and software references like the distinction between source and binary removed (in fact, it seems likely the OGL just copied GPLv2) Apache prior to 2.0, all versions of MIT or BSD also do not go out of their way to be irrevocable.
    - da_chicken 4y ago
      This isn't really the case. The text of the OGL v1.0a is really very terse, especially compared to the GPL v2. Further, there's also quite a well established argument that the GPL v2 would withstand an attempt to revoke the license: https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x11-540007.4 https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x... The text that that argument relies on in the GPL v2 is simply not present in the OGL v1.0a.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Yep. I'm not super interested at all in tabletop RPGs, but the licensing controversy here is super fascinating. I've read some reasons for OGL 1.0-reliers to be optimistic, but the whole thing seems pretty unsettled. If 1.0's revocability holds up, most HN'ers assumptions about how licensing of WOTC property works are going to be broken, because we've gotten so comfortable with FOSS's comparatively sane norms.
      - Macha 4y ago
        Like, if Wizards does get their way here, it seems like a death knell for the MIT, GPLv2 and BSD licenses in their current form. It would render them unwise to use in commercial code or as referenced dependencies of open source codebase as the author could revoke it any time, as well as invalid to incorporate MIT or BSD code into GPLv3 or Apache 2.0 licensed projects as you do not have the permission to grant an irrevocable license to your sublicensees
        4y ago

crooked-v 4y ago

Copyright doesn't cover game mechanics, just the specific expression of them. There are even entire game lines that mechanically recreate older editions of D&D in their entirety, all of which are entirely legal under copyright law.

dragontamer 4y ago

> Who could possibly be claiming that WotC is going to go from house to house looking for already purchased material under a license that was entirely legal at the time? Cool. So I copy Pathfinder 1.0's rules, using the license Paizo gave me in the Pathfinder 1.0 rule manual. Its almost the same system as D&D 3.5, but the license is from Paizo, not from WotC. If WotC lawyers come after me, they can pound sand. > Also, all copyrights and patents are monopolies. To say that D&D has a monopoly on D&D after revoking permission for the public to create content based on D&D can't be controversial. They gave it away using OGL 1.0. There are now game systems based off of Pathfinder (itself, also an OGL game). Does WotC's sudden revocation of the license somehow apply to my Pathfinder books? They didn't even write Pathfinder. It'd be insane for them to try to revoke my Pathfinder license of OGL.

tptacek 4y ago
Why is this insane? It seems like you're simply describing derived works. The reason derived works are so reliable in open source software is that the license grants used to do the derivation are irrevocable. But licenses are revocable by default; GPL goes out of its way to be irrevocable. The concern (and Hasbro's recent statements) is that 1.0a does not.
- Macha 4y ago
  GPLv3 does, but GPLv2 has basically the same language as the OGL v1.0a in terms of the revocability, share-alike nature and "or later" clause, just with GNU replaced by Wizards and software references like the distinction between source and binary removed (in fact, it seems likely the OGL just copied GPLv2) Apache prior to 2.0, all versions of MIT or BSD also do not go out of their way to be irrevocable.
  - da_chicken 4y ago
    This isn't really the case. The text of the OGL v1.0a is really very terse, especially compared to the GPL v2. Further, there's also quite a well established argument that the GPL v2 would withstand an attempt to revoke the license: https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x11-540007.4 https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x... The text that that argument relies on in the GPL v2 is simply not present in the OGL v1.0a.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Yep. I'm not super interested at all in tabletop RPGs, but the licensing controversy here is super fascinating. I've read some reasons for OGL 1.0-reliers to be optimistic, but the whole thing seems pretty unsettled. If 1.0's revocability holds up, most HN'ers assumptions about how licensing of WOTC property works are going to be broken, because we've gotten so comfortable with FOSS's comparatively sane norms.
    - Macha 4y ago
      Like, if Wizards does get their way here, it seems like a death knell for the MIT, GPLv2 and BSD licenses in their current form. It would render them unwise to use in commercial code or as referenced dependencies of open source codebase as the author could revoke it any time, as well as invalid to incorporate MIT or BSD code into GPLv3 or Apache 2.0 licensed projects as you do not have the permission to grant an irrevocable license to your sublicensees
      - 4y ago