Slashdot Mirror
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"?
I doubt they'll really care too much about Linux OpenGL (for now) because quite honestly it's not necessary to attack it on that front. That would be a little too obviously vindictive, even for Microsoft. I think the more likely conclusion is that they'll use it to leverage their stranglehold on the DirectX/Windows combo to make it not only the standard, but the only option. Once gaming on Windows is restricted to DirectX, then OpenGL will survive solely on Linux (if it survives at all).
the more times the word Microsoft appears in front of your eyes, the bigger the smil gets on their PR dept faces.. Slashdot is probably one of Microsofts biggest PR machines. Remember, there is no bad publicity..
This is only true to a point. It depends on what the target of the spotlight (Company A) has done to earn the publicity: I don't think Michael Jackson was too happy about the publicity he received when he was being accused of molesting children, after all. For a corporation, publicity is only good when it leads to sales--and let's face it, SlashDot is hardly MicroSoft's target market for OSS.
Besides, what does a monopoly need with publicity? Once you hit that height, publicity is more likely to be bad than good.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Read the bloody minutes, they arent demanding that OpenGL cease to exist, they are just declaring that they have related patents and as near as I could gather from the article they are being made available for use by OpenGL as long as the OpenGL people agree to allow Microsoft to use any OpenGL technology developed using them. It's a bit pre-emptive when we are hanging Microsoft just for having the patents, can we please use this effort on people who exploit their patents and not on those who simply posess them?
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
THIS is how microsoft operates. If they cannot "embrace and extend" they will litigate their way to victory. I'm really not surprised by this action at all. We already knew Microsoft was concerned about the competition linux might offer and it seemed like we were getting too much of a free ride.
The only thing we can hope now is that the monopoly case will take a little bite out of Microsoft. Otherwise, this will continue to the point that releasing software or drivers for linux becomes a LIABILITY. At that point, no matter how much better the OS is, it is dead in the water.
I'm a bit confused why chrisd put "rights" in the body in quotes. Either they bought the patent and have rights over the code and programming model, or the patent does not apply and they have no rights.
So, they want to trade this one piece of IP for many pieces currently belonging to other people? Sounds like a really sweet deal for them. I'm not sure whether to accuse them of being sneaky or just stand in awe that they actually do understand the potentially non-scarce nature of information.
Does anyone who knows about how these comittees work want to comment on whether this is considered ethical? It would be better from an openness standpoint to have them just give it up, but reasonable licensing is better than having them try to exploit it after the standard is implemented (like happened with Rambus).
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
So, before going much farther, I would like to see what exactly they're claiming they own and see if everyone agrees with that. If so, it should probably be seen by the OpenGL-gurus whether it's something that can be designed around. If not, <SLAP_ON_WRIST>shame on the OpenGL developers /designers for using non-open things!</SLAP_ON_WRIST>
And -before I finish my rant- let that be a lesson to all of us to check twice before integrating some cool idea. Make sure you didn't hear it from someone who will say they own it later! (I don't know how this really happened. That may or may not be the scenario, but I've seen it happen that way before.)
"Let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average." - A. W. Tozer
Does this seem a little like and old msg to any one else? "Perhaps this OpenGL bit will blow over, or perhaps we should keep an eye on it as a sort of model for future Microsoft attacks on "open xyz". Let's check the link, there are some quotes: They're offering to license their IP under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; will license rights to the extent necessary, provided a reciprocal license is granted to MS. Granted on 1:1 basis for OpenGL 1.3, 1.4, and earlier versions. Ahh, there's the magic "reasonable" (to Microsoft) and "non-discriminatory" (except if you don't agree to the terms). How would this cross-licensing apply to implementations other than the official OpenGL? Microsoft suggests that other bodies have licensing terms that are more effective in a corporate sense, and we should look at adopting some of those terms. Uh huh..what does "more effective in a corporate sense" mean exactly.... Well I don't know much about OpenGL licensing, or how much of this extension stuff is implemented in non-OpenGL implementations (like Mesa?) so I'll just watch and see what happens. "
However, I'm a little confused. What parts of vertex & fragment shader are they actually claiming IP on? I thought it was nVidia that had IP on hardware vertex & fragment shader extensions, and that they licenced that IP to Microsoft for use in DX8.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
While i believe that Microsoft is not doing anything relevant to the current slashdot that is not completely within their rights, it is very important to remember:
"Microsoft has every right to do whatever they want" is currently an incorrect statement. Microsoft is currently legally determined to be an illegal monopoly. That means that until government correction, which has not happened yet, Microsoft's rights do not currently encompass "whatever they want". There are a number of things they do not have the right to do.
Of course, the things that they have no right to do because they are legally a monopoly are not relevant to the current discussion, like i said, but please keep that in mind-- they currently DO NOT have the right to act in an anticompetitive manner, in certain ways under certain circumstances that would be legal for an other company.
That said, the current article is just stupid. It would be interesting to have a conversation on the subject of exactly how much of OpenGL is subject to destruction by a malicious entity buying up and then denying public use of OpenGL-related patents, but the incendentiary attack in the slashdot blurb is totally unwarranted as MS has not given any indication of doing anything yet. The bit about MS buying bits of OpenGL is important but we've already had a slashdot thread on that somewhere.
