[Note:] This document is a continual work in progress.
This web page has my notes on the fiftieth anniversary edition of D&D, which originally was called One D&D, and now officially is recognized as D&D 2024, the fiftieth anniversary edition. Abreviations from the community sometimes use 5.24, and more common with detractors is 5.5, (an allusion to 3.5). I refer to 5.2 after the version of the SRD from the Hasbro Games subsidiary, Wizards of the Coast (WotC). This is consistent with the use of 5e by the community for D&D 2014, i.e. 5.0 and 5.1. These notes are not intended to be a full record or history of D&D. Other versions of the game have separate notes pages.
Since the OGL 1.1 debacle, and the subsequent attempt to draft an OGL 1.2 damage control revision, with public input, WotC released a new SRD revision under the Creative Commons 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0) attribution license. The CC-BY-4.0 was offered as an option to the OGL of the 5.1 SRD (last released in 2016). CC-BY-4.0 is recognized by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Gaming Foundation as a free or libre license. The core manuals follow the same pattern as past versions:
Pushing players to newer editions after the investment in the older game, supplements, and modules demonstrates the incompatibility of newer core rules with older. This makes sense for publishers: there's always money to be gained in selling a new required set of books, and letting the previous go out of print. This seems even more relevant when sites like DnD Beyond make it difficult to use an older edition/revision, or do not make it available at all.
It is noted that the core manuals can be licensed in context of D&D Beyond, with or without the printed editions. Unearthed Arcana is/was available from D&D Beyond as a PDF for pre-release play, but requires an account to access.
One of the benefits of the new edition is that Gygax's AD&D Greyhawk setting is updated to the new rules as a kind of summary within the book. I also see Matthew Mercer's name in the consultant's list for the DM Guide.
A small revision of the SRD has since been published: 5.2.1. The 5.2 SRD dropped the OGL in favor of CC-BY-4.0 only. The Open Gaming Foundation has marked D&D licensing as stable again.