I met a guy recently who got to work with Lucas a while ago. He said they got into a discussion about releasing the OT and George just couldn't be made to see any point to it. He's really agin' it, it appears. He wishes we'd all just accept the current version as his and forget that one with the bad effects that he couldn't finish the way he wanted.
My friend said they didn't talk about fan edits.
Not new info, but to get it from one degree of separation was interesting. Now you got it two degrees separate.
Otherwise, working with George was really pleasant, according to my new BFF ;-).