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A Lawyer's View on the OpenGL Patent Mess

Posted by Hemos on from the divide-and-conquer dept.

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. "

3 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Then it's time to strike back. by Rahga · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. OpenGL's future by maynard-lag · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
  3. The key is this phrase - get used to it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".