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A Lawyer's View on the OpenGL Patent Mess
PDAJames writes "This article has an interesting take on Microsoft's claims on OpenGL technology. An IP lawyer says that Microsoft could make things difficult for OpenGL if they feel like it, basically. "
Can you believe that since Microsoft owns some of the patents that went into OpenGL, they can *gasp* make life difficult for implementers of OpenGL?! Boy it's a good thing we have those lawyers to keep us straight.
Have you hugged your Karma Whore today?
I've noticed in my short time in the world that Microsoft seems to be able to make things difficult for anyone.
How open is OpenGL? A lot of people put time and effort into developing things like this for people to use and enjoy and then greedy little Bill and Microshit always have to try to mess it up to make a buck. Such a shame.
I think they were a little remiss in overlooking the technological case for OpenGL; the fact is that many developers prefer it to DirectX, and not for ideological reasons.
Don't read this!
So, does this mean that every 14 year old AC is going to post articles like "DON'T USE OPENGL!!! MICRO$OFT OWNZ IT!" and "DON'T SUPPORT PATENTED GRAPHIC LIBRARIES!!" and "SAVE THE WHALES! (At least the ones that don't use OpenGL...)"
Frankly, from a pure business perspective, it is a great coup for Microsoft. They can quash yet another competetive product legally with no threat of anti-trust attention. After all, a patent is a patent... no doubts.
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
So OpenGL meets and discusses things, Microsoft wants to do a technology swap, doesn't immediately get it's way, calls up suck-up lawyer to write an article to apply pressure? Nah, Microsoft wouldn't do that.
Why oh why does MS need to take control of anymore companies???!!! There already own almost everything.... where the hell does the monopolization rules come into play????
I wonder how many blue screens of death OpenGL will have now! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now I'm a funny man! I threw down a clever! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BSOD in your face dean!
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell, 1984
Bash bash bash... Theoretically Microsoft could make it difficult for developers using OpenGL. Theoretically I could take a gun and shoot 12 people but that doesn't mean thats what I'm going to do.
You might want to read this too.
It even mentions MS could put MESA in trouble just by writind a C&D to them.
Nice world isn't it?
.oo00OO
how this is worthy of frontpage news? I mean Christ: Microsoft can cause legal troubles?
This just handed to me: Sun rises in East.
Pope Catholic, film at 11
Guys if you don't have anything new and worthy, just don't post anything. Nothing is better than crap.
Help, I'm being repressed!
well, the article states that probably the IP referred to was actually created by SGI, and put into the OpenGL standards with the promise of releasing the IP with the standard, i.e., royalty free. Microsoft comes along, buys a bunch of SGI IP (including this vertex stuff), and looks through it and goes, "hrm, now we can crush the OpenGL specification... should we do it?"
of course they will. graphics cards will end up being Direct3D -ONLY-. no OpenGL acceleration. that kills a ton of XFree86 work, that kills a lot of the Linux gaming work.
hell, that might kill Linux.
MORTAR COMBAT!
I'd imagine that whatever Microsoft is trying to claim can't really be backed that well. I doubt that the code for the fragment shading and the vertex programming is precisely the same as whatever MS has. If they are claiming just the idea, wouldn't that be like someone trying to patent addition and subtraction? The only thing that MS has for them is popularity. A lot of people seem to believe that whatever MS says is The Truth.
My other sig is an import.
Was the OpenGL spec (or whatever MS is claiming part of) a cleanroom implementation or did MS recommend it as part of OpenGL? Are their provisions for clean-room implementation?
This is the scary part:
"Microsoft said it would license the technology on a 1:1 basis, in return for intellectual property from OpenGL licensees, but this could carry its own pitfalls."
This gives Microsoft the right to use OpenGl code in software that it sells, and a legal foot in the door around the GPL'd code. Wasn't anyone else suspicious when they magically created DirectX a few years ago?
It's obvious that Microsoft's overall plan is world domination. I see the claims they are making as sort of a push to get people to use DirectX... depending on what they do with their IP claims, which, due to their enourmous pockets, will probabbly be something legally, they'll just try to hinder OpenGL by going after the ARB. 'No, OpenGL can in no way do per-pixel lighting', or something bogus like that.
;-)
Just normal Microsoft tactics... try to make things hard for others so that they will use Microsoft products.
I can't wait until I am forced to use a Microsoft cheese cutter if I wish to have holes in my cheese when they make the claim one day that they own the IP rights to holes. Software holes, cheese holes, pot holes, etc.
But don't they just make it way to easy lately.
Like, I don't mind other companies that have tons of products and are making tons of money. Plus, they may have a somewhat stranglehold on industries. But I would have to say the only reason I dislike Microsoft is their apparent philosophy of don't produce good products, kill the competition, and use lawyers as much as possible to help both of the above.
If MS produced quality products, I wouldn't care much about their attempts at complete world domination. But, since they don't produce quality products because they don't have to with the monopoly they have. (Remember Bill Gate's quote from some book I read recently which said (approximately), "You don't want them to want your product, you want them to think they cannot survive without your product. Then you win." Or in rough translation, "Don't worry about creating good products, just manuever yourself into a position where they have no choice but to use your products."
Seems about right for MS lately. (Again, I really am not trying to bash Microsoft, just frustrated with what they have been doing.)
~ kjrose
I would love to see SGI, Nvidia, ATi, and other leading graphics companys to step it up. You can not tell me that Microsoft hasn't borrowed heavily from patented concepts and ideas that were first implemented by some of these companies. I bet it would be extremely easy for a few lawyers and engineers to get together and build up a solid case that Microsoft did not pay to implement technologies patented by these groups.... The concept of Microsoft INNOVATING any of the concepts embodied in DirectX is absolutely ridiculous.
Actually I was interested to read that MS might be willing to swap IP licenses for OpenGL allowing them to get into the OpenGL market place without the usual expensive startup costs.
Prehaps this could indicate that they are interested in getting involved with OpenGL and not just shut it down.
What does Carmack think about this?
