The Opening Arguments podcast will devote their episode to the OGL story this Friday.
OA’s Twitter indicates they are absolutely not on the side of open gaming.
Seriously: they think WotC is perfectly within their rights to change the license. They think WotC always intended to be able to change the license however they wanted. They think OGL 1.1 is no big deal—they even imply it’s better because it’s “kind of insane” that WotC doesn’t already get a cut of Pathfinder. And at worst, OA claims, “if you’re a niche commercial creator, you will probably have to talk to WotC.” This is all a “moral panic” based on (among other things) “bad contract-reading.” The Gizmodo article is “virtually fact-free” and filled with deliberately misleading “fearmongering”; fans should turn their pitchforks on the article’s author.
Unpopular opinion- OA (as you described) is right. Well, not the part were they are attacking a journalist. But in describing how a corporation works.
I went over this in my own thread (describing the 3e/4e transition), but Hasbro
never wanted the OGL. It is completely a (happy) accident of history. Championed by Dancey and WoTC and released before Hasbro folded WoTC in completely.
So what happened next? First, Hasbro releases 3.5e! In order to differentiate their product from the OGL.
Next ... 4e. And 4e doesn't use the OGL, but used a non-open license.
When 5e was released, it was under the radar and with a small team. But even then, it is any understanding that Hasbro's lawyers fought to keep the OGL restricted to the prior version- not to expand it to make it more "5e friendly."
If you think of any major corporation and any major brand, you don't see open licensing. D&D is the exception. And now that it's making major money, they likely want that exception to end.
(Again, not a defense of Hasbro screwing over 3PP at all. Just that this was unfortunately foreseeable.)