D&D 4e Licensing – The Fine Print Begins To Surface

So guess what.  As of yesterday, the new GSL was sounding fun.  But now the other shoe drops.  You aren’t allowed to publish a product both under the new GSL and the old OGL.  Which means that anything you do for D&D compatibility can’t be made truly open.  Implications include, that if a publisher updates a product to 4e, they’re not allowed to sell the 3.5 version.  It is also Wizards throwing their weight around specifically at Pathfinder – telling companies “you can make a product for them, or for us, but not both.”  Oh, in fact, it looks worse than that – it’s not by product, it’s by company.  If you sign up to put stuff out under the GSL, you can’t put *anything* out under the OGL.  Nice.  No dual stat publishing.  No “Free PDF download of 3.5e stats for this adventure.”  In fact, as this is portrayed, even a free Web site can’t have 4e and 3e items both on it.

In fact, it’s unclear whether this is restricted by game line.  So if, for example, Green Ronin wants to publish any GSL’ed 4e products – does it mean they have to choose between that and their OGL (but not 3e SRD derived) Mutants & Masterminds and True20 properties?

I’m on the warpath to find out!