Since I first saw the stories about Microsoft and OpenGL recently, I've been wondering how this is going to play out. Microsoft's whole DirectX thing has largely been targeted/used by games, but what about the other markets that us OpenGL. My specific interest is in the 3-D CAD market. In this particular market, the software vendors and hardware vendors have been exclusively using OpenGL for a number of reasons:
1) Multiple platform support, (most CAD systems run on unix or started on Unix)
2) OpenGL existed long before DirectX
I'm sure there's other reasons, but I wonder if the CAD vendors and other vendors are going to consider DirectX in the future, especially with so many vendors shifting more focus towrads Windows in the last couple of years. What about other markets that use OpenGL extensively?
Have you hugged your Karma Whore today?
Microsoft and lawyers...Trust no one! :)
"Other members suggested that the technology be adopted as an optional extension, but this could lead to fragmentation of the standard."
It might fragment the standard in such a way that non-Microsoft users don't notice unless they also use Windows. If there is a "Windows OpenGL" that uses Microsoft proprietary extensions and an "OpenGL" that can be used on Linux/BSD without them - well, that may be the price we have to pay to keep Microsoft at a distance.
I suppose the *best* solution would be to simply not use any technology that had these sorts of IP restrictions. Sort of an ogg vorbis model, where the standard is specifically open and royalty free.
However given that the hardware manufacturers and major software players such as Microsoft are necessarily involved, and might not want to support such a scheme it is not the most *realistic* solution.
Oh well. Who needs 3D anyway, right?
null sig
I remember when Amazon came up with its single-click patent and tried to stop BN from doing the same, BN just added a confirmation page and called it a "two-click" checkout!
Is it not possible to circumvent MS patents like that? I am not saying that these algorithms have the same trivial complexity, but the generally speaking, this should be possible.
All your favorite sites in one place!
You're Microsoft doesn't innovate shit. A classmate of mine had an internship there, and his job was to go through a software package they had recently acquired from some company in India and remove references to Company X and replace them with Microsoft. It is going to be included in the next release of office. All they are is a marketing company for other people's shit. The only thing they write is the OS, and you have to wonder how much of that is borrowed.
. . . the OpenGL community has knowingly run afoul of the patents owned by Microsoft by designing the standard so that it depended upon them. Perhaps it would have been better to avoid using any of MSs intellectual "property" in the standard to begin with.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I don't hack graphics code, but I've used graphics programs enough to know that there are usually a number of ways to get to a particular end result with an image. If Microsoft IP were dropped from OpenGL, are there other functions that would produce equivalent output, or are the patents so broad as to cover what the output even looks like, not just the methods used to get to that look?
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
When it is possible, please post links to the printer-friendly versions of stories. This way it loads faster on our computer, and we don't have to waste time going through as many corporate ads.
Mod this up if you don't want to look at so many corporate flashy banners because people don't link to printer-friendly versions of the story when applicable.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Think about it. /. is whoring for Sony. You think any of the "editors" give two shits about your not wanting to view ads? Since they serve up some of the most intrusive ads on the whole net? Please.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
- Get computers to the point where 3D is a possiblity - Done
- Get computers to the point where 3D is common - Done
- Notice a competitor/3rd party owns the dominant 3D standard - Done
- Develop your own standard (Direct3D maybe?) - Done
- Refine it to the point where it's actually useable - Done
- Help make many of the important features of modern 3D and get it in competitor/3rd party's standard - Done
- Point out that you have patents/etc on those parts of the standard and that you will charge large licensing fees on using that standard - In Progress
- Use fee to strangle the competing standard - To Be Done
- Now everyone is forced to use your software for 3D if they don't want to pay tons of license fees - To Be Done
- Watch as competing platforms (let's call them Fruit Computers, and Penguindynamics) die under licensing fees becase you refuse to put your royalty-free API on their platforms - To Be Done
- Have a good maniacle laugh - To Be Done
See how simple that was?Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The most likely scenario here is that they bought IP from SGI which SGI had given to the OpenGL project under a public/OSS/FS license. Thus, MS' claims are invalid. You can't put something into the public domain and then take it back. Sorry, that's just not permitted. Once something's in the public domain, its there forever.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Do you go to work just for the love of playing with technology? If so please inform your employer that your salary is no longer necessary.
Why does everyone act like Microsoft is not supposed to try to make money?
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This seems like a good case to (re)raise the legal challenge to the patenting of software algorithms. Especially since there are a large number of recentent cases that assert that software is speech. It is the Constitutional duty of copyright, not patents to protect speech.
A 3-D graphics algorithm is pretty close to the kind of pure mathematics that the Supreme Court has already said can't be patented.
Palladium, OpenGL to be patented, ... Crap, as a game programmer, I will now have to chose between m$ technology and hummm wait a sec... m$ technology!
Please stop it... we are really going for 1984's 2 + 2 = 5.
It's obvious that Microsoft hates/fears OpenGL. Since the beginning release of 1.1 for Win95, Microsoft has done nothing about releasing the stub/dll source-code, updating the source-code, or even trying to progress the development of OpenGL.
Time and time again they have attempted to copy and improve upon OpenGL, first with Fahrenheit/XSG, then with DirectX. Yet, through all the technology and resources Microsoft puts in, the masses still like OpenGL.
The principals of OpenGL are the same as the day it started with IrixGL. Keeping it simple, functional, and cross-platform. Although Microsoft has gone great strides with DirectX API, they have nowhere near the simplicity of OpenGL. And with the Alternative OS's supporting OpenGL (Mac OSX, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Ps2Linux, etc...) there are more emerging platforms which they cannot touch.
Game/Multimedia Developers are starting to realize that Linux and other platforms are decent for games, and are developing software for them. No, Linux isn't going to take over the world tommorrow because it has OpenGL, but think of this: If a developer gives both the Linux Binary and the Windows Binary, wouldn't you be curious to compare speeds between the two? People would problably spend the extra $0-5 difference for a dual-os game starting the eventual craze. It only takes a few people/companies to start a revolution.
Microsoft is trying to attack every angle of the industry to focussing our attention on their superior product, yet nothing screams superior when their is a true choice and competition in the market.
