But there IS.a difference. A legal draft is much more 'final version' than the colloquial version of it which is taken to mean far from final form and not ready for external people to view
I have used the word “draft” when talking to my clients regarding contracts for years. Never once did one of them not understand what I was talking about - and I have had my fair share of clients who are not exactly brain surgeons. If they could understand what the legal meaning of draft is, so too could the average D&D player.
There are only two possible explanations for this “but the legalese is so confusing, clearly it was used to mislead us!” argument: (1) A few bad actors keep promulgating the myth that legal “draft” is some kind of complex term that it really isn’t, because they know when you accuse folks of using “legalese” laypeople get suspicions; or (2) somehow D&D is infested with people dumber than my dumbest clients.
Maybe my faith in humanity is a bit optimistic - but I know those clients pretty well, and I don’t think it is possible for there to be this many people dumber than they are. So, at the risk of overestimating the D&D community—a risk I think is fairly small—that leaves option one as the most likely reason.
But there IS.a difference. A legal draft is much more 'final version' than the colloquial version of it which is taken to mean far from final form and not ready for external people to view
The legal usage is pretty much the same as every other technical field. In colloquial language it's rarely used and has inconsistent meaning.
Just saying it would be better optics if they just admitted it
But why do you care? even if they were lying outright (and I don't think they were), let them save a little face at least...their actual actions so far (putting the SRD in CC) should speak much louder than what words they used while flailing to correct their mistake.
Just saying it would be better optics if they just admitted it
“Better optics” is admitting to your real mistakes while not admitting to things that are not your mistakes. They are doing that in videos like this - there has been a lot of accepting blame and discussing how to mitigate problems on real issues. They shouldn’t waste any more time responding to this “draft” issue - it is a non-issue that has been more than adequately addressed (at least for everyone who is not a troll or duped by trolls).
Just saying it would be better optics if they just admitted it
The optics are much better when people admit they're wrong about something, sure
I won't hold my breath though
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"I honestly don't know how much more we can do with this line of questioning." ~Ginny Di, on "WAS 1.1 A DRAFT OR NOT?!"
Ginny, you beautiful cosplay nerd, thank you. I'm so relieved to see that said by someone with more voice than a forum yaybo. Until and unless new information becomes available, that point has been dogged to death and beyond.
Just officially post the OGL 1.1 that was so controversial. If they're confident that it was a completely normal document, and it causing lack of trust, just show people to immediately resolve this. *shrug*
They're already eating a poop sandwich, and this is just a strange line to be holding onto.
Calling 1.1 a 'draft' still is dishonest for the same reason saying that Evolution is just a 'Theory'.
The fact that you refuse to acknowledge a very common usage of a word doesn't make that usage "dishonest"
Using equivocation to sow confusion among those who don't know the difference is disingenuous, and that makes it a dishonest practice. I'd say the same of someone trying to steal credibility for their conspiracy nonsense by applying the word "theory" to it. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the context in which a word is used, and the effect that has on its meaning, is using the descriptivist argument against itself.
And yes, humans evolved just like every other life form we've discovered.
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"There might yet be a heaven, but it isn't going to be 'perfect', and we're going to have to build it ourselves." - Philhellenes, Science Saved My Soul
"But sir, we can smuggle it into Troy and get tons of clicks by disguising our anger as righteous indignation against a villainous corporation!"
I've said this before and I'll say it again, this situation has been resolved and Wizards of the Coast has apologized and become far more transparent and welcoming to the community. They've committed to "doing better", and their actions are clearly showing that they intend to follow through on that. Honestly, I find it very frustrating that people continue to get upset when Wizards has finally done what they've wanted and more.
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Imma about to do some smoking on the grill. Fresh horse steaks! Taking orders in the back.
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Imma about to do some smoking on the grill. Fresh horse steaks! Taking orders in the back.
You’de better prepare some as tartar, apparently that’s how some folks want it. Beaten into pulp.
well, i mean, ok, but horse tartare is unhealthy, and I don't want them accusing me of hiding anything like toxins or something.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
So... I made a long comment about this on the YouTube video under a different account name (AnonymusTarrasque), and Im'a copy & paste it here just to see what other people think. (I wrote this, not anyone else.)
"First of all, Hasbro does NFTs..." When you are using your own intellectual property, you have an obligation to not scam people with it because you're A) a big company that can and would be held accountable and B) it would massively hurt and deface your own brand. When you're using your own brand name to make an NFT, you have to make a semi-decent one. However, other people don't have to do the same, and they could use the OGL to make massive scams to hurt people. Wanting to stop people that don't have much of anything constraining how they can use your brand name is reasonable.
