Microsoft to collect fees for OpenGL patents [AND web services]

[Nemesis77]

I wouldn't be surprised if one of the requirements to license this tech from MS is is "You cannot use this tech on Linux". Can you say "antitrust" and "abuse of monopoly"?

MS can kiss my ass. And it still surprises me how brainwashed MS-drones *cough*Ameesh*cough*are, that they think it's somehow cool to have a convicted monopolist to hold the entire IT-indsutry by the short and curlies.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: Nemesis77
I wouldn't be surprised if one of the requirements to license this tech from MS is is "You cannot use this tech on Linux". Can you say "antitrust" and "abuse of monopoly"?

MS can kiss my ass. And it still surprises me how brainwashed MS-drones *cough*Ameesh*cough*are, that they think it's somehow cool to have a convicted monopolist to hold the entire IT-indsutry by the short and curlies.

LOL, i love your posts!

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: Ameesh

Originally posted by: Nemesis77
I wouldn't be surprised if one of the requirements to license this tech from MS is is "You cannot use this tech on Linux". Can you say "antitrust" and "abuse of monopoly"?

MS can kiss my ass. And it still surprises me how brainwashed MS-drones *cough*Ameesh*cough*are, that they think it's somehow cool to have a convicted monopolist to hold the entire IT-indsutry by the short and curlies.

LOL, i love your posts!

And I find your pro-MS posts to be nothing but a ramblings of a sad, brainwashed individual. Do you REALLY think that it's beneficial for IT-industry as a whole to have MS controlling everything? I bet you just love the concept of monopoly and Big Brother? Oh well, what more can I expect from a brainwashed drone?

EDIT: and I find it interesting that you "love my posts" since I hve whipped your ass in every single MS-related debates we have had. You enjoy losing, do you?

 

[Platypus]

Nemesis knows the score.

This whole thing is sad.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: manly
DaveSimmons,

I understand your point, and everybody knows I'm no fan of Mickeysoft, but if they truly hold patent(s) on that technology, then they are trying to cash in on it like any other corporation. The only shady part of that would be if any such patents were purchased from SGI, but even then you'd have to blame SGI as much as MS. Cash-strapped SGI could have sold its IP to any number of companies for probably the same price; apparently they chose to deal with the bottom feeders in the industry. =) The real problem is with the flawed patent regime, one that grants patents on technology that the Patent Office does not understand and often that is not innovative or novel.

I find it somewhat amusing that this thread and the recent WMP EULA update thread generated a lot of bad publicity for MS (at least within ATOT). For years now, as exposed in the anti-trust case, MS plays dirty and clearly at the edge of the law (if not past it) and many consumers seem to happily support them as a good corporate citizen. I think the recent flaps are more an aberration than a shift in perspective.

I see the problem as being Microsoft buying IP then using it to block open source and open standards in order to lock people in to their proprietary formats / APIs (and hence into Windows). Since MS has been convicted of abusing their monopoly power they should not be allowed to further extend their reach this way, especially since the money they're buying the IP with was generated by their abuses.

I work full-time in Windows software development and haven't even gotten around to installing my copy of Red Hat so I'm not rabidly anti-MS, but as a developer I've watched them abuse their power for at least the last 12 years. Everything from crushing Borland by refusing to give them Windows API headers until long after they'd been made available in VC++, to forcing people to distribute IE with their apps if they wanted to use the updated common controls, to forcing people to install the latest IE to use the MSDN library.

As a consumer I've watched them destroy competition and innovation in browsers, utilities, backup software, media players and encoding and more, by bundling "free" mediocre versions of the software with Windows in order to "justify" keeping the OS price artificially inflated, as well as other dirty tricks like bundling "free" media encoding with Windows servers to damage competitors in both the encoding and server OS markets.

If all this bundling was done to "benefit the consumer" (and trial documents proved that was not the case) then why isn't MS Word bundled "free" with Windows?

 

[Ameesh]

if they own the patents, they are theirs to do with as they please, I dont think anybody will care how much you piss, moan, or cry. if it's MS's IP then they can do whatever they want with it include the most common practice in the world which is license it.

 

[Ameesh]

DaveSimmons if you dont like microsoft so much, why dont you work for a company that doesnt use there products, there are many out there, like amazon.com or sun and many many web hosting companies. I'm sure as a developer of 12 years you could find a place to work at.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Ameesh
DaveSimmons if you dont like microsoft so much, why dont you work for a company that doesnt use there products, there are many out there, like amazon.com or sun and many many web hosting companies. I'm sure as a developer of 12 years you could find a place to work at.