Has anybody thought to see what response the Mesa3D team has? I'm going to leave /. for a few minutes just to find out...
C|N>K
Go dig up a obscure patent and sue their ass! Way to go MS. You're my hero.
YOUR question, not YOU'RE.
Dammit, learn english!
hmmm, plant a developer to put code in openGL, back off wait a few years and come back with lawyers yelling out patient violations and and how open source developers are a buch of terroriost.
naa, it will never happen.
Microsoft hinted that it would prefer an alternative licensing arrangement. At this month's OpenGL meeting, Microsoft representative Dave Aronson suggested that "other bodies have licensing terms that are more effective in a corporate sense, and we should look at adopting some of those terms."
This is something we'll begin to hear a lot - Microsoft will do license fees of $0.00 for many of their technologies, but restrict the platforms to non-open ones. The real target here is not OpenGL but rather Open Source. The lack of fee will give them the ability to say "look, we're giving it away" to deflect the attention away from the restrictions in the license.
I'm sure they'll be "super excited" about the resulting "ecosystem".
Since when was DirectX a response to OpenGL?
I know that some of the parts of DirectX are a response to OpenGL but was DirectX created because the Gaming community was balking at writing windows 95 games because they couldn't talk directly to the hardware. If I remember correctly that was main reason for DirectX. To move game development from DOS to Windows 95, not to fight of OpenGL.
Why can't we use Microsoft's tactic against them - develop extensions to things, and GPL them. That way, they effectively can't use them.
What a great way to promote Direct X. Make the other possibility too expensive to license. And the DOJ thought M$ was a monopolly.
The worst part is that companies like Sony and Nintendo use a lot of OpenGL too. They are not exactly light-weights, and I'm sure they would simply create custom APIs. . .
Of course, that would certaintly hurt the xbox. I can just imagine the whining that would result if Sony and/or Nintendo decided to use secret "really neat" custom APIs. MS would then have to compete feature for feature with black-box code, in an area where they have very little experience. MS would have to Optimize the code, or throw amazing amounts of hardware (compared to the competition), and still have to sell at the same price.
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
Well now, for the first time, they have painted a big red X on their foreheads and donned a t-shirt saying "We are now the bad guys, and we are going to start taking away your freedoms."
Time to get cracking on the open hardware project. This is going to set computing back ten years. Here is a company that made its fortune by stealing code, encouraging rival hardware manufacturers, enabling software piracy, and making poor imitations of competitors products.
Now that they have cheated, killed, and clawed their way to No. 1, they are trying to close off the doors that enabled them to get where they are today. I hope they get what they deserve.
I don't think that they've actually made it clear exactly how much they intend to claim is covered. If they have, then I haven't noticed it.
It seems pretty clear that the 2D work isn't covered. And I'm sure that they will claim that the patent covers a lot more than anyone else would consider reasonable. So far the references seem to refer to "vertex shading", but to me, at least, that's a bit ambiguous.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
How can you patent an API?
If this what a lawyer is telling us, then why can't he determine one way or the other what the bottom line is?
Perhaps it's just FUD. Hasn't any Patent lawyer looked over the issue, outside of MS?
And if MS bought some IP from SGI and this caused the problem, the where else can MS buy up IP and cause problems?
Shouldn't such an issue be the focus....to remove such a possibility before MS makes things worse?
Com on guys, let just ask Microsoft politely to contribute to the Open Source community. I am sure they will understand. After all every major company contributes.
- What exact patents can be or are already owned by microsoft?
http://www.delphion.com/research may be helpful
- What can be done for rewriting that parts of standard patent-free?
I would say the exact opposite. While linking to a printer friendly version might be slightly nicer for you, it abuses the website owner. Many sites do not offer any form of printer friendly version, those sites that do should be encouraged. Linking directly to the printer friendly version, skipping past revenue generating ads etc. is just plain bad manners. Abusing this feature just means it will be removed, and people who really want to print it will be stuck with the ad laden misformatted version. Just because the feature is there doesnt mean you get to abuse it whenever you want.
Lets not forget that that Linux is completely seperate from the graphical environment. And... Since Microshit is still light years ahead of KDE or Gnome, this gives all the Open source programmers a chance to develop a completely new standard. I view this with optimistic eyes. Beat trhe hell out of M$ for monoliptic praticies while developing a new (and better) Open Source graphical environment.
I don't know if we are talking about the same company, but Microsoft has produced many amazing games.
Flight Sim 98, 2000, 2002, Combat Flight Sim 1, Combat Flight Sim 2, Links, MechWarrior, MotoCross Madness... not to mention all there Xbox games that kick ass.
I'm sorry, but Windows 2000 runs just fine, Windows XP runs just fine, Office 2000 is a great suite, Microsoft Money is a life saver, and i can go on and on.
Just because YOU don't like there product, doesn't mean you can speak for the millions that DO like there games.
Flight Sim 2002 alone is worth every damn penny, and without microsoft a game that advanced wouldn't be available for the 39.00 you can purchase it at. Good simulation programs can run upwards of 200 bucks, and have alot less features!
Problem is OpenGL must be, in a way, implemented on hardware. You basically need the proper call to make the card do what you wish, which is, if I recall correctly, what MESA does. Problem is, with a patent, MESA becomes illegal to use if patent require licence...
With 6 million xboxen built, it should be Nvidia thanking microsoft.
I don't see Sony buying up OpenGL to use it as a standard either... atleast if they do, they don't publish it and make it widely known.
Microsoft is pushing Palladium
Microsoft is exerting their "right" over IP in OpenGL.
Isn't it obvious that their focus has nothing to do with "innovation" and "the good of all". They are ONLY focused on what is GOOD for MICROSOFT!!!!
When is everyone going to realize this and just decide to NOT play with them anymore?
Customers and "purchase" power STILL works in this country. (Freedom of speech against the gov may not, but that is another story)
OpenGL only solves one problem, and that is the Graphics.
DirectX provides an API all aspects of deployment and operations. You get Sound, Video, Graphics, Networking, Device integration (Joysticks/Mice/Yokes...) and more.
