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Comment by thordenmark | Hacker News Reader

There is nothing about the OGL that makes it so Wizards can never revoke it. The license states that WotC grants the licensee "a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license" to use the SRD (system reference document: the document that provides the D&D rules sans IP content). But "perpetual," in licensing law, does not mean "irrevocable." As it turns out, unless the word "irrevocable" appears in the license, the license can be revoked at any time, for any reason or for no reason.

This will make fan content nye impossible to publish.

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If what you say holds than most software licensing will be turned on it's head.

The Apache licence is irrevocable but BSD, MIT, ---GPL and variants---, Eclipse and others say no such thing.

Does that mean they are all revocable? Does that mean the FSF can revoke the GPL v2 and force upgrade Linux to v3?

Edit: correction the GPL and family are irrevocable. But that still leaves a lot of OSI and FSF approved licenses with no such language.

While I agree with what you saying regarding "irrevocable"

> Does that mean the FSF can revoke the GPL v2 and force upgrade Linux to v3?

No, because what’s revoked is to use something under that license, but only the copyright holder of that something could revoke those rights, not whoever owns the copyright of the license.

But the GPLv2 is itself protected by copyright right? Could they revoke the license to that to force anything using GPLv2 to switch to a different license?

Right. The "gotcha" that this forum lawyer thinks he's found (and thinks Hasbro's lawyers will be going for) sounds very suspect to me.

The FSF can't revoke the GPLv2, but Linus Torvalds could (for his contributions to Linux). The GPLv3 has explicit language granting irrevocable rights.

ETA: The position of the FSF/SFC is that the GPLv2 is also irrevocable: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2018/sep/26/GPLv2-irrevocabil...

Specifically, it seems they say it’s because of

> Parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance

Which, at least to me as a layperson, does indeed sound like it’s describing "irrevocable" with more words.

To me this sounds like it would have the same problem as the OGL.

Even if current recepients can still use it, new recepients are blocked. And it is unclear if a current recepient can create new derivatives or nor.

If Alice grants Bob lib v1.0 under GPL v2. Bob creates Soft1 v1.0 under GPL v2 using lib v1.0. Alice then revokes the licence on lib v1.0. Bob can still distribute Soft1 v1.0 but can Bob create Soft 1 v2.0 or Soft2 using lib v1.0? Or is he considered a new recepient of lib with each derivative he creates? Can Charlie still get lib v1.0 under GPL v2 from Bob?

If the last answer is yes then there is no issue with the current situation either.

It would mean you can still get the SDR from anyone who already has the SDR under OGL 1.0 even if directly from WOTC you can only get it under the new license.

So what would happen if Linus revokes the licence for his contributions? (GPL v2 does not have the word irrevocable.

Are we stuck until all his contribs are rewritten. Aren't all contribs to Linux so intertwined as to be derivatives of each other.

Which Git commit is a derivative and which isn't?

>but Linus Torvalds could

No he cant, he's NOT the owner of 99.9% of the linux kernel code, he is "just" the owner of the trademark "linux" and some code.

The Linux-Kernel-Code could just change license if every single contributor (or company) gives the "thump-up", otherwise that code would need to be rewritten.

He is the owner of his contributions, which is why I said "for his contributions" immediately after the part you quote.

I would say that (probably?) even his contributions have so much work (patches) from others in it, that he's not the solely owner of the code anymore (same with git), i would say it's nearly impossible to change the license once it's in the kernel.

That's a good thing btw ;)

This is borne out in many music licensing disputes over the years where many owners just means any of them can stop distribution.

It certainly feels like that should be practically the case, and if it ever goes to court I hope that's how it turns out! Copyright law wasn't written with software in mind and, strange as it seems, there's still a ton of unresolved questions about how exactly it works.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161833

Past discussion on claims the GPLv2 is revocable because it doesn't explicitly say irrevocable

FWIW: https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x...

which was added when a bunch of GPLv2 contributors mused about revoking their contributions to Linux rather than comply with the project's new code of conduct: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2018/sep/26/GPLv2-irrevocabil...

> The contributor is, of course, free to make no future grants, but they can’t withdraw past grants. The Guide's new section also explains how promissory estoppel is an additional legal safeguard ensuring the withdrawal of permission will not disrupt the use of those who rely on the software.

Copying my comment from the earlier HN submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34264777)

So a gaming podcast had a contract lawyer on to opine on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDuHjpwx5Q4

Their "this is not specific personalised advice, consult your own lawyer" thoughts were:

1. The license does not specify revocable or irrevocable, but it would be likely a court would find it to be irrevocable because:

- other lanaguage in the license such as the perpetual term and the option to use later versions appears to anticipate it being non-revocable

- the section on termination only provides for breach of contract and protects sublicenses of the terminated work from being terminated unless the sub licenses were also infringing. The fact that it provides some grounds for termination but "we have a new license" isn't among them hurts their argument.

- There is mutual consideration and this is even spelled out in the contract as being consideration in terms of the derivative content being reciprocally licensed, plus the unspecified benefit to Wizards of having more complements to their product increasing its appeal. The licensee obviously gets the rights to use the covered content.

- The 23 year usage of OGL 1.0a may constitute reliance especially when combined with past clarifying public statements where Wizards official documents and then-active employees indicated it was intended to be non-revocable.

- Clauses in US law for copyright owners to terminate licenses require 35 years and do not affect sublicenses, so unlikely a court would assume a stricter unwritten standard of revocability than this

However, they also point out you can waive your rights to use content under 1.0a if you were to agree to 1.1, e.g. to get access to 6e content.

They also touch on the idea of if Wizards could use others OGL 1.0a licensed content under 1.1 which imposes lesser restrictions on wizards than 1.1. They're vaguer on this point, but imply probably not as its too much of a deviation from the previous license and raise the reliance part again

---

I will note the different lawyer angling for a publisher lawsuit linked in the Google drive elsewhere makes many of these arguments.

> However, they also point out you can waive your rights to use content under 1.0a if you were to agree to 1.1, e.g. to get access to 6e content.

This is more or less what Hasbro tried to do with 4E's GSL,[1] which is why nobody used it.

1: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48761/roleplaying-games...

Also, while this is not legally binding, WOTC themselves said they can not just take it away.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040307094152/http://www.wizard...

I believe, at the time the OGL v1.0 was written, the intention of irrevocablility was there.

>Q: Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?

>A: Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

If it goes to court I bet this quote will be mentioned. They cannot say this and then in small print do the opposite after people have relied on it for two decades.

"Nigh." The only kinds of "nye" are Bill and December 31st.

I am curious, then what does "perpetual" mean in licensing law?

That they are not specifying any particularly expiry time. In that sense it's like a "permanent" job contract.

I am guessing they say it means or want it to mean:

That it does not require periodic refreshing. Compare to getting hired and being hired until you are fired vs you can have a fixed duration contract which you would have to explicitly extend otherwise it automatically ends.

Or think about an "immortal" who doesn't age but can still be killed.

I still think this is weaseling.

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