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MS Buys (Some) SGI Patents
FatRatBastard writes "The Reg. is reporting that Microsoft has purchased the rights to most of SGI's 3D patents. Speculation from the Reg hacks is that MS may want the patents more for crushing OpenGL support than for technology they're building inhouse." Well, crush is strong - but it would give them more leverage with some hardware vendors for sure.
I know the original posting said it was strong language, but there are just too many games out there that use OpenGL that are too popular to be crushed.
Besides, OpenGL is goverened by a board of companies, not just SGI.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.-Franklin
I believe this is just the first step in a larger attempt by Microsoft to buy the entire 3rd Dimension.
I'm really going to hate having to pay them royalties when I'm using it.
-Rothfuss
http://www.bluesnews.com/archives/carmack122396.ht ml
Now, I know D3D has undergone many changes since then, but without a 100% about-face, I doubt they could fix the major coding issues.
The last paragraph sums it up:
Microsoft isn't in the PC hardware business, and it's unlikely that the patents will change its technical strategy. But they do add significantly to its bargaining position with hardware vendors, giving Redmond important new leverage. Rival APIs, principally OpenGL, are kept alive through the support of graphics hardware vendors. And for a hardware partner, avoiding a lawsuit, or gaining a contract to work on future versions of Xbox, may well outweigh the advantages from continuing to support OpenGL.
I guess Microsoft trying to crush open source isn't just paranoia after all.
No, but they own patents to many features of the OpenGL standard. Just like how Frauenhofer owns many patents on MPEG audio.
... so Silicon Graphics can go back to the "cube" logo!
Remember how MS made their own Java VM and modified the language to suit themselves?
Perhaps they're aiming for MS OpenGL (MS OpenJelly, lube up and aim for penetration)
(please don't troll me)
internet like monkeys'
Personally, I think that each state should have at least one rep looking into MS
It is a matter of trust. In this case, past performance is an indicator of future results.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Yes, MS is working very hard on creating software to support rival operating systems so that they can create a competitive marketplace.
What does this mean for the use of OpenGL in open source? Are we going to have to start developing our own open source replacement for OpenGL now?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Its a lot better in many ways than OpenGL (at least I think so). Its certainly powerful and easy to code for. It was a load of poo up til at least DX6, but now its surprisingly nice and object-oriented. They are of course targetted at completely different uses: D3D is generally Retained Mode, whereas OpenGL is generally Immediate Mode. I can't be bothered explaining what those mean, so go look in Google, but it does mean that DX is probably better for games, whereas OGL is better for most other things.
Game dev and music blog
> The only way OpenGL can compete is to attain
> strong developers, maintain a good ease-of-
> programming and give game deisgners and card
> venders a solid reason to support it.
OpenGL aint just about the games man. If your developing a visualisation system of oil field sensor data, do you think you really use DirectX?
Nope, you go to the real guns, SGI.
Microsoft have a huge way to go before they grab that share of the market. For one thing, there is a whole heap of legacy apps in these scientific visualisation areas that rely on OpenGL backwards compatibility.
Mr Thinly Sliced
From: Allen Akin (akin@tuolumne.asd.sgi.com)
Subject: Re: Licensing of OpenGL to Microsoft
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.apps.softimage, comp.sys.sgi.graphics, comp.graphics.api.opengl, comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy, comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.graphics, comp.graphics.raytracing, comp.graphics.rendering.misc, comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing
View this article only
Date: 1996/02/21
SGI licenses OpenGL to anyone, including all of its competitors in the
workstation market. The reasoning goes something like this:
1. SGI builds great workstations, but what really makes them
useful (and thus makes people willing to buy them) is
high-performance full-featured 3D graphics and imaging
applications.
2. Applications developers can't afford to support a large number
of graphics APIs. The development and maintenance costs are
too high, and since feature sets vary from API to API, it's
difficult for an application to take advantage of all the
desirable features of multiple APIs.
3. If a single graphics API is supported on a sufficiently wide
variety of machines (including SGI's), and if that API is fast
and full-featured, then applications developers can
concentrate their limited resources on that API and do a good
job of using it effectively.
4. The result is a larger number of good-quality 3D graphics
applications that are capable of running on SGI hardware.