"He basically admits that there is too much published under the OGL for anyone to review it anyway." This change wasn't about stopping small but bigoted Open Game content, it was always about stopping content that gained a lot of traction and hurt lots of people, and Wizards of the Coast noticed it due to that. WotC has been lucky in this regard so far, since Ernest Gygax didn't use the Open Game License. That being said, they have effectively announced the massive loophole in the OGL that protects harmful content, so it is extremely unlikely that people like Ernest won't exploit the contract now.
"Wizards themselves seems to be the most guilty of making problematic D&D content." While this is somewhat true, all it shows is that a morality clause would not work as a successful anti-hate clause, and that the clause for stopping hate should have been something like an independent board of sensitivity checkers and cultural consultants. However, just because Wizards has accidentally made harmful D&D content in the past, that doesn't mean that 3PPs should be allowed to make D&D content that spreads hate.
"Morality is never going to be their primary driver." This is correct; for-profit corporations will almost always seek to make money. That being said, there are still probably a lot of people with money invested in the company that genuinely care about the community and want to do what is best for all of us. Also, even most of the people who just want money have some sense of morality.
TL;DR: Overall, this was a good and informative interview, though I do disagree with some of the conclusions made based off it.
Also, thank you for making this video shorter than some of the other interviews. It was much easier to find time to watch.
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Ginny edits this one down to a more watchable format at just over 30 minutes.
I definitely like her line: "It's because I believe it, not because they told me so". We're at the point where there aren't going to be too many new questions or new answers, just a lot of repeats. There is no one grand gesture WotC can do that will rebuild trust in one shot. It comes down to whether you take their word or not and if you are willing to go forward with your own personal choice.
It does come down to that. And people should respect whether others are prepared to take their word for it or not and what others choose to do. No one side should claim they are right, which is sadly the direction this thread has been taking.
Calling 1.1 a 'draft' still is dishonest for the same reason saying that Evolution is just a 'Theory'.
Umm, you do realize how the term “theory” works in science, right? To quote: “A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts. The theory of gravitation, for instance, explains why apples fall from trees and astronauts float in space”. These terms do, within the respective contexts used here, have a different and distinct definition from the casual everyday use.
It seems to me that the comparison to Evolution is just a "theory" is an apt one to explain the point they are trying to make.
It is precisely because of the fact that the respective context has a more specific definition than the common language use is the point. Within science, saying "evolution is a theory" is noncontroversial and no big deal. However, the issue is that bad faith actors will quote the scientist using the term within that scientific context and then twist it around by applying the out-of-context more common meaning (quite often throwing in the word "just" for good measure). So when someone says "Even scientists say that evolution is just a theory" they are being deliberately deceitful by blurring the within-discipline vs more common usage. So your comment about how the term "theory" works in science is exactly the point they are trying to make. In different situations, it has different meanings, and some will deliberately make use of that to imply scientists are saying something they are not.
Now whether that actually applies to "draft" and the OGL situation, I'm not getting into that because there's already been a inordinate amount of pixels wasted on that topic. ;) All I'll say is I've found a good rule of thumb is that often the phrase "justa [blank]" in these situations can be a handy flag of whether someone is being technically precise or whether they are trying to minimize something by blurring the two meanings. No idea whether that has happened here and I'm not going to bother going back to check.
But bottom line, I'm sure Skyth_DeSexton fully understands the meaning of "theory" in a scientific context and that is precisely their point.
It does come down to that. And people should respect whether others are prepared to take their word for it or not and what others choose to do. No one side should claim they are right, which is sadly the direction this thread has been taking.
Here's the thing.
Most of us don't care if someone decides they'll never again do business with Wizards, they're done with D&D forever, the bridge has been burned and nothing will ever put it back. That's their call to make.
We don't even honestly care if, while they're off playing Pathfinder-the-game-from-a-company-that's-somehow-totally-not-in-it-to-make-profit-themselves, they proclaim to their table that everyone who's still doing business with Wizards are fools and they should all know better. What you and your buddies talk about at your table is between you and your buddies.
What we do care about is those people coming into this - D&D Beyond, a D&D 5e community for people who play and enjoy D&D Fifth Edition - and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming about how no one should ever trust Wizards again. Those people denigrating and castigating anyone who hasn't followed them to another game and doing so in the primary online community for the game they claim to have abandoned to its wicked masters. Those people turning every thread into a WIZARDS MUST DIE thread, and trying to browbeat and coerce everyone else into abandoning D&D in turn.
