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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"?
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Of course and they have the "right". They bought a whole lot of IP from SGI a few months ago.5 6&mode=thread&tid=152
Check it out here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/16/18242
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.
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.
Ahh, how appropriate, I was just going to make a post on the "donate to Gnome" thread about how this whole Mono thing is a disaster waiting to happen (i.e., Microsoft will activate the .NET "poison pill" as soon as Mono becomes a threat, through patents or other means, and Mono users will have no place to go but genuine .NET).
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:
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?
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.
They'll have patent rights over OpenGL, among other things. Eventually, The Onion's article will be true. Did anyone else think of this?
s .html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatent
It's not too far off.
Danish != nationality
what about Apple? MacOS does a lot of things with OpenGL too...
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
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?
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Wouldn't it be interesting if Sony were to license the "Emotion Engine" video technologies for the desktop PC market? As of right now MS seems to have a monopoly on the 3D graphics technologies market.
Sony is the only possible contender to come into my mind. Without competition, how soon until 3D graphics are only allowed to exist on Windows? Are we only one generation away from that? Does anyone other than Sony have a similar "mature" technology for 3D graphics, with the market clout to back it up?
What incentive would Sony have you ask? Well, MS makes the X-Box, which is based on DirectX. Sony has an incentive in my mind to keep DirectX games from being written for any platform. This is not too far from reasons the PS2 Linux kit came out...to train developers. Sony could be the next competitor, the current being Sun, to step into the ring and throw off the gloves with Microsoft.
-Pete
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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
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.
why doesn't Linux?
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/3d.html
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Because Apple is a corporate entity, whereas Open Source is a philosophy?
If you consider the makeup of the board, only IBM has any kind of direct interest in Linux and I really don't think they want Linux for it's amazing leaps forward in GUI design.
The remainder of the board all have their own fish to fry and none of them are direct contributors to Linux, AFAIK.
So, boys and girls, time to nut up and get some corporation to back the OpenGL initiative on Linux, which means someone's gonna have to make some bucks off it somewhere to cover the cost of all that politicking.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
I thought that the writers of a standard which was designed to be open in its implemetation would be more careful so as not to include other companies' ideas in their product, whether it be Microsoft's of anyone else's.
Obviously intellectual property, as opposed to trademarks, patents and copyrights (i.e. ideas as opposed to actual code) is a fairly large, often equivocal area, but it seems that this, however innocent, could set a dangerous precedent. Microsoft is a business, and they are there to maximise profits. They have proved that they often use very unfair and illegal means to get to this end in the past, and this just seems to be a potential area of abuse once their lawyers get hold of it.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
In other words, OpenGL can function without the extension. This is not a blocking patent. If the group cannot get to satisfactory license terms the extension will be dropped.
This type of thing happens in all standards groups from time to time. And the right outcome is not always the same.
This is not Rambus style Patent smurfing where you patent an idea, propose it in a standards group and then at the last minute demand royalties. Nor is it patent trolling where someone looks at what a working group has done and makes a perjured patent application to grab the rights to the ideas.
The group itself is not getting up in a stew about the issue so it is unlikely that this is going to be a major problem. In cases of this sort the company with the IP works out whether they get their best return from making the IP free or trying to charge. In all but a handfull of cases the result is some sort of effectively free license.
There are cases in which people have IP that they think is valuable and they are not willing to license. But these are actually quite rare since most patents can be circumvented.
In this case it appears that Microsoft is offering an essentially free license. However making sure that things stay free means that unilateral disarmament is not the best policy. That is what the GPL is all about.
So in comon with most companies Microsoft are offering the technology on reciprocal license terms. In other words they will allow folk to use their tecnology if others provide access to theirs.
The minutes do not make it clear whether the terms are RAND and zero license fee or RAND with a charge. From the discussion it would appear to me that either the license is expected to be zero cost, or it is a group where there are lots of folk looking to profit from their patent portfolio.
So the huffing and puffing appears to me to be somewhat overdone.
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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.
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Since they have already ripped code from BSD what would they need from another UNIX?
RAND, of course, means commercial cross-licensing. Microsoft is using this as a tactic for excluding open source. They know they can kill companies like Apple in the market, but they are deathly afraid of Linux and open source. OpenGL is a particular thorn in their side since it just won't go away, and Microsoft's own junky 3D interface hasn't been able to kill the competition. So, Microsoft is now trying underhanded legal maneuvres
I think the only way for open source to play will be to have an open source patent portfolio and to bring that to the table. Open source needs its own bargaining chips at the table.