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Comment by hysan | Hacker News Reader

Having read the Gizmodo article[1] before this, I’m coming away confused about how licensing language works. In addition to revoking a “perpetual” license, there are hints that WotC plans to force any entity that is commercially selling products now to agree to the new license or cease sales. This sounds like they are planning to take a cut of all products by retroactively cancelling the 1.0a license. This is counter to what is explained in OP’s link about being able to continue selling existing products.

Aside from the confusing “perpetual” !== “irrevocable” language, how would it be legal to suddenly start taking cuts of existing businesses? If WotC were to attempt this, would it be legal? It sounds like it would be based on the explanation of being able to revoke an existing license. But that sounds like a giant legal loophole to me.

[1] https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-ga...

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The MIT license also doesn't explicitly say it is irrevocable. It doesn't even say the license is perpetual. Does that mean that any software that is MIT licensed (or any of the many other licenses that doesn't have that wording) could be revoked at any time? That could have some pretty bad repercussions.

My understanding is the software released as MIT is pereptually MIT. Additional updates could change the license, but that won't retroactiely affect previous releases. The MIT license explicitly allows sublicensing.

https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

So does the OGL

The crux of the argument is OGL section 9's use of "authorized":

> 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.

And 1.1's rumored revocation of that authorization. And no matter how clear in common sense it might be that Hasbro shouldn't be able to do that, I don't think we're going to find out exactly how that falls apart until it's ruled upon in a court.

It isn't defined what it means for a version to be "authorized" though, which means it is ambiguous. And the FAQ for the original OGL makes it pretty clear that that intent was that once a version is authorized, it can't be un-authorized. As a layman, non-lawyer that seems like a pretty tough argument for WOTC.

Does this mean that if I have released some MIT licensed, or contributed to a MIT licensed project, I can just call up a big company and tell them to pay me massive amounts of money now or stop using some product I have contributions in immediately?

In reality obviously not. Whenever things like these happen it's interpreted in a way that the big company wins. For you not saying irrevocable doesn't mean it's revocable, but the opposite holds.

Hmmm, I'm sure Hasbro/WOTC is using some MIT licensed software somewhere. What if the developers for some of that software threatened to revoke those licenses and sue WOTC?

They even distribute software in the form of MTG games on steam where one should be able to peruse the list of MIT software used if they comply with the license

TFA seems to say no, because of some "reliance principle" ?

But TFA says that they could prevent the release of new products, so would that mean you can't update your front end (even to fix a bug) until the offending code is removed?

My very layman's guess is that updates are fine, but new products are not. And courts are able to get technical assistance to find out a company that would try to sneak a new product as an update.

> Does this mean that if I have released some MIT licensed, or contributed to a MIT licensed project, I can just call up a big company and tell them to pay me massive amounts of money now or stop using some product I have contributions in immediately?

Companies that got burnt on this now require you to give up rights to any contributions you wish to make before merging (or just not use any of code not written by their employees).

Your question is discussed here (and in some linked questions): https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/4012/are-lice...

The currently top-rated answer states:

A non-exclusive copyright license (such as most FOSS licenses) can be revoked at any time only if there was no consideration involved. The United States Federal Circuit Court of Appeal took this on in Jacobsen v. Katzer[1] in 2008 and ruled that there is consideration exchanged in the use of FOSS by a licensee. This indicates that an FOSS license that's silent on revocation is likely revocable only for violation of it's conditions.

But the answer may vary in other jurisdictions. Love to hear a lawyer chime in.

EDIT: In the UK and EU it's also likely irrevocable once you've relied on it, eg. via principle of estoppel. The second voted answer mentions an interesting talk[2] by a panel of lawyers/experts and this starts to be discussed around the 8m 30s mark.

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[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=177761825741712...

[2] https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/licenses_and_...

Perpetual refers to time only. Contracts have to contemplate an end date. In perpetuity is just an acknowledgement that the parties have thought about time, and have agreed that there is no natural end date, but that does not foreclose other termination triggers, like revocability.

But on the other hands, contracts aren't revocable unless there are specific revocation provisions in the said contract.

> Aside from the confusing “perpetual” !== “irrevocable” language

This on the face of it seems needlessly confusing as well. Perpetual seems to just mean "may be revoked at any time". So why use the term at all instead of just talking in terms of revocation?

E.g. "irrevocable until 1 Jan 2025 except for situations listed in section 5" or "may be revoked at any time".

better marketing

In law, "perpetual' means "indefinite", in contrast to its plain English meaning as "forever". It's nonsense like this that makes people hate the whole legal system and its players.

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