Please. [REDACTED]If you're not done with D&D, great! Stay! But the price of staying is admitting that D&D is fun and we enjoy playing it, and that means that one way or another we all have to deal with Wizards. it is unproductive, unhelpful, unnecessary, and undesirable for people to continue nagging and sanbagging in every last single thread about all the ways Wizards ****ed up.
We know the ways Wizards ****ed up. We're still playing D&D anyways. Please. Let us do that. Leave us to our doomed game run by evil corporate tyrants. We'll move on if and when we're ready. Stop trying to force us to do it.
Just officially post the OGL 1.1 that was so controversial. If they're confident that it was a completely normal document, and it causing lack of trust, just show people to immediately resolve this. *shrug*
That wouldn't resolve jack squat and you know it. You're just reveling in the chaos and want it to continue while the majority of us are ready to move on.
It does come down to that. And people should respect whether others are prepared to take their word for it or not and what others choose to do. No one side should claim they are right, which is sadly the direction this thread has been taking.
For what it's worth, having worked at a MUCH larger corporation than Hasro for years, a LOT of what Brink said in these interviews (didn't fully watch the third one since it seemed like it was just repeat of the previous two with a softer tone) resonates with what I went through. The idea of one hand having absolutley no clue what the other was doing, stakeholders not being involved in decisions where they have all the knowledge and expertise and will directly affect them, terrible communication, bumbling PR, and other things were basically mirror of what I've seen. Can I believe that everything he says was true? I, personlly, have to believe a lot of the events were softened up and details massaged for public consuption though short of me going back in time and being a fly on the wall there's no way I can know for sure.
Here's what I do know, and I can't speak for anyone else. Brink said all the right things about how D&D is going to be handled going forward. And after every disaster I've ever been part of at that huge corporation I also heard all the right things. Sometimes the right things would be acted upon for as long as a year. But in the end new executives, new directives, new clients, new regulations etc come in and that disaster and the things that changed because of it get forgotten. From everything Brink said this clusterf- was YEARS in the making. Imagine if in the past year they had actually, you know, talked to people like Brink and his team who despised the 1.1 and knew, or at least strongly suspected, what would happen and actually, you know, ran this stuff past the community. Both of which they eventually did anyway. Imagine if Wizards had announced that the SRD was going into the Creative Commons in December after doing these things properly. The amount of goodwill and happiness would have been boundless. It would have even washed away some of the stink of how terribly Wizards handled MTG in 2022. Instead we got...this.
I bring this all up to say that even beyond the damage this OGL disaster did to Wizards, Hasbro, and D&D's reputation it also opened peoples' eyes to the fact that just how much of a corporate clusterf- the house belonging to the 'stewards of the game' really is. And how easily the wrong people can make the wrong decisions and the right people will be ignored just like any other gigantic organization. Even if you like Brink and think he's being earnest here (and personally I think he is) I have very little confidence as this company gets larger and demands more profits from Wizards that whatever fixes Brink and people like him attempt to make will stick.
Ironically, these interviews have made me trust Hasbro less not because I think Brink is lying but because I think he's telling the truth. You can call me r----t, or a rabid hyena, or a screamer or whatever but I've seen this movie before in my professional career and it came quite close to ruining my life. Not terribly interested in investing time and money in two games (D&D and MTG) that's going to be tied up with a company like Hasbro. Sadly, this incident has shown that my naivete that Wizards was somehow different because it owned D&D and MTG was quite misguided. For those who are still going to put their time, money, and enjoyment in Wizards' 5e ecosystem I wish you all the best of luck. Hope I don't see you on the other side in 20 years.
Calling 1.1 a 'draft' still is dishonest for the same reason saying that Evolution is just a 'Theory'.
Umm, you do realize how the term “theory” works in science, right? To quote: “A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts. The theory of gravitation, for instance, explains why apples fall from trees and astronauts float in space”. These terms do, within the respective contexts used here, have a different and distinct definition from the casual everyday use.
It's actually not a bad example, though. In both cases, there's a word that has a technical meaning that's subtly different from casual usage, and you can be deceptive by using the word in one way while permitting or hoping observers will view it in the other way. I think Wizards was trying to do that initially, but then painted themselves into a corner because once the statement is out there there's no good way to walk it back.
There was no deception, even inadvertent. There just wasn't. There's no reason to keep giving bad-faith actors the benefit of the doubt on this
That was why our early drafts of the new OGL included the provisions they did. That draft language was provided to content creators and publishers so their feedback could be considered before anything was finalized...Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL; the drafts you’ve seen were attempting to do just that.
