I’ve been following this stuff recently, but I’m missing some details myself. For at least a decade (maybe two), D&D has had a license, the OGL, that allowed creators to make their own stuff based on Wizards of the Coast’s material. WotC is working on an “update” to that license and the leaks we’ve seen would take away rights from the creators, allow WotC free and perpetual right to use creators work without asking, and would require payment from companies making over a certain threshold. None of these things sit well with the majority of the D&D community, so they started canceling subscriptions to an official D&D product. The executives, who have been reported to be disdainful and dismissive of the negative feedback, got worried about an actual monetary loss and have now said they won’t make the worst of those changes. We still don’t know what changes they plan on making.

This article is about a movement by some of the companies based on D&D creating their own license for use by the entire community in an effort to not be reliant on the good will of WotC execs.