Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

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Twitchy2019
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Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Twitchy2019 »

So I will be brief, there is a current controversy that is happening in another separate community; the D&D community, as it pertains to the D&D Open Gaming License (OGL). Specifically, this is about Wizards of the Coast (WotC) trying to use an updated license (OGL 1.1) to apply retroactively (before it was written) to any works that were created using the original 1.0 of the OGL. The OGL had a portion in its legal language stating “a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.” In laymen's terms, as I interpret it, this meant that anyone could create third party content without respect to royalties with regards to D&D content licensed under OGL 1.0. According to a leaked document, WotC is trying to change that by deauthorizing the previous 1.0 license. This have not been confirmed or denied by WotC as far as I am aware, as this is a leak.

Why does this matter to GZDoom and Doom in general? If this were to be true, and subsequently go to court, as it most certainly will, the question will become can IP holders who issued a perpetual license for a certain work deauthorize it? If that happens, this would create a catastrophic effect on other communities that use similar open-source arrangements, such as Doom with its GPLed code. Can this even happen? I am not sure. This does worry me though.

Link to source: https://hackaday.com/2023/01/11/wizards ... olden-egg/
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Rachael »

Moved this to Off-Topic.

The GPL license itself is a perpetual surrender of some of your own rights in order to protect the rights of those who copy, adapt, and change your work. For all the bad things I say about GPL (and believe me it really deserves tons of harsh criticism), it does at least have this going for it in its favor.

This will never work, and if it does, it turns the entire concept of free and open source software on its head. The general accepted practice is that once a more open license is ever granted at any point (i.e. BSD:3, MIT, GPL, etc) that revocations to that license can only apply to future versions of a work, and only after it has removed any and all infringing content from contributors since their work would also be protected by the license as well (this mostly applies to the GPL).

I'd be very surprised if the Electronic Frontier Foundation is not on the front lines of this one - this could negatively affect the entire internet software ecosystem negatively in a big way if it were to go to court and be ruled wrongly. The concept of free and open source software only works because the licenses, once granted, are irrevocable for derivative works. Because of what is on the line, honestly, I do not think this challenge will pass.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Professor Hastig »

Reading the license it contains a weasel clause like this:
9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
There's a lot of room for interpretation here, it may actually be legal to supersede the license.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by yum13241 »

To me, that's like the GPL saying
GPL version 3 or any later version
Now the word authorized is important, because if they deauthorize the license without upgrading every asset to OGL 1.1, congrats! Now they can't use it.
-- IANAL.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Professor Hastig »

And if they 'authorize' everything they can to 1.1 and then 'de-authorize' the 1.0 version - and such a move deemed compliant with this clause - it would leave everybody else in limbo, they can either follow suit or take a hike. It's, like I said, a weasel clause that is sufficiently unspecific that they still can do it while claiming they adhere to the license.

No FOSS license has anything comparable. GPL 3 'or later' just means that you can still use the code even if a hypothetical GPL 4 makes changes that otherwise are not compatible with GPL 3.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Chris »

Professor Hastig wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 4:09 am Reading the license it contains a weasel clause like this:
9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
There's a lot of room for interpretation here, it may actually be legal to supersede the license.
yum13241 wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 7:42 am Now the word authorized is important, because if they deauthorize the license without upgrading every asset to OGL 1.1, congrats! Now they can't use it.
-- IANAL.
That raises an interesting question; can a license be "deauthorized"? It's not terminated, the license explicitly states:
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.
so it can only be terminated by a breach, not through "deauthorization". So can a company unilaterally say a license can't be used, even by people who were given a license to use it? Is a license itself licensed? The license itself seems pretty clear about its use:
2. The License: This License applies to any Open Game Content that contains a notice indicating that the Open Game Content may only be Used under and in terms of this License.
"This license" being OGL 1.0a, what you got it under and what you agreed to. OGL 1.1 will be a different license (just as the GPL3 is a different license from the GPL2; stuff licensed under the GPL2 can't be relicensed to the GPL3, unless it explicitly contains the clause "or any later version"). Section 9 then states:
9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
May, not must. If you got content under the OGL 1.0a, you were give a licensed to Use it (which includes redistribution under the same license) under the OGL 1.0a. I don't see how they can turn around later and say you aren't licensed to Use it under the license it was licensed under, and also say you must (not "may" as specified by the license) use a different license than the one you originally agreed to.

This seems to me it only gives the option to change to whatever "authorized" versions of license are available at the time you want to change the license, otherwise it has to stay on the version it was licensed under (e.g. you wouldn't be able to relicense 1.1 content under 1.0a, or relicense 1.0a under a hypothetical 1.0b; 1.0a licensed content has to either stay 1.0a, or change to 1.1 as an "authorized" version).

Of course I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. It'll be interesting to see what lawyers who work with contract law have say about it.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Gez »

The GPL cannot be revoked, and any attempt at doing that would cause a lot of problems for the fools who would try.

The OGL issue is different in that the owner of the licensed product (the "SRD" for various editions of D&D) is also the owner of the license. So WotC may attempt to "de-authorize" the previous version of the license. It's on shaky legal grounds, as in, by common sense and a fair reading of the texts it should not be possible; however common law systems should never be trusted to judge in favor of who is in the right, as they are designed to be heavily biased in favor of who has the most money.

