thelinuxlink.net

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/develo ... 968,00.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/01/16 ... s_patents/

That's what the guy from Tux Magazine was talking about, and damn was he right, SGI did transfer a big bunch of patents to Microsoft, if Microsoft sees Linux gaming as a threat to Windows' dominance, it will just let the hammer fall.

can say all their IP is in ireland I guess and get those big tax breaks.

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story ... qqqx=1.asp

This pisses me off beyond anything else microsoft has done. This has to be against the OpenGL liceanse or the Anti-Trust lawsuit. Does anyone know what liceanse OpenGL is under? I think MESA is under the GPL but does that mean we can't use mesa?

CptnObvious999 wrote:This pisses me off beyond anything else microsoft has done. This has to be against the OpenGL liceanse or the Anti-Trust lawsuit. Does anyone know what liceanse OpenGL is under? I think MESA is under the GPL but does that mean we can't use mesa?

XviD is also GPL but still in danger of patents and crab.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

CptnObvious999 wrote:This pisses me off beyond anything else microsoft has done. This has to be against the OpenGL liceanse or the Anti-Trust lawsuit. Does anyone know what liceanse OpenGL is under? I think MESA is under the GPL but does that mean we can't use mesa?

XviD is also GPL but still in danger of patents and crab.

Yeah but you can really sue a group of people as easily as a company. I wonder if we could get away by saying we didn't know about it because I remember hearing if you don't know about a patent you can be sued by it in the USA, maybe that was wrong though.

CptnObvious999 wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

CptnObvious999 wrote:This pisses me off beyond anything else microsoft has done. This has to be against the OpenGL liceanse or the Anti-Trust lawsuit. Does anyone know what liceanse OpenGL is under? I think MESA is under the GPL but does that mean we can't use mesa?

XviD is also GPL but still in danger of patents and crab.

Yeah but you can really sue a group of people as easily as a company. I wonder if we could get away by saying we didn't know about it because I remember hearing if you don't know about a patent you can be sued by it in the USA, maybe that was wrong though.

WRONG, Microsoft is being sued right now because of crab with IE.

Software patents stifle innovation, and prevents good software from being written!

Tsuroerusu wrote:WRONG, Microsoft is being sued right now because of crab with IE.

Software patents stifle innovation, and prevents good software from being written!

Thats quiet ironic considering patents were ment to stimulate innovation, however when they though up patents they forgot about monopolies and open source software. But they [The US Government] thought of this before both were around. Anyways this is further proof that the big cats control the forest and if you have enough money you can do just about anything (even kill someone, right OJ? )

CptnObvious999 wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:WRONG, Microsoft is being sued right now because of crab with IE.

Software patents stifle innovation, and prevents good software from being written!

Thats quiet ironic considering patents were ment to stimulate innovation, however when they though up patents they forgot about monopolies and open source software. But they [The US Government] thought of this before both were around. Anyways this is further proof that the big cats control the forest and if you have enough money you can do just about anything (even kill someone, right OJ? )

You know, when you run into crab situations like this you begin to understand why Richard Stallman has the views that he does.

Tsuroerusu wrote:You know, when you run into crab situations like this you begin to understand why Richard Stallman has the views that he does.

Yes I have tried to keep my computer mostly all opensource but I still have flash (which only works in the 32-bit mozilla binary) and java and a few games I have demoed like Darwinia. I refuse to purchase anything microsoft. My old programming teacher thinks Im insane.

CptnObvious999 wrote:My old programming teacher thinks Im insane.

He obviously wasn't a hacker at MIT in the 70' and 80'

Tsuroerusu wrote:

CptnObvious999 wrote:My old programming teacher thinks Im insane.

He obviously wasn't a hacker at MIT in the 70' and 80'

I wish instead he's a VERY bias windows supporter (don't ask me how Ive been trying to figure it out for the last year). He always tells me "linux sucks" and it annoys the hell out of me. Which is why I've stop taking programming classes at my school

CptnObvious999 wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

CptnObvious999 wrote:My old programming teacher thinks Im insane.

He obviously wasn't a hacker at MIT in the 70' and 80'

I wish instead he's a VERY bias windows supporter (don't ask me how Ive been trying to figure it out for the last year). He always tells me "linux sucks" and it annoys the hell out of me. Which is why I've stop taking programming classes at my school

Ask him to elaborate on why Linux "sucks". I'm curious.

Wally Balljacker wrote:

CptnObvious999 wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote: He obviously wasn't a hacker at MIT in the 70' and 80'

I wish instead he's a VERY bias windows supporter (don't ask me how Ive been trying to figure it out for the last year). He always tells me "linux sucks" and it annoys the hell out of me. Which is why I've stop taking programming classes at my school

Ask him to elaborate on why Linux "sucks". I'm curious.

He says its insecure. I think he reads the Official Microsoft News Page or something because he said Firefox is not as secure as IE, it has more security holes released in one month that IE or something like that which Microsoft happened to claim a week before. Anyways I try not to start up the debate with him because he was my teacher and he already didn't like me for running Linux and he has a very short temper.

CptnObvious999 wrote:He says its insecure. I think he reads the Official Microsoft News Page or something because he said Firefox is not as secure as IE, it has more security holes released in one month that IE or something like that which Microsoft happened to claim a week before. Anyways I try not to start up the debate with him because he was my teacher and he already didn't like me for running Linux and he has a very short temper.

What a f****** dumb-ass idiotic fool that guy is, and it's not he who decide what OS you run on your computer, I tell ya if there's one thing I hate about schools it's ignorant ass teachers.

The OpenGL website and licensing information on that website indicates that SGI still has some stake in OpenGL. Based upon the license on the site for OpenSource development which states that any code or binaries distributed using OpenGL must carry the license which states that, although the distributor can add further restrictions, that these restrictions must be accepted by the recepient and that the license does not violate the terms set forth by the OPenGL license.

Here is a <a href="http://www.sgi.com/products/software/op ... t">link</a>.

After reading this license it seems that you can distribute OpenGL code in both source and binary form, the only difference being that Source must comply with the license and sections 2-13 and binary with 3-13. While you can release the resulting product under a different license, that license cannot conflict with the existing OpenGLX license.

So what does this mean? Damned if I really know but is it possible for MS to ever revoke these rights? The license itself states this is not possible. Now MS could choose to produce a whole new OpenGL code and not release it under this license.

But we are talking IP rights here. Is it possible for a company to release their IP under this type of license then have another company come along, buy them out and re-exercise the IP rights to null the license? Again, I am not a lawyer, but this does not sound right to me.

Or maybe they could close OpenGL but previous work would still be licensed under the original OpenGL license, that could not be revoked. Furture work would have to be released under the new, more restrictive license.

There is a commercial OpenGL license but I do not know the specifics on this. I wonder if a company that sells a copy of their game and produces a Linux client for free download gets around some of the restrictions this way.

Looking at the sys reqs. for NeverWinter Nights I see Direct X listed. Since every copy they sell is basically a copy for Windows do they get around having to pay some licensing cost by not charging for the Linux or Mac OS X client based on OpenGL?

Perhaps our best bet hedges on SDL?