DirectX has a plethora of COMMERCIAL support and addons to make producing software easier, cheaper and quicker.
I have yet to see a developer who likes one over the other since they both can be a royal pain to develop with.. Atleast with DirectX microsoft has a vast library of resources, demos, and code to throw at you.
... and it doesn't take MS to cause problems. The general consensus amongst developers who use the more advanced OGL features (pixel and fragment shaders/programs, etc.) is that things are currently a mess.
;) In any case, there's been a lot of stalling over this issue due to that sort of crap as well.
OpenGL is comprised of a central body of standard functionality which _must_ be implemented in order to use the name OpenGL. Additionally there's an extension mechanim which allows IHVs (like NVidia, ATI, etc.) to implement their own funcitonality which isn't currently a part of the core standard. That's how we have Fragment/Pixel shaders/programs today, as IHV extensions from NVidia and ATI. This system tends to work pretty well, but you start to get into problems with the interface. Essentially what happens is that all the IHVs decide that they need to do something along the lines of vertex programs (a way to manipulated verticies after they have been passed to the GPU, more or less), which is true. It's a cool feature any everyone likes it. Since they're being implemented as IHV extensions they're not standardized at all, so if you want to use a vertex program from NVidia you have to use their vertex program assembly language, but if you want to accomplish the same thing on an ATI card you have to use _their_ vertex program assembly (which, by the by, tends to follow a completely different model than NVidia), ad naseum.
Naturally all of this is a pain in the ass for developers. You now not only have to have different rendering paths for the various combinations of available extensions, but you have to write the same routines in drastically different languages to support a given set of functions.
Now getting all of this into a standard extension to the core API is supposed to solve some of these problems, but the IHVs aren't totally in favour of that as they then lose some product differentiation/control/etc. Mind you, this bit is speculation and observation, I don't actually know what the IHVs are thinking, but history shows that they sometimes have trouble working together
And it's exactly these kinds of disagreements that are holding up OpenGL 2.0, which is supposed to directly address many of these problems. NVidia, for instance, has CG, their high level shading language. CG can be compiled down to their proprietry shader code (for use with NV_* extensions on NVidia cards) and, _in theory_ down to the proprietary code for other cards. However, for that to actually work ATI, etc. need to create so called "profiles" which allow the CG compiler to do it's thing. Clearly NVidia wants some degree of control/name recognition/whatever here... in the case where CG takes off you'd need to get your dev tools from NVidea regardless of which cards you're targeting. Now this idea is in direction competition with the OpenGL 2.0 proposal, which gives much of the same functionality but via a standard set of interfaces that replace current IHV proprietary code rather than a compiler ship on the top. Natrually this makes NVidia a little less enthusiastic about OpenGL 2.0 in it's current (proposed) form.
And on, and on, and on.
Right about now DX 9 (really the D3D componant...) is starting to look pretty damn good to a lot of us. It's got standard interfaces for pixel shading, etc. that just work with the various cards, it's a much improved API from it's early days, and given all the extension thrash it's much easier to write clean, readable code under D3D than OpenGL anymore.
Of course you're screwed if you need to port, but that's the plan, right?
The point of all this is simply that while MS is certainly doing their part to muck about with OpenGL (like not updating the damn dev tools since OpenGL 1.1!!!) they're not alone in that hobby. IHV squabbles have always been an issue in that area, and MS' best tactic to date has been to take advantage of the slowness of the ARB (often arising from IHV squabbling) and run right on by with their own API. So their adding to the infighting isn't really that much of a change to the situation, as I see it.
Behold the Power of Cheese!
What about the fact that OpenGL has been a standard for many years? Aren't there rules or laws about this type of thing to prevent this exact situation? It kind of reminds me of the whole Unisys/GIF thing, but I guess Unisys ended up screwing everyone over in the end. Why are they allowed to do this? I can't believe it could be legal to spread a standard for years and years, and then suddenly make everyone who adopted it pay or else.
I know more than you drink.
...you're in trouble.
Because I use Office 2000 every day, and it's not even remotely a good product. It's a feature landfill. It's terminally buggy. The documents spontaneously corrupt themselves in MANY ways. And it still has well-known bugs in it from Word for Windows 2.0, not to mention misfeatures like fast save and Master Document which NEVER worked in the first place.
It's not even as good a product as Office 95 was.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Amazing.
You know, if you had spent the time doing something else besides ASCII artowrk you might have had enough money to buy yourself another cheap bottle of malt liquor.
> An IP lawyer says that Microsoft could make things difficult for OpenGL if they feel like it, basically.
When you've got billions of dollars in the bank, you can make things difficult for anybody if you feel like it, basically.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
libSDL Most of Loki's games were ported to it with success.
So a person that would shoot 12 people wouldn't do so if it were illegal to own a gun?
It's already illegal to just shoot people right?
And you think prohibiting gun ownership would surely curb such violence...
You are truly ignorant.
Play no games, say no names
Maybe MS doesn't like Linux's penetration in the Movie industry?
That's the way MS works, and if they start loosing ground (like they already are) they will play those cards. I for one am glad I don't buy MS products to give them the money to be able to pull this @#$%.
The plural of X-Box is X-Boxes. Please consult Merriam-Webster and try again.
I have done IP work as a litigation paralegal in the past and I have a few thoughts from a grunts perspective. If M$ decides to push this and it ends up in court it will be a long 4 to 5 year road that they will have to travel. During which time everyone tied to the graphics industry will be operating under uncertainty and not a little bit of trepidation. Good luck finding steady investors! M$ would most likely try and use the same uncertainty that they are causing as a bargaining chip in getting what the want. As someone who has dealt with IP issues, and a creative writer as well, I cannot say how much actions like this sicken me. Patents were created as a way to inspire innovation and creative thought. M$ and their lawyers are bastardizing that as a way to ensure that they do NOT have to innovate. Its disgusting.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
they take the "open" out of "OpenGL" if Microsoft is going to be involved. With those kind of War Chests -- they could convince a jury that water was wine.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Essentially then, M$ stated at an OpenGL meeting that it has some patents related to graphics. The article says NOTHING about any application of those claims to OpenGL technology in use, the validity of the patents, or any other of a host of issues.