Actually I've only been a full-time developer for 8.5 years, but I was paying attention in college

I prefer developing application software to client/server or webserver (though I've done a bit of web programming and enjoyed it). Since Windows has 95% of the desktop market that's where the interesting work is. I also have nothing against the Win32 APIs or MFC, it's only some of the business practices of Microsoft that I take issue with.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: Ameesh
DaveSimmons if you dont like microsoft so much, why dont you work for a company that doesnt use there products, there are many out there, like amazon.com or sun and many many web hosting companies. I'm sure as a developer of 12 years you could find a place to work at.

Actually I've only been a full-time developer for 8.5 years, but I was paying attention in college

I prefer developing application software to client/server or webserver (though I've done a bit of web programming and enjoyed it). Since Windows has 95% of the desktop market that's where the interesting work is. I also have nothing against the Win32 APIs or MFC, it's only some of the business practices of Microsoft that I take issue with.

well if you have issues with the companies ethics dont you think its wrong of you to support them by developing on their platform?

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: Ameesh
if they own the patents, they are theirs to do with as they please, I dont think anybody will care how much you piss, moan, or cry. if it's MS's IP then they can do whatever they want with it include the most common practice in the world which is license it.

But since they also own and control the only competing 3D API (that ony works on a platform that they own and control), this could very well be another case of abuse of monopoly and antitrust. They can use their control of these patents to push people on their own API and on their own OS, away from the competing OS'es that rely on OpenGL for their 3D-acceleration.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: Nemesis77

Originally posted by: Ameesh
if they own the patents, they are theirs to do with as they please, I dont think anybody will care how much you piss, moan, or cry. if it's MS's IP then they can do whatever they want with it include the most common practice in the world which is license it.

But since they also own and control the only competing 3D API (that ony works on a platform that they own and control), this could very well be another case of abuse of monopoly and antitrust. They can use their control of these patents to push people on their own API and on their own OS, away from the competing OS'es that rely on OpenGL for their 3D-acceleration.

its only a small part of openGL (vertex shading and some fractal lighting) if the programmers dont use that then they are free to use the rest of the standard.

 

[SnapIT]

well if you have issues with the companies ethics dont you think its wrong of you to support them by developing on their platform?

And if you don't like the ethics of the arab countries that produce oil, you shouldn't buy gas from any company that uses it?

Or does your logic only apply to MS products?

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: SnapIT

well if you have issues with the companies ethics dont you think its wrong of you to support them by developing on their platform?

And if you don't like the ethics of the arab countries that produce oil, you shouldn't buy gas from any company that uses it?

Or does your logic only apply to MS products?

if you really dont like get an electric car.


i for one think its their oil, we buy it from them, if they want to charge $50k a barrel or $5 a barrel then its their pergotive. the only thing we can do is either buy it or come up with an alternitive fuel source and not have to buy it. its a matter of your convictions.

 

[SnapIT]

Originally posted by: Ameesh

Originally posted by: SnapIT

well if you have issues with the companies ethics dont you think its wrong of you to support them by developing on their platform?

And if you don't like the ethics of the arab countries that produce oil, you shouldn't buy gas from any company that uses it?

Or does your logic only apply to MS products?

if you really dont like get an electric car.


i for one think its their oil, we buy it from them, if they want to charge $50k a barrel or $5 a barrel then its their pergotive. the only thing we can do is either buy it or come up with an alternitive fuel source and not have to buy it. its a matter of your convictions.

Well, no problem for me, the company that i buy my gas from is called Hydro... that's norwegian oil...

What MS are doing isn't competing, it's acting like Tonya Harding, if you cannot be better, see to it that the competition doesn't make it to the ice... or try to... and i do think that the MS story is going to end the same way... but it will take some time before that happens...

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Ameesh

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: Ameesh
DaveSimmons if you dont like microsoft so much, why dont you work for a company that doesnt use there products, there are many out there, like amazon.com or sun and many many web hosting companies. I'm sure as a developer of 12 years you could find a place to work at.

Actually I've only been a full-time developer for 8.5 years, but I was paying attention in college

I prefer developing application software to client/server or webserver (though I've done a bit of web programming and enjoyed it). Since Windows has 95% of the desktop market that's where the interesting work is. I also have nothing against the Win32 APIs or MFC, it's only some of the business practices of Microsoft that I take issue with.

well if you have issues with the companies ethics dont you think its wrong of you to support them by developing on their platform?

