[deafpolygon]

It's just a marketing gimmick.

Anyone is free to write software that modifies a file - there is no copyright law protecting that. This is one of the reasons why many large corporations are pushing hard towards cloud - they can protect the format AND the platform then monetize it at will. End users lose control.

I will give them points for putting it in a readable file format. But placing it under an MIT license and "open sourcing" it, doesn't do anything - and they know that. It's just fluff to market their new features.

Edit: Re-reading what I posted, In case it's taken the wrong way, I am not disparaging the team at Obsidian in any way:

I think they do good work and make great software.

IANAL

> The file itself is considered instead to be an idea or a system and is therefore not protected by the laws of copyright. So the description of a file format is copyrightable, but the format as it exists in its medium is not.

https://www.fileformat.info/mirror/egff/ch08_09.htm