The article slants slightly toward the view that M$ can make things really problematic if it wants but that simply may not be true. As far as I am concerned, in my opinion as a registered patent attorney, there is no story here unless and until M$ shows an issued patent and describes how the claim reads on OpenGL. Move along folks -- there's nothing to see here.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
I'm about tired of all this MS this and that. I say why bother honoring their patents. I don't no many people that would honor bad faith laws in any thing else. Just because it's law doesn't mean it's just.
In Rome they used to round up and kill christians, but now look at how much authority the papalicy has there. Laws change when groups act and grow to the majority. Everyone that can should push to shut out groups that abuse patents. You can't invalidate contracts retroactively in the US I thought.
British Telecom claims to own hyperlinking for example, and I don't know any person, government, or company giving in on that...
If everyone not just ignores but protests the law/patent then it can be invalidated.
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offtopic
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Also remember MS doesn't have all the money they claim -- they use various Enron accounting techniques like wages paid in options, pro forma numbers, and cookie jarring to report false profits. I wouldn't expect the SEC to do anything to them since they're the biggest big cap, and it would hurt the larger markets.
When you see someone saying 'MS has $XXB', please remind them that's not true. I'm willing to bet that they're actually operating at a loss. Look at how they're trying to con schools and companies with over charging... that's enough of that.
Rambus tried to pull the same stunt with it's SDRAM (as pointed out in the article) and look what it got them. Maybe the OpenGL people should take a lesson from that and sue Microsoft. Deceptive trade practices are the same no matter who you are or how big you get. This method's name is bait and switch. One of the oldest methods in the world to get someone hooked onto one thing and then switch to something else.
Sort of like being a drug dealer. The first one's always free. Or another way to put it is hooking a fish. You always use good bait to catch a fish don't you? Then you set the hook and reel'em in nice and slow. There's only a little pain as they realize they've got no control over their destiny anymore. And no matter how hard they try - they can't get loose. Oh - some of them rip their mouths to pieces to get free. But eventually though you just drag'em in and toss'em into your bag and go look for another sucker....er fish.
I don't think that nVidia should feel that MS owes them anything, since if the tables were flipped, MS would stab them in the back. Or at least I speculate that MS would, but only based on prior actions on their behalf.
;)
I hope that MS subsides the next X-Box as much as they are this one. That would be cool
Microsoft in the past has wanted to abandon OpenGL for their Direct X platform but hasn't been able to because of how much OpenGL was used and because developers have been upset with non-backwards compatibility of Direct X and other legal aspects. I think there is a good chance Microsoft is trying to cause problems as they have a track record of doing. If Microsoft can put a few bumps in OpenGL's development at this critical time in Graphic Extentions development, they will have a chance of pushing Direct X forward and leaving OpenGL behind. Microsoft has been upset with the ARB since about '94 and has wanted to control graphics in the PC market but luckily SGI kept them from doing this due to some smart thinking on SGI's part. For the last 4 years specifically, Microsoft has been planning and trying to force Direct X onto developers and also give them reasons to not use OpenGL. It's been nice work of certain famed individuals at some unnamed game companies that keep pushing OpenGL over Direct X. If it weren't for their hard work, the work of the ARB, and many OpenGL enthusiasts, OpenGL could have died off by now. For anyone who reads this and appreciates OpenGL, remember to write and thank those who keep pushing for a something that is more "open" than Direct X.
The origin of Microsoft's patents is unclear, but the company has acquired intellectual property from SGI, Nvidia, ATI Technologies, Intel and others, according to industry observers. "They've just been picking it up everywhere," said Jon Peddie, head of consulting firm Jon Peddie Research. "They have a huge library of intellectual property."
They did so knowingly these IP rights were part of an open standard which they were using themselves. Did they think they were ripping Microsoft off by selling them these IP rights thinking these IP rights could never be enforced? How stupid, I say let Microsoft corner them and take the industry. They asked for it.
The really regretful thing is the consumer is the one who takes in the rear all the time.
WE ARE GETTING SCREWED, YET AGAIN.
i've spent a year using and studying opengl.
and now you tell me it's going out of business!!! nooo my eyes!
A few years ago the Net was kind of shaken when Unisys decided to assert its patent rights (they owned the patent to the GIF format). Almost overnight the format that is known as PNG (Portable Network Graphics) was developed and implemented by the Open SOurce community. I don't think Unisys has make a lot of money from the GIF patent as a result.
While some issues of patent law makes sense... the very fact that a company can sit on their hands for 10 years while waiting for a product to achieve worldwide appeal, THEN reveal that they own a patent on that product and pick up the market without doing any of the gruntwork to promote it, is just atrocious.
Microsoft knows about OpenGL. They know what it does, they know what features it supports. If it takes them 10 years to figure out they have a patent which OpenGL infringes on, then that patent was probably a waste of money, since its pretty clearly not getting a whole lot of use, or someone would have noticed it before now. Unless, of course, they wanted to wait awhile first. Unfortunately, the law lets them do just that.
I don't know about you, but if I paid $20,000 for a patent on something, and some company was going to town marketing an infringing product, you better believe I would be publically screaming about it, sending letters to cease and desist, filing motions in court. There would be none of this sitting around waiting crap. If I put forth the risk to secure the guarantee on the exclusive nature of my product, you can bet I wouldn't want another company stealing my thunder in that regard.
Now, I don't buy into patents in that manner, especially when it comes to software. yes, I can patent my mousetrap, but if someone makes a better mousetrap, they have that right, free and clear, and I'm not guaranteed anything from there. You can't patent ideas. So you wrote a vertex shader. Good for you. Unless I'm copying your source code, its not a legal issue. And even if I am, its a copyright issue. The ability
to patent algorithms is all but silly.