All that said, it seems this whole thing is very probably related to some intra-corporate warfare going on at Hasbro.
https://www.geekwire.com/2022/hasbro-sh ... idden-gem/
TL;DR: one of the major shareholders of Hasbro is trying to split off WotC from Hasbro, under the argument basically that Hasbro as a toy company does not know how to properly manage a game company like Wizards, and wasting money trying to promote the D&D and MtG brands through spinoffs (movies, video games, etc.) following the same business model that works for selling dolls action figures.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by yum13241 »

From your analysis, it seems that they would have to breach the license to terminate it, or find a loophole, and that (BoC) is laying out the red carpet for lawsuits.

IANAL. Not legal advice.

BoC = Breach of Contract.

Gez said:
The GPL cannot be revoked, and any attempt at doing that would cause a lot of problems for the fools who would try.
That's good, however this kinda contradicts your next statement:
however common law systems should never be trusted to judge in favor of who is in the right, as they are designed to be heavily biased in favor of who has the most money.
So WotC may attempt to "de-authorize" the previous version of the license. It's on shaky legal grounds, as in, by common sense and a fair reading of the texts it should not be possible;
Unless they commit BoC, this seems to be impossible. But then again the 2nd quoted statement applies and they could get away with it.
TL;DR: one of the major shareholders of Hasbro is trying to split off WotC from Hasbro, under the argument basically that Hasbro as a toy company does not know how to properly manage a game company like Wizards,
I call bullshit. Usually someone who says something like that probably knows and their interest is saving $$$. Welcome to late stage capitalism ig. At least Mr. Krabs gave you a good burger when you paid his outrageous prices. Nowadays companies just give you crap stuff (like M$ after 2011) AND price gouge you. Sucks to suck.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Graf Zahl »

That clause 9 is wishy-washy enough to be very, *VERY* careful with this license. Even after reading it several times trying to understand what it permits it is still unclear. What is an "authorized version" of a license? If there is someone to give the authorization, can they revoke it? If they try to revoke it, what does this entail for content by other people?
Whatever is the case - this one definitely needs lawyers to sort out, at which time I'd rather not touch it.

Compared to that the GPL is anal about not being revokable. And simpler licenses like BSD or MIT do not have any explicit provisions, except the requirement to retain the full license text. But this is essentially an implicit clause that makes revoking impossible - because if you remove or alter the license conditions you violate the license, but to change it you need to remove or alter the text first.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Gez »

yum13241 wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 9:58 am That's good, however this kinda contradicts your next statement:
Do you know who rely on the GPL existing? Here's just a couple of examples.

Microsoft. They use a lot of GPL code written by others. They own GitHub, a company whose business model basically relies on the GPL existing. Between v2 and v3, about 20% of all repositories on GitHub are mainly under the GPL.
Google. Android is built upon Linux.

Do you think you'd have more money than these giants?

And again, the intellectual property of the GPL (the license in itself, not the stuff licensed under it) if the Free Software Foundation. They're not gonna attempt to revoke their license, and no one else is entitled to touch it. This is very different from the OGL case since there is that pesky "authorized" word which is left undefined.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Rachael »

The thing about law is - what is written in a license, contract, or any other binding document, cannot in most cases supersede what is written in the law. Yes the GPL is very anal about being non-revokable, but that's the GPL itself - not the laws that protect it, nor the courts or the politicians that are required in order to maintain its power and weight.

I am not a lawyer but I do think the GPL is on solid ground, it is not only unlikely to ever be challenged but even if it were, it most likely would survive such a challenge. But it is not impenetrable. The wording might be, but the weakness is in how the institutions we have created to enforce such contracts would hold together against a challenge.

Luckily, since copyright law is protected by an international treaty, if someone wanted to chip away at the GPL for some silly reason it would take an incredible amount of resources to overcome it - and on that alone, you can rest assured that the GPL is quite a tough stone that you can at least rely and even bet on. It comes down to two things - A) the effort required would be tremendous (not even considering the money required, which itself would be insurmountable even for a major corporation), and B) why would you even want to??
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Graf Zahl »

Let's not forget that there have been multiple cases where the GPL was upheld by a court of law. Let's please stop this alarmist nonsense. If the GPL was successfully challenged it'd put all software licenses on shaky ground and nobody in the industy wants that.

This OGL is something entirely different with its vague clauses that may or may not mean something sinister.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by yum13241 »

And that :twisted: thing is lining their pockets. Either by preventing others from having freedom or cheaping out on lawyers.

WotC should have gotten better lawyers. Let's hope the leak was false information or the leaker misunderstanding smth.

Let's not forget that GZDoom is GPL code, if someone trying to kill off the GPL (basically impossible), they'd also kill off basically every old iD Software game, AND make many people lose jobs. In that case I'd class action sue for causing mass poverty (and by extension, genocide), but considering how much money they'd have to even do that, it'd be impossible. It's also possible that the Court would simply dismiss. (I don't think "causing mass poverty" is a sue-able reason)

They should rename the OGL to the KFGL.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by Rachael »

yum13241 wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 2:00 pm Let's not forget that GZDoom is GPL code, if someone trying to kill off the GPL (basically impossible), they'd also kill off basically every old iD Software game, AND make many people lose jobs.
The point that I was making was more - even if Bethesda for some strange reason suddenly had an itch to scratch with the GPL on the Doom source code - they can't. Once it's gone wild, it's impossible to take it back.

If you're the kind of person who's weary of others using your work this should be a cautionary statement about releasing your work with any kind of license - the license is meant to protect your users, not you. The license is a generosity on your part, which lets you maintain *some* ownership over your work but granting others the irrevocable right to reuse your work in whatever way they please within the terms you set in the license.
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Re: Revocation of Doom GPL, A Possibility?

Post by yum13241 »

I agree.

Why do I feel like D_COUNTD is playing??
Because it's called Countdown to Death. (of the Universe)

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