I have used the word “draft” when talking to my clients regarding contracts for years. Never once did one of them not understand what I was talking about - and I have had my fair share of clients who are not exactly brain surgeons. If they could understand what the legal meaning of draft is, so too could the average D&D player.
There are only two possible explanations for this “but the legalese is so confusing, clearly it was used to mislead us!” argument: (1) A few bad actors keep promulgating the myth that legal “draft” is some kind of complex term that it really isn’t, because they know when you accuse folks of using “legalese” laypeople get suspicions; or (2) somehow D&D is infested with people dumber than my dumbest clients.
Maybe my faith in humanity is a bit optimistic - but I know those clients pretty well, and I don’t think it is possible for there to be this many people dumber than they are. So, at the risk of overestimating the D&D community—a risk I think is fairly small—that leaves option one as the most likely reason.
The legal usage is pretty much the same as every other technical field. In colloquial language it's rarely used and has inconsistent meaning.
Just saying it would be better optics if they just admitted it
But why do you care? even if they were lying outright (and I don't think they were), let them save a little face at least...their actual actions so far (putting the SRD in CC) should speak much louder than what words they used while flailing to correct their mistake.
“Better optics” is admitting to your real mistakes while not admitting to things that are not your mistakes. They are doing that in videos like this - there has been a lot of accepting blame and discussing how to mitigate problems on real issues. They shouldn’t waste any more time responding to this “draft” issue - it is a non-issue that has been more than adequately addressed (at least for everyone who is not a troll or duped by trolls).
The optics are much better when people admit they're wrong about something, sure
I won't hold my breath though
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Just officially post the OGL 1.1 that was so controversial. If they're confident that it was a completely normal document, and it causing lack of trust, just show people to immediately resolve this. *shrug*
They're already eating a poop sandwich, and this is just a strange line to be holding onto.
Using equivocation to sow confusion among those who don't know the difference is disingenuous, and that makes it a dishonest practice.
I'd say the same of someone trying to steal credibility for their conspiracy nonsense by applying the word "theory" to it.
The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the context in which a word is used, and the effect that has on its meaning, is using the descriptivist argument against itself.
And yes, humans evolved just like every other life form we've discovered.
"There might yet be a heaven, but it isn't going to be 'perfect', and we're going to have to build it ourselves." - Philhellenes, Science Saved My Soul
Backgrounds • Feats • Magic Items • Monsters •
Ancestries• Spells •Subclasses"But sir, we can smuggle it into Troy and get tons of clicks by disguising our anger as righteous indignation against a villainous corporation!"
I've said this before and I'll say it again, this situation has been resolved and Wizards of the Coast has apologized and become far more transparent and welcoming to the community. They've committed to "doing better", and their actions are clearly showing that they intend to follow through on that. Honestly, I find it very frustrating that people continue to get upset when Wizards has finally done what they've wanted and more.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Imma about to do some smoking on the grill. Fresh horse steaks! Taking orders in the back.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
You’de better prepare some as tartar, apparently that’s how some folks want it. Beaten into pulp.
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well, i mean, ok, but horse tartare is unhealthy, and I don't want them accusing me of hiding anything like toxins or something.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
So... I made a long comment about this on the YouTube video under a different account name (AnonymusTarrasque), and Im'a copy & paste it here just to see what other people think. (I wrote this, not anyone else.)
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.It does come down to that. And people should respect whether others are prepared to take their word for it or not and what others choose to do. No one side should claim they are right, which is sadly the direction this thread has been taking.
It seems to me that the comparison to Evolution is just a "theory" is an apt one to explain the point they are trying to make.
It is precisely because of the fact that the respective context has a more specific definition than the common language use is the point. Within science, saying "evolution is a theory" is noncontroversial and no big deal. However, the issue is that bad faith actors will quote the scientist using the term within that scientific context and then twist it around by applying the out-of-context more common meaning (quite often throwing in the word "just" for good measure). So when someone says "Even scientists say that evolution is just a theory" they are being deliberately deceitful by blurring the within-discipline vs more common usage. So your comment about how the term "theory" works in science is exactly the point they are trying to make. In different situations, it has different meanings, and some will deliberately make use of that to imply scientists are saying something they are not.
Now whether that actually applies to "draft" and the OGL situation, I'm not getting into that because there's already been a inordinate amount of pixels wasted on that topic. ;) All I'll say is I've found a good rule of thumb is that often the phrase "just a [blank]" in these situations can be a handy flag of whether someone is being technically precise or whether they are trying to minimize something by blurring the two meanings. No idea whether that has happened here and I'm not going to bother going back to check.