The idea is to avoid a repeat of the Rambus debacle vis-a-vis the JEDEC consortium. Anyone who takes part in a standards process is ethically and legally obligated to reveal any patents that may affect the availability of the specification being developed. Rambus didn't -- they waited until their IP had been integrated into a critical industry standard, then had their lawyers spring a surprise party on everybody.
This is actually relatively old news, and it isn't necessarily a showstopper. MS has historically been the victim rather than the instigator of legal action with respect to stupid patents.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
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.
Uh huh.
And even if they "didn't stand for it", apple would stop microsoft how?
Apple would do what to leverage Microsoft into changing their mind?
Seriously. I'm just asking.
Apple screamed bloody murder about the absurd MPEG4 licensing terms, and it didn't change a goddamn thing.
The question is, what does this mean for Linux -- how will Microsoft exercise their "rights"?
The question is, when will folks in the US make enough stink to get rid of software.. err.. I mean mathematical patents. Software patents do nothing but slow innovation and create a legal minefield as we see even by the fact that the OpenGL group is having to worry about it. Software patents are totally incompatible with free software, not to mention freedom of speech. How's that different from ordinary patents? Because software has a zero cost of entry and is often NOT developed as a commercial enterprise but rather a pasttime.
However, just so much of this is bad news that a whole lot is coming back for this post.
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. They're offering to license their IP under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; will license rights to the extent necessary, provided a reciprocal license is granted to MS. Granted on 1:1 basis for OpenGL 1.3, 1.4, and earlier versions.
Who here wants to bet that Microsoft, who they admit didn't contribute to the extension, were the ones that used the term "reasonable and nondiscriminatory"? I find it surprisingly unprofessional of the transcriber that they kept the wording as fact. I also find it surprising that anyone can say with a straight face, "If you want to use this extension to shade the corners of your polygons, you must give us the right to use all of your software, and all of your old software, any way we see fit. It's 1:1." If it really was one to one they would walk away with a method of optimizing bump mapping, or some such.
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.
Ah, IBM is wise in the ways of patent warfare. IBM, today being played by Suzy Deffeyes, knows all too well that if an opponent signs on the line before the contract is written, your terms will only seem "reasonable" as in the eyes of a conquering army. NVIDIA, Nick Triantos and Pat Brown, shame on you! You may be great engineers, but you are horrible lawyers.
Microsoft suggests that other bodies have licensing terms that are more effective in a corporate sense, and we should look at adopting some of those terms.
Microsoft is now suggesting the term "OpenGL" should mean open for business, and not Open doors. Notice this is a sudden attack on the very nature of OpenGL, not to mention it's ability to compete.
Technical issue - 3Dlabs doesn't find 1.4 all that compelling without vertex programming, but finds the vec4 architecture underlying ARB_vertex_program too hardware-specific to include into 1.4 except as an optional subset. Seems short-sighted to incorporate into the standard when this assembler-level functionality is likely to be quickly superseded by new silicon generations; but it serves a tactical purpose, to take advantage of current market conditions.
And so we see Microsoft's plan starting to take form... The fellowship is breaking.
Bill asked about Microsoft's IP position on just the program management framework; Dave was unable to comment at this point.
Forgive me for being so pessimistic, but when you run in and say you have a patent claim on part of the development spec for your project... Couldn't you have a little more background information available? At least for your own knowledge?
Suzy asked Microsoft to figure out their IP claims, if any, against just the program management stuff.
Once again, Suzy, I salute you.
However, I really have to question the purpose of having microsoft on board. They disagree with the business model, the offer a competing product which they have made every effort to set as the defacto standard, and they have a long history of joining competing projects in order to destroy them. Java anyone? Microsoft doesn't make graphics accelerators, chipsets, or computers like everyone else on that board does. They are the OS, but they are also a competitor to the group's mission. Why do you invite the wolf in to protect the sheep?
My god, it's been a long time since I hated microsoft this much. Thank you again, Slashdot, for reminding me what is important in life.
(Sigh, time to go punch the Microsoft butterflies again. The stuffed ones, not the foolish ones.
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
You have two processors: the CPU and the GPU. You partition execution of the graphics code between them in a variety of ways and you standardize that. What, exactly, is the invention supposed to be?
I like this quote from the minutes:
:-)
IBM thinks it's premature to vote on this without seeing the MS license terms.
It looks like IBM learned its lesson really well when dealing with Microsoft 20 years ago, and now are going to be really watching what agreements they sign.
As well, SGI's response is curious:
. SGI thinks if we can't deal with IP claims, we might as well all go home.
I wonder if they mean that they don't want to worry about the IP claim, and are trying to just ignore it. Or if they agree with it, and just want to leave it at that.
Good meeting though, nontheless.
~ kjrose
The names on this patent were all SGI employees at the time of filing (Dec 1998). Recognizing some of them (Phil Gossett in particular), I surmise that this patent is a result of the work done on SGI's "Odyssey" graphics chip -- used in Octane and Fuel workstations. Current implementation sold by sgi under the name "VPro V12" graphics.