However, as it stands, that's the way the law wants to work. Fine. But if you've patented some silly algorithm, you better not sit on your hands while someone else does a lot of hard work to develop it in parallel, promotes it, perhaps even patents it (a patent office that allows you to patent the wheel and swing motions cannot be
trusted to catch duplicate patents), and sells it, only to step in later and tell them to hand it all over. There needs to be a time limit on making claims once knowledge of the product is discovered. Not knowledge of your own patents, you're already supposed to know about those. That's what legal departments are for. Wait longer than 6 months, you forfeit the right to claim infringement later.
At least, that's how it should be.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
it's time to fight the power!
if m$ forces opengl to be terminated we must
move underground! secret societies releasing
updated opengl drivers for different 3d cards.
secret meetings with top secret handshakes and
passphrases! and i want to wear that cool,
pink face mask i've kept in my locker for years.
Kill it on the desktop, and you come a step closer to killing it in the server market. Less people with experience in Linux leads to more unfortunate uninformed MS server choices. It's not like this is M$'s only attack on Linux, they clearly understand the concept of death by 1000 cuts.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Except maybe it really does, but nobody's touching this side of the story.
A company agrees to not press IP issues for a particular item. Further development is then carried out, in good faith, by outside groups for the item based on the original agreement. The original agreement is still in force when the company is purchased. I would view it that you not only purchased the company, but you purchased their debt as well (in this case the debt would be not pressing the IP issue).
Now, if no further outside development had been performed on the original item I would see a court allowing the new owner to change the original agreement. With the amount of outside work and the diversity of groups doing the work I don't think a court would allow a change to made (it's already too far out of the gate).
Just my 2c's
Surely if a product is made Open(GL) - Free to use etc... and bits of it are patented... they use the right to have it back from the public domain unless the original Open licence has clauses to specifically let them do so?
Does the orginal licence let them do this?
The fact that MIcosoft but the rights years later is neither here non there if they have been given away previously.
MS can pay me *one hell of a lot of money*, and then I would probably be willing to answer this question.
I'll be damned if I'm going to identify all of their competitor's weak spots for them for free.
Nice try, though...
-- Terry
Really!
Intellectual property law in this country has gotten out of hand!
The IRS is a private corporation, 60% owned by British interests!
Taxation *with* representation sucks as bad as taxation *without* representation!
(Don't blame me, I voted for Khodos Perot!)
The UK seems to have avoided the patenting of software, and human genes... and it was your astute guidance that did it!
Oh, King George, Where Are You now!!!
Come Back To US, George!!!(*)
-- Terry
(*) Offer not valid in New Jersey or the District of Columbia; some restriction may apply. See your dealer for details.
> OpenGL only solves one problem, and that is
> the Graphics.
>
> DirectX provides an API all aspects of deployment
> and operations. You get Sound, Video, Graphics,
> Networking, Device integration
> (Joysticks/Mice/Yokes...) and more.
Just curious...is there an umbrella project which includes all of the open type APIs in the same way that DirectX does?
I know there is OpenGL (graphics),and OpenAL (audio) but are there others as well?
I have heard of something called OpenPL (hardware periperals - http://sourceforge.net/projects/openpl/) but I'm not sure if that's the same.
Is their an OpenNet? OpenNL?
Maybe someone should make something like an:
OpenAPI
- OpenGL
- OpenAL
- OpenPL
- OpenNL
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
* The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated. i think that about covers it
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Maybe we should deliver this story to you on a silver platter? Would you like a ham sandwich and a blowjob with that?
Or how about you get a real internet connection and stop whining like a pussy?
W W C D What Would Carmack Do?? if opengl went closed?? ifeartheworst
But most companies don't care, so don't even bother calling themselves such. What they want is to be able to say "compatible with Microsoft(r) Windows(tm) 95, 98, ME, 2k, XP" on their box. They don't care about "certified 100% OpenGL(r) compliant" labels. In fact as mentioned, many video cards didn't even pretend to be OpenGL compliant for a long time -- 3dfx only shipped a "MiniGL" driver that supported exactly the subset of OpenGL that Quake used, because that's the only thing anyone used OpenGL for anyway.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
There's no such thing as "donating patents to the public domain" as far as I know. What you can do is grant a blanket royalty-free license to use your patents. But I don't think there's anything to stop you from rescinding the license.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Unless there was actually a contract signed stating that these patents would be licensed in perpetuity under a no-royalty license. Then Microsoft charging for its patents would be breach of contract. But I'm not aware of any such contract -- just implicit agreements, which aren't legally binding.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's hard where I would draw the line but it is good to take away the IP in certain cases. I remember the price for the anthrax medicine. I think everyboby agrees that in that case economy shouldn't do it's work. The medicine should be widely available. In this case i would agree to take away the IP to make production widely possible.
But now for the case of OpenGL and probably other 'inventions' aswell. Perhaps if a certain product is available for free for a certain time it should be forbidden to claim the patent rights. This way it would be clear from the beginning that it's not an 'embrace and extend' trick.
The point is NOT that I would deny a company his patents, but I would like what i'm up to and not have the rules changed halfway while there's nothing I can do about it.
Imagine the chaos when somebody claims the IP of the keybeard... and gets it!
Privacy is terrorism.
Didn't Rick Belluzo settle all this when he was President of SGI? Just before he went to work for Microsoft, of course.
Can't beat them -- make them unviable!
Fscking sad.
I would love to see SGI, Nvidia, ATI, and other leading graphics companys to step it up ...
Why would they? It is not their role in life to support Linux and other GPL'd software. As a matter of fact it would simplify NVIDIA's and ATI's life if they didn't have to support Linux.
Keep in mind that the "fair" licensing terms will probably be very fair to NVIDIA, ATI, and other commercial outfits. The only group likely to be screwed are the GPL based folks, MS is likely to have an "anti-viral" clause in their IP license that will be incompatible with GPL.
Since everybody keeps bringing SouthPark references everywhere (phase 1, steal underpants...) I'll make my little reference (sorta) here:
"What would John boy Carmack do
if OpenGL went closed,
He would kick an ass or two,
That's what John boy Carmack'd do."
