It's possible there will be a 'better' SRD release once the new year passes and they open up the OGL to people that don't pay for it. I'm hoping so.

Well they will still be around for 3e. There's no problem there that I know of. We just won't be able to have any for 4e (which is a damn shame).

And they did away with the paying for it thing, so there won't be any better SRD forthcoming. This is it. (And there is no more OGL. It's the GSL now, which is a pertinent point-- it's no longer the Open Gaming License because it's no longer open).

I don't get it. Was 3.x such a crushing business failure that they to abandon the OGL?

Well, this time they have DnD Insider, which seems to have included in it a bit about rules...so rather than duplicate something they want you to pay for...

You can thank all those people that downloaded for free and didn't buy anything for this business model. I can definitely understand why they would want to capture some of the profits and play being made online, but this is really a blow. I hope there is enough feedback from the community to convince the WoC to open this up a bit more, but I don't hold my breath on that.

All that aside, they can't take back the 3rd edition intellectual property rights as that is expressly written into the 3rd edition gaming license and many people did work in good faith based on that license..

Farland -- quick question.

Does it specifically says you must cease SALE of the 3e product? If that is the case, wouldn't your campaign setting still be able to use both -- since you don't sell anything?

Problem was, alot of people just used the SRD instead of buying books. All so due to how easy the old GSL was to qualify for and led to a bunch of crap being released (Book of Erotic Deeds an example).

You have to stop "publication" of the 3e product, should you convert.

Aimed squarely at Paizo, I presume.

Not really; all it really forbids you from is concurrent publication of the same product line(M&M, for example) in both 3 and 4e. Paizo's Pathfinder system is fine as long as they do not release a 4e Pathfinder(which they won't), no matter what else they might release under the GSL.