This makes it easier for SGI to sell workstations. In the
long run it also increases the number of potential SGI
customers by making it easier for applications developers to
create products for new markets.
5. Of course, SGI's competitors that adopt OpenGL also gain
access to a larger pool of 3D applications. However, this
doesn't make a lot of difference to SGI, because we have to
work to remain competitive in any case. It's important to
understand this! *The competition would have become more
intense even if OpenGL didn't exist.* Licensing OpenGL creates
no significant new risks for SGI, but it does create new
opportunities.
If you really think (as I do) that this is an indication that MS intends to extend its monopoly by squeezing out competing standards and technology, then make your voice heard!
According to the US law you still have until Jan 28th to comment on the court's final judgement.
I recommend you take a minute and make sure the US justice department hears your concern.
-Derek
Whoa big fella.
"Fast development cycle"
You do realize that equates to "we don't need QA", also "don't bother implementing the last 500 features on that list", and don't forget "don't waste time writing good documentation".
There's a mental image - sitting in the audience watching episode II and the screen suddenly turns bright blue in the middle of a fighter battle...
Proteus' Child
Doko ni datte; hito wa, tsunagette iru.
So, Microsoft says all the right things - that they support OpenGL and include it as part of windows. However, it is a bit like their half-hearted posix mode. Win2k does not included any hardware acceleration for Opengl (according to the register). Also, OpenGL on win32 is stuck at an old version (1.1? or 1.0) and extensions and more recent (eg 1.2) features must be used via their ugly extension mechanism. Microsoft backed out of their agreement with SGI on Fahrenheit - burning SGI in the process.
The XBox runs on Direct X, OpenGL's direct competition and nemesis. I mean, we've gotten to the point where even MS can go around saying, "Yeah, we did this so we can kick some ass and make some money for our stock holders.", which is true, legal, and widely accepted.
I don't think sinister is the word - it's standard operating procedure for MS, along with lots of other large corperations. The Real beauty of it is that MS also has an alibi - they kept SGI in business (maybe), thus ensuring they still have competitors. MS is to the market now what the US is to the world - they are taking things over via a dependance on existance. That is to say, they can keep companies alive and in buiness as a kind of bribe. This is so they cannot be accussed of being so successfully [anti-competative/innovative] (take your pick, doesn't matter for the sake of argument) as to have killed off all of their competitors!
"Old man yells at systemd"
There's nothing in the Register article that gives any proof that MS purchased anything other than a license for the patents, not the patents themselves.
So, as is often the case, this is probably much ado about nothing.
Weren't those SGI patents what kept Nvidia from open-sourcing their Linux drivers?
Now with Microsoft owning them, the chance of a fully open-source driver goes...up?...down?...stays the same????
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
The Real beauty of it is that MS also has an alibi - they kept SGI in business (maybe), thus ensuring they still have competitors.
You laugh, but it's true!
Remember several years back when Apple was on the ropes and MS bailed them out with $150M ?
You'll also recall that part of the deal included a provision for Apple to start distributing MS IE instead of Netscape Navigator, whose stock symbol has, umm, disappeared.
I think bailing Apple was absolutely critical for MS, since otherwise their market share would have shot up even more alarmingly close to 100% than it is already. It's easier to claim there are competitors when you have only 92% of the market compared to when you have 98% of the market:)
Taken to the extreme, it wouldn't be out of place for MS to buy or bail out a Linux based company either. I think that almost happened with Corel. My own paranoid view on that deal was that Corel developers might have been moving Wine along too quickly to suit MS and they had to throw some molasses into the machine.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Interestingly, while several people speculated that Fahrenheit was intended to kill OpenGL, from what I can see it actually saved it. Fahrenheit encouraged Microsoft to not knife this particular baby long enough to allow a reasonably strong set of OpenGL boards to be produced.
Fairly quickly in the course of the Fahrenheit project, SGI realized that it would not be a good idea for Fahrenheit to actaully be released; because that really would mean the end of OpenGL. So, they dithered and delayed, rewrote and reimplemented, argued and agreed to disagree for a truly critical couple of years. That was long enough.
Eventually the charade could not be maintained any longer, and Fahrenheit disappeared. Up until the last day, though, SGI made every appearance of being totally committed to Fahrenheit -- it was on the front page of www.sgi.com until the day it was killed.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.