Just type 'extend' next time, and maybe people will take your post seriously. Thanks.
If a single company effectively controls an entire segment of a market by virtue of its patents, is that monopolist?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
duh
If they insist on calling it property, then let's start treating it like Real Estate.
If I have a farm in the way of a new superhighway that's required for the common good, then the government just expropriates it -- they force me to take a 'reasonable' amount of money, and they take the property. The gov't gets to decide what is reasonable.
I wouldn't mind my tax dollars being used to expropriate OpenGL
It proffered no meaningful analysis of the scope or nature of Microsoft's claims -- offered no insights drawn from 18 month publications, and took no account of obvious and likely strategies that could be taken to counter the "threat" of an abuse of IP ownership in these contexts.
The time is long since past due that a community of open source developers and technicians need to develop a portfolio of technology patents to cross-license against such threats. If significant standards were so protected, even a Microsoft could not long resist the need to "quid pro quo" its blocking technologies, even if it had some.
> MS is likely to have an "anti-viral" clause in their IP license that will be incompatible with GPL.
;)
so what? if mesa wants to get into XFree it has to be X11-licensed anyway...
and if rms really wants to have gpl'd vertex shaders, well - I think microsoft would sell him a license
but seeing that rms copes with emacs I don't think he's into that stuff...
doesn't anyone else notice the striking resemlance of the Apple/Microsoft patent issue back in the '80s? which one? well, the one where Apple claimed that Microsoft stole many ideas from it's 'windowing system' which was developed for the IIe. they got off easy back then, and now they're sticking it to OpenGL in the same way.
its ironic how in their infancy they were the ones stealing the IP, now they are probably one of the most defensive companies when it comes to that.
First I thought pallididumb (Or however it's spelled.) was a big threat to open standards (the possibility to kill open video/audio codec standards). Now OpenGL a very crucial component to the open source community is threatened by Microsoft. When will it stop? And how can it be stopped? How long will it be before MS Tries to create there own internet protocol to replace TCP/IP and make it propriety only to MS products? They really could do it if they wanted to given enough time and effort.
So how do we stop this monster from steamrolling the entire free and open market? The government looks like it can't even defeat them and are siding with them on palladium. So I thought to myself "Maybe physical destruction of MS would work". Malicious IT insiders could destroy terabytes of data on servers. Data storage rooms could be torched destroying months or years of ms code work. Bombs or other attacks could take out key office buildings. Maybe a well placed and made dirty bomb could render the Redmond campus unsafe to inhabit bringing development to a grinding halt. Or to upset the power structure, assonate Gates him self and watch the board of directors kill each other to see who gets to head the company (And possibly watch them run MS into the ground.) This seems like the only way to stop them. We have tried FREE Operating systems, word processors, browsers, server software and many others but nothing really worked. If you think about it if those planes that hit the WTC and Pentagon were aimed at gates mansion and the Redmond campus we all would probably thank bin laden for what he did and passed out candy along with the Palestinians.
Yes what I talk of is horrible and even repulsive to some of you but to me and others it's the only SHURE way to stop them. The same also goes for the RIAA and other associated ass fucking companies.
This post was not thoroughly edited for spelling or grammar.
Nobody believed "us" back in the day when MS first adopted Java. We all TOLD YOU SO! That Microsoft was going to embrace and extend the standard, and fuck it up so that it would not work properly on Windows.
Oh no, you said. We were just a bunch of paranoid unix loving long haired hippies that needed a bath and got off on bashing Microsoft because they were the embodiment of "the man".
Here it is, 2002. See where Java on WIndows is today.
Back in the 80's we told you that NOBODY was going to be able to stop Microsoft. You told us in 1993 when the DOJ sued them for anticompetitive behavior that that was it for MS. They got the consent decree in 95, and wiped their asses with it and stuffed it in the judge's mouth. Then in 1998, when the DOJ came a knockin again, you said - that was IT, no more mister nice guy, they'll put a stop to that evil Microsoft, but we'll keep running Windows over here in our little corner, because it was "most compatible" "most convenient".
Well, look. Here it is, 2002, no sign of a settlement with any degree of teeth - Microsoft has it's fingers in nearly every aspect of computing, and has extended into entertainment, banking, even fucking HISTORY for christ's sake (buying DaVincci's stuff and locking it down). And there you people go, still saying Windows is great, Office is a great app, etc. Well, thanks. You've sold us all into slavery.
You'll now say - don't worry, they won't close off OpenGL (hm - I wonder if they think if all that money they spent on marketing XBox was effective. OF COURSE NOT! Not until they kill of OpenGL). You say, they won't close off identity and privacy (.NET, Palladium).
Dude, we're living in a totally fucked up world.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
From about 1997 and on, PRO/E has been running significantly faster and cheaper on Intel/NT and Intel/Win2k/Nvidia.
In '97 i remeber moving 30 engineers from Indigo's and Octane's to a Wintel/NT platform (Dual p2s with oxygens)most were excited purely for being able to open excel spreadsheets, but many noticed the decreased render time.
Today, there's nothing nearly as cost competive and fast as Pro/E on dual P4 2.2's, Nvidia Quad4 and win2k.
I hear your sentiment and understand your 'BMW/Chey' analogy. I heard it from very specific engineers when I moved them off the SGI/Unix world. Honestly, it was maybe 2 out of the 30. They were of course the 'wizards' of the group. They knew all the tricks, and when the other 28 engineers couldn't figure out how to do something, they went to those 2. Lost files, common unix mistakes, hidden views, missing models... etc. We had the 2 guys keep a log of how oftern they helped out others. Over a 4 month period, they spent around 39% of their time helping others.
After moving to the NT that droped to 5% over a 4 month period.
It will always be as it was. Wizards love Unix, Joe Worker likes whatever is simple to use (Windows, Mac, whatever). I think they are both good, but hell if I'll ever give SUN another dime.
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Fool us once, shame on you, fool us for the eighty-seventh time...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Needless to say when Linus dropped the bomb, I slurped up a 0.97 Debian system via ftp and started toying with it. Compared to MS-DOS and Windows 3.0, Debian Linux and XFree86 was such a stupendous improvement that any power user literally drooled over its potential...