There is a kernel of truth in that idea, if I were devote my life to fighting Microsoft instead of just pointing out their ethical lapses.

But in the real world, we all have compromises with supporting companies that we don't completely agree with, just like voting is often an exercise in choosing the lesser evil. If you looked in depth at all of the companies that you purchase products from, I'm sure you'd find many that have done something that violates your own code of ethics, even if it's only being owned by a tobacco company.

Microsoft has won the desktop OS market war for the forseeable future, so writing application software means writing for Windows. And finally, as I've already said I'm not fanatically anti-Microsoft, I'm just against Microsoft continuing to abuse their monopoly power.

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: Ameesh

Originally posted by: Nemesis77

Originally posted by: Ameesh
if they own the patents, they are theirs to do with as they please, I dont think anybody will care how much you piss, moan, or cry. if it's MS's IP then they can do whatever they want with it include the most common practice in the world which is license it.

But since they also own and control the only competing 3D API (that ony works on a platform that they own and control), this could very well be another case of abuse of monopoly and antitrust. They can use their control of these patents to push people on their own API and on their own OS, away from the competing OS'es that rely on OpenGL for their 3D-acceleration.

its only a small part of openGL (vertex shading and some fractal lighting) if the programmers dont use that then they are free to use the rest of the standard.

Small part maybe, but big enough to potentially give them a stranglehold on OpenGL. Or are you suggesting that OpenGL developers stop using shaders? Yeah, right

. Shader are a central part of all modern 3D-engines.

If they start using these licenses to push delevopers to Direct3D (and through that, to Windows), then they are breaking the law. It's illegal for a company that has a monoply to use that monopoly to push their other products. If they have a stranglehold on OpenGL (through their patents) and they use that stranglehold to push Direct3D, then it's a clear example of them using their stranglehold to push their oter products.

And, for what it's worth, here's a rief summary on these patents:

In summary, the present invention introduces specialized hardware integrated with microcode instructions allowing a complete graphics engine to be implemented in a single processor, and thereby reducing costs. The present invention simplifies process control and increases processing speed. Accordingly, the present invention allows more complex scenes to be rendered.

The preferred embodiment of the present invention, a processor for geometry transformations and lighting calculations, is thus described. While the present invention has been described in particular embodiments, it should be appreciated that the present invention should not be construed as limited by such embodiments, but rather construed according to the following claims.

 

[n0cmonkey]

If you cant build a better product, buy the competition and make it suck.

 

[Adul]

bump

 

[christoph83]

If they start using these licenses to push delevopers to Direct3D (and through that, to Windows), then they are breaking the law. It's illegal for a company that has a monoply to use that monopoly to push their other products.

Isn't it illegal to be a monopoly at all? When exactly was Microsoft convicted of this?

If they have a stranglehold on OpenGL (through their patents) and they use that stranglehold to push Direct3D, then it's a clear example of them using their stranglehold to push their oter products.

This hasnt happened. Your already convicting them of something they havent done.

So Microsoft bought some patents from SGI and is wanting to collect royalties on them. They have done nothing wrong so far. Any other company who bought those patents would be doing the same thing. Why would you not collect royalties on patents you own.

 

[Lucky]

So Microsoft bought some patents from SGI and is wanting to collect royalties on them. They have done nothing wrong so far. Any other company who bought those patents would be doing the same thing. Why would you not collect royalties on patents you own.

blah, read the article

OpenGL owes its current success to an unrestrictive licensing system, which allows developers to write to the API without a license. It also carries no royalty fees. This benefits the makers of graphics hardware, who would otherwise be stuck either paying royalties to patent holders or supporting a number of different proprietary standards. But the system only works if companies that hold relevant intellectual property agree not to press their claims, in return for the benefits of a free, unified standard.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Update: they're also joining with IBM to pressure the W3C to allow patented tech in web standards (such as for web services), and possibly collect royalties now or after people are "hooked" (like Unisys did with the GIF format). CNet story

(The story also mentions Microsoft's IP buying spree -- sweet for them to be able to use profits from abusing monopoly power to fund buying up more patents.)

 

[KeyserSoze]

While we're on the topic of MS, and how they are taking over the world, interesting read I came across.

I'm sure there are better pages on this, and I was going to post this as a new topic, but I figure most of you all probably already knew this...I for one, didn't.
SmartTags in IE


I'm gonna go look for some better pages on this.



KeyserSoze