But bottom line, I'm sure Skyth_DeSexton fully understands the meaning of "theory" in a scientific context and that is precisely their point.
Here's the thing.
Most of us don't care if someone decides they'll never again do business with Wizards, they're done with D&D forever, the bridge has been burned and nothing will ever put it back. That's their call to make.
We don't even honestly care if, while they're off playing Pathfinder-the-game-from-a-company-that's-somehow-totally-not-in-it-to-make-profit-themselves, they proclaim to their table that everyone who's still doing business with Wizards are fools and they should all know better. What you and your buddies talk about at your table is between you and your buddies.
What we do care about is those people coming into this - D&D Beyond, a D&D 5e community for people who play and enjoy D&D Fifth Edition - and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming about how no one should ever trust Wizards again. Those people denigrating and castigating anyone who hasn't followed them to another game and doing so in the primary online community for the game they claim to have abandoned to its wicked masters. Those people turning every thread into a WIZARDS MUST DIE thread, and trying to browbeat and coerce everyone else into abandoning D&D in turn.
Please. [REDACTED] If you're not done with D&D, great! Stay! But the price of staying is admitting that D&D is fun and we enjoy playing it, and that means that one way or another we all have to deal with Wizards. it is unproductive, unhelpful, unnecessary, and undesirable for people to continue nagging and sanbagging in every last single thread about all the ways Wizards ****ed up.
We know the ways Wizards ****ed up. We're still playing D&D anyways. Please. Let us do that. Leave us to our doomed game run by evil corporate tyrants. We'll move on if and when we're ready. Stop trying to force us to do it.
Please do not contact or message me.
That wouldn't resolve jack squat and you know it. You're just reveling in the chaos and want it to continue while the majority of us are ready to move on.
For what it's worth, having worked at a MUCH larger corporation than Hasro for years, a LOT of what Brink said in these interviews (didn't fully watch the third one since it seemed like it was just repeat of the previous two with a softer tone) resonates with what I went through. The idea of one hand having absolutley no clue what the other was doing, stakeholders not being involved in decisions where they have all the knowledge and expertise and will directly affect them, terrible communication, bumbling PR, and other things were basically mirror of what I've seen. Can I believe that everything he says was true? I, personlly, have to believe a lot of the events were softened up and details massaged for public consuption though short of me going back in time and being a fly on the wall there's no way I can know for sure.
Here's what I do know, and I can't speak for anyone else. Brink said all the right things about how D&D is going to be handled going forward. And after every disaster I've ever been part of at that huge corporation I also heard all the right things. Sometimes the right things would be acted upon for as long as a year. But in the end new executives, new directives, new clients, new regulations etc come in and that disaster and the things that changed because of it get forgotten. From everything Brink said this clusterf- was YEARS in the making. Imagine if in the past year they had actually, you know, talked to people like Brink and his team who despised the 1.1 and knew, or at least strongly suspected, what would happen and actually, you know, ran this stuff past the community. Both of which they eventually did anyway. Imagine if Wizards had announced that the SRD was going into the Creative Commons in December after doing these things properly. The amount of goodwill and happiness would have been boundless. It would have even washed away some of the stink of how terribly Wizards handled MTG in 2022. Instead we got...this.
I bring this all up to say that even beyond the damage this OGL disaster did to Wizards, Hasbro, and D&D's reputation it also opened peoples' eyes to the fact that just how much of a corporate clusterf- the house belonging to the 'stewards of the game' really is. And how easily the wrong people can make the wrong decisions and the right people will be ignored just like any other gigantic organization. Even if you like Brink and think he's being earnest here (and personally I think he is) I have very little confidence as this company gets larger and demands more profits from Wizards that whatever fixes Brink and people like him attempt to make will stick.
Ironically, these interviews have made me trust Hasbro less not because I think Brink is lying but because I think he's telling the truth. You can call me r----t, or a rabid hyena, or a screamer or whatever but I've seen this movie before in my professional career and it came quite close to ruining my life. Not terribly interested in investing time and money in two games (D&D and MTG) that's going to be tied up with a company like Hasbro. Sadly, this incident has shown that my naivete that Wizards was somehow different because it owned D&D and MTG was quite misguided. For those who are still going to put their time, money, and enjoyment in Wizards' 5e ecosystem I wish you all the best of luck. Hope I don't see you on the other side in 20 years.
That was why our early drafts of the new OGL included the provisions they did. That draft language was provided to content creators and publishers so their feedback could be considered before anything was finalized...Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL; the drafts you’ve seen were attempting to do just that.
Yes. there. was.