C.A. 2002 now a new bunch of jerk-wads like yourself with more money than sense wants to support these criminals? Microsoft makes the U.S. Government ( the most notoriously corrupt government in the history of the world ) look like a bunch of wanna-bees. Don't get me wrong here, I like my corrupt government, but I don't want Microsoft to _become_ the government, which it is working very dilligently and insidiously to do.
Windows looks like a PIECE OF CRAP compared to Debian with Enlightenment 16, "Hand of God" theme, and Gnome with "Graphite" theme. The only time I ever boot to Windows is to play Serious Sam . So don't call me "kiddie" and go pay your tribute to Bill "Mammon" Gates, you foolish spendthrift and enemy of freedom. You are buying your way into slavery, fool.
Wheres the friggin' Tequila... arghhh!
Clickety Click
Which explains why companies collect patents like candy. For self-defense.
Just like the situation all those years ago. Remember CP/M and DOS? Guess which was the more expensive offering?
Mac OS X uses OpenGL...
But recall that when Apple and Microsoft had the love-fest when Steve Jobs first returned to the helm, Apple and Microsoft agreed to cross-license their patents. So Apple's use of OpenGL is in the clear.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
MS can pay me *one hell of a lot of money*
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Arrgh... where's the Tequila!
Clickety Click
Let's stop riding the capitalist/communist fence here. Companies don't innovate anything, they provide resources for individuals in their employ to innovate with. The people who "innovated" Direct3d just happened to work at a different company to start with. Whether you foster innovation in a creative hippie commune type environment, or buy it up, what difference does it make? Everyone is selling it anyway.
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
It occurs to me that what would solve this problem (assuming the IP rights apply to the API rather than actual board chips) is a new standard that could technologically rival OpenGL and D3D. How much work would it take to get something like SDL up to the level of OpenGL/DirectX? Or create a totally new API? There's tons of OSS talent out there (as evidenced by the nifty OS and browser I'm using to post this) if some of it could be directed to a project like this it could undermine MS's hold on graphics technology. Release it free and unrestricted (not GPLed, because if we want it to become a standard we want people making proprietary programs to be able to use it) and it could become the next de facto graphics standard. I guess this is one of the problems with the OSS world; because everyone hacks what they feel like hacking, talent doesn't get distributed to where its needed most. That's all well and good most of the time, but people are out there making 3 or 4 versions of the same program while something like this could effect the viability of OSS altogether. On a side note, this should serve as a warning. Linux and OSS depends on a lot of proprietary stuff. Now its offered for free, and open source in some cases, but companies could change that, and then where would we be?
I think that Redhat was right to get its own patents. Open source needs some software patents of its own to bargain with. Or at least use them to block certain monopolistic companies from certain areas of computer software.
To revoke licenses that have already been granted, yes. But there's nothing to stop them from granting further licenses, meaning no further implementations.
This isn't like the GPL, where you can't rescind it because it allows other people to pass on the license. With the GPL, the original company could decide to stop licensing the code, but you could still get the already in-the-wild code from someone who already has it, who can then license it to you under the GPL. I doubt the royalty-free patent license OpenGL uses is a viral GPL style one though.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
ARB_vertex_program was design because of the two different current methods of vertex shaders that are out. Nvidia owns GL_NV_vertex_program and ATI owns GL_EXT_vertex_shader. Now ARB_vertex_program sits some where in the middle of these to similar extensions but I cannot see a way that the middle ground could be violating a pending patent and that current other two extensions don't.
DirectX was already at version 3 when the first OpenGL game came out (GLQuake) - even then it was only using a GL minidriver.
Up until that point all 3d-accelerated games had all been written specifically for certain cards - i.e. 3dfx, Rendition, PowerVR etc...
Direct3D was much more a way of freeing developers from writing a different engine backend for every graphics card out there, and a way of persuading developers to write their games in Windows rather than DOS (there were still a lot of DOS 3d-accelerated games out there then!). At the time nobody really considered OpenGL for game use because the consumer cards out there didn't support OpenGL - To be a proper OpenGL implementation, you have to support *all* the base OpenGL features. This was unlike Direct3D, in which you didn't have to and the capabilities of the card could (allegedly) be found out by querying the driver. Therefore, none of the consumer cards had OpenGL - as to have a full driver, quite a bit of functionality would have had to have been implemented in software - not acceptable for gaming.
It wasn't until 3dfx got together with id and they produced the GLQuake/3dfx miniGLdriver combination that people started considering OpenGL, and just ignoring the parts of the standard that they couldn't do on their cards.
Therefore, in many ways the article has it the wrong way round - OpenGL for consumer cards was in many respects a reaction to DirectX, and the fact that people wanted an alternative to Direct3D which at the time was still rather rough around the edges.
What I find amusing is that everybody gets pissed off at Microsoft, instead of SGI, who sold these precious patents in the first place. Who committed the greater crime? (Not that I'm personally worked up over this issue, but you know what I mean.)
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Look at what M$ is doing: ... you know the rest
* OpenGL attack
* Palladium
* DMCA
*
To date, these have all been set up, but that is about it. A company like M$ doesn't spend money unless it gets something back, so when will that be ?
I suspect that once M$ has a battery of these 'legal' cannons it will unleash them all at once against it's enemies - sorry - competitors.
There will be a lot of smoke & noise for many months, what will remain once the smoke clears ?
www.dict.org, read carefully and learn
"Microsoft said it would license the technology on a 1:1 basis, in return for intellectual property from OpenGL licensees, but this could carry its own pitfalls."
OK. Let's give them the right to use GPL code.
I'd really like to see an OpenGL version of 3DMark.
Like they need anymore -- they've already got over $40bn. (Unless, of course, they've lied on their financial reports, and they're almost bankrupt, in which case I suppose we can all feel sorry for them...*cough*)
[insert witty comment here]
They don't have to now, either.
You are mistaken, they have to because a non-trivial number of people using Linux want to buy their cards.