Microsoft Claims IP Rights on Portions of OpenGL

An anonymous reader writes "Minutes of the latest OpenGL ARB meeting reveal that Microsoft is claiming IP over the vertex and fragment extensions, both critical for exposing the capabilities of modern graphics hardware. The minutes also include an update on the progress of OpenGL 2.0." The question is, what does this mean for Linux -- how will Microsoft exercise their "rights"?

Comments

They have every right to do whatever they want

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course and they have the "right". They bought a whole lot of IP from SGI a few months ago.
Check it out here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/16/182425 6&mode=thread&tid=152

Bash bash bash

[ObviousGuy]

Microsoft believes they have patent rights relating to the ARB_vertex_program extension. They did not contribute to the extension, but are trying to be upfront about it.

It's an ARB requirement

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an ARB requirement for any participant to state that they might have IP involved in a particular feature or extension. Try checking out previous ARB minutes where nVidia, ATI, and other companies have made statements about their own IP and possible conflicts. This is a non-issue.

Re:It's an ARB requirement

[OrangeSpyderMan]

In terms of graphics performance, nvidia is already way a head of the Xbox on desktop PCs, so your remark is a bit pointless.

However it is nice to note that for the moment, as the parent poster correctly pointed out, they are simply pointing out a potential IP conflict, and no precise licence terms have even been discussed. I've no doubt at all that they'll throw their weight around as they know how to do so well, but there are other people concerned that have as much to loose as Linux, so they'll have a difficult time making it stick.

Too little to go on...

[Codeala]

This is their entire claim as recorded in the minute:

Microsoft believes they have patent rights relating to the ARB_vertex_program extension.

Not much to go on really. What is interesting is the members' reactions (especially NVIDIA's):

IBM thinks it's premature to vote on this without seeing the MS license terms. NVIDIA wants to vote it in at this meeting. SGI thinks if we can't deal with IP claims, we might as well all go home.

It seems crazy to "vote it in" (as in agreeing?) with so little information. Unless you are in really deep with MS ;-)

Apple Wouldn't Stand for it..

[Joystickit]

Apple, in addition to a heck of a lot of other companies, would not stand for MS claiming ownership over parts of OpenGL. They're making heavy use of it in QuartzXtreme. But, thankfully, as someone noted, it appears to be a non-issue. Although, this kind of thing still is scary.

OpenGL on OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

then OpenGL will survive solely on Linux (if it survives at all).
and MacOSx.

Check this out http://www.apple.com/opengl/

It's sort of fundamental to the way OSX does 3D.

It's exactly this sort of crap that made me jump ship and buy a Mac in the first place. Of course Apple have been flexing their muscles a little too much lately too.

Re:How about the Emotion Engine on PC?

[Namarrgon]

? How do you figure MS has a monopoly on 3D graphics? They don't make any 3D hardware. DirectX is a Windows-only API, but you can also use the popular & platform-independant OpenGL API (yes, even on the Xbox, though you can thank nVidia for that).

Pretty much all consumer-level hardware comes with both DirectX and OpenGL drivers, thanks mostly to id Software. Until recently, almost all professional-level hardware only came with OpenGL support. SGI are still in there, the Linux 3D scene is improving daily, and Apple are throwing ever more weight behind OpenGL too. 3D is hardly an MS-only game (at least until MS eliminates all other OS competitors completely).

In fact, Sony is a very minor player. They have their own weirdo hardware (which is incompatible with all non-PS2 software), but what would they do with it? Stick it on a PCI card with OpenGL & DirectX drivers, just like nVidia, ATI, Matrox, 3dlabs etc etc? Invent their own peculiar API that no-one supports? What exactly are they supposed to do that isn't already being done by everyone else?

Microsoft and 3D Graphics: A Case Study

[Performer Guy]

http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/3d.html

Re:It's not what it'll do to Linux...

[G-funk]

OpenGL will die on Windows at the same time as John Carmack dies.

I now regret killing him so many times in Doom II. I guess I've done my part to support the monopoly...


Dude that's John Romero. The chanting you hear when you enter the final level is "To win the game, you must destroy me, John Romero" played backwards at half speed.

This is U.S. Patent # 6,417,858

[Animats]

"Processor for geometry transformations and lighting calculations", assigned to Microsoft Corporation, issued today, July 9, 2002.

Old news too

[mati]

Aye, and it's old news too (March).

NVIDIA has signed an ARB Contributor License for the NV_vertex_program extension; copies were distributed to interested parties. For questions, contact Stephen Pettigrew, spettigrew 'at' nvidia.com Microsoft wanted to alleviate concerns about their statement last week regarding possible claims on vertex program IP. Dave Aronson apologized for the perception that they aren't acting in good faith. They are trying to follow ARB regulations about stating IP as much as possible. When a vote was imminent, they reviewed and felt that they had patents or patents pending covering vertex programming. They do plan on coming up with licensing terms, and have set a hard deadline for themselves of 2 weeks before the June ARB meeting.

Huh ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of OpenGL 2 is to be backwards compatible by reimplementing the old (1.3) fixed vertex processing model, as a vertex program on the new vertex shader hardware. Same thing with blending, texture lookup etc versus fragment shaders. If you need to drop the shaders, this all falls apart, and GL2 becomes merely an exercise in reintegrating a bit of the extension-jungle into the core -- that'd be OpenGL 1.4 or something, not 2.0.

Re:How about the Emotion Engine on PC?

[Namarrgon]

"Popular with some amateur programmers"? How about 99% of the entire professional graphics industry?

Games are fine, and you're right about the balance of power there. But believe it or not, there does exist a larger world out there, and OpenGL is all of it. DirectX is not making much headway there.

Besides, you're also ignoring the not-insignificant Macintosh games market, not to mention the substantial PS2 and GameCube (and even occasional Xbox) games. MS is far from dominant there.