Microsoft(OpenGL) = Licence Fees

[Agent31]

I don't know what to say... read this and see if you don't get a sinking feeling...

[Marshmallowman]

That is very disturbing, why is MS so full of wankers?

[The PIT]

It's the problem of having no real competition in the market and no sign of anyone coming forward in the near future. A weak legal system also helps microshaft. Just wait until Microshaft have you running their software completly off their servers.

[Agent31]

Originally posted by Marshmallowman
That is very disturbing, why is MS so full of wankers?

by definition...

[Technoid]

Re: Microsoft(OpenGL) = Licence Fees

Originally posted by Agent31
I don't know what to say... read this and see if you don't get a sinking feeling...

More like the feeling Han Solo gets in the “Empire Strikes Back” when his hyperdrive engine fails

[Gurm]

Folks,

Have ANY of you considered that MS actually wrote parts of the OpenGL spec? Yes, they sure did. It was 10 years ago, but it's true. Go look it up. The fact that SGI retained control of it for a long time is irrelevant. When I was starting college, MS was working on OpenGL. Simple. True.

Are they being asses for claiming it now, 10 years after the fact? Sure. But do they have ground to stand on? Yeah, sadly.

- Gurm

[birdy]

Don't Patents only last 10 years anyway?

[MultimediaMan]

Patents are not copyrights: Patents expire in 10-16 years, copyrights in 75 years...some stupid judge in the early 80's said that software is copyrightable...big mistake.

My personal position is that all software from source code to finished product, should be covered by Patent laws, since by definition what software does is machinistic operations...hence a "virtual machine".

I don't see this change ever taking place, though without some major events leading to it.

[Wombat]

Patents are 18 years, copyrights are tending towards infinity (see Disney-Bono).

Software damn well should be copyrightable. It's a work of authorship no different from a novel in that regard. It's the <I>patenting</I> that sucks, including that of algorithms. By definition, what software does is the implmentation of algorithms, which are things inherent to the natural world, and thus unpatentable. I think you've got it all backwords MMM.

[MultimediaMan]

If you were to build a toaster, the best toaster in the world, all of you innovations would be protected by patent law...and at the end of your patent time, others could do as they saw fit to it.

After 10 years, someone would be able to take your idea an copy or change it as they saw fit, leading to innovation.

Copyrights stifle innovation, in some ways, and help it in others.

Copyrights force people to look at problems in different ways, and that is good, but it makes it increasingly hard to write killer apps.

Operating systems, for instance, are nothing without a computer: no literary or artistic value at all. They are virtual machines that allow the computer to function.

If software were patentable, Microsoft would be in a lot of trouble now. As it now we have insane licensing fees and schemes that give us nothing.

[Wombat]

I disagree completely.

First, your toaster (or anything else) would be covered by the patent for <B>18</B> years. Also, there's nothing to prevent the company from "fencing" the toaster, so that other patents covered it for another decade or more.

Patents are <I>more</I> restrictive than copyrights. You're misunderstanding (or maybe undervaluing) how originality factors into these legal constructs.
Suppose you and I work for two different employers, and somehow both of these companies have the same needs to be addressed by software (maybe we both need code to convert fluid measurements into stress estimates, or something). Assuming you and I both have sufficient education and make reasonable decisions, we're likely to write similar software independent of each other, without any knowledge that the other even exists. We'll probably end up using the same fluid dynamics textbook for the key equations.

<I>Scenario A: Software is copyrightable</I>
When we finish our work, each of us hands it to our bosses. The software meets the needs, and both companies file for copyright. They can BOTH get it: you and I have both written original works, with neither of us an influence on the other. Both companies are free to license rights to their code as they wish.

<I>Scenario B: Software is patentable</I>
Same as above, both of us finishing our work, etc, etc. Now when we hand it over to our bosses as a finished product. The legal team of my company applies for a patent (either your company doesn't, or files later, or a bunch of legally identical scenarios plays out) and receives it. Now your company <B>cannot use the software you wrote</B> without my company's permission. It doesn't matter that you and I both pulled it off independently, legally my company acquired "first to invent" designation. My company may decide to offer you licensing rights, at whatever rates we see fit. If you're our key competitor, we may not license you at all, since we'd rather see your company unable to stay in business. You could try to challenge our patent, but that will cost you a couple million just to try, and your chances of success are dismally low. You could just wait 18 years, but what kind of company can weather an 18 year dry spell?



P.S. Software already <B>is</B> patentable in the US, as well as business models. See the Amazon one-click. See the latest MS SMB protocol. MS isn't in trouble, they're profiting from it.

[MultimediaMan]

True, I hadn't thought of it in that way. There are wayyy too many laws the legates can use for and against both.

[Drizzt]

I'm a programmes.
I often use other ideas and code and routine in my works.

I want my software and code protected, but I find stupid to patent the idea.

[Agent31]

Not that I am one to question the values of Microsoft's goals , but it's fairly clear that they're not interested in claiming the patent because their feelings are hurt, this, to my mind at least, is yet another money grabbing exercise. (err... I have no issues with XP SP1... ).

What got me the most are the potential implicataions of such a patent. Let's say MS win the case and gain the patent:

Does this mean, that every single piece of software ever written by somebody other than MS which uses OpenGL, or every piece of hardware ever designed to be optimised for, or to bear the logo of OpenGL, will be forced to pay back-dated license fees? Can you imagine? Further still, imagine what these license fees could do to future developments by small software houses, they may as well sell their PCs and buy MS stock!

I should just point out, I'm not anti-microsoft, hell, I use their software a hundred times a day and I don't complain that much. It just irks me that Microsoft will go out on a blatent money grabbing exercise like this. Add to this, the article is by no means an in depth analysis of MS's case in this matter, so we're speculating.

I seriously struggle to see the upside of Microsoft owning a patent to a standard such as this, especially when you consider that the only other 3D API is already owned by MS.

Does this spell another monopoly?? *mocking gasp*

[TdB]

sorry for get you started, but whats wrong with XP servicepack 1?
I just visited windows update, and downloaded alot of udates named "windowsXP hotfix(SP1) something", are they unstable or something? I haven´t heard anything about it, should I worry?