SGI *did* sell its 3D intellectual property to MS
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/23708.html" target="_blank">The Register</a> has confirmed that the strange anomaly in SGI's SECC filing was a result of the sale of all its 3D intellectual property to Microsoft.
I wonder if this is the start of a firesale that will see SGI broken apart and sold off? Sad really, considering how it once dominated the 3D market.
I wonder if this is the start of a firesale that will see SGI broken apart and sold off? Sad really, considering how it once dominated the 3D market.
Comments
They are great systems but considering the growing support for Linux by companies that make UNIX software tools I can see why people aren't buying anymore.
<strong><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/23708.html" target="_blank">The Register</a> has confirmed that the strange anomaly in SGI's SECC filing was a result of the sale of all its 3D intellectual property to Microsoft.
I wonder if this is the start of a firesale that will see SGI broken apart and sold off? Sad really, considering how it once dominated the 3D market.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I read something that this means that Microsoft is getting some ownership to OpenGL or something?
And does this mean that the 3D architecture in OS X must now be licensed from MS?
If MS cans it in favor of Directx, or they try and merge the two, they must be in violation of the federal anti-trust ruling ("don't do it again!"), because they would be directly eliminating compitition.
We need to make sure that the people who are still suing MS for anti-trust violations are informed of this. Does any one know of how to contact these guys?
[ 01-17-2002: Message edited by: river-wind ]</p>
I can't tell you how pissed this makes me.
Those ****ers won't stop at anything.
I hope the DOJ breaks their ass into pieces. I know it's a long shot, but somebody better legislate them out of existence soon. the longer this takes, the more damage they do.
Bloody evil bastards.
SdC
<strong>We need to make sure that the people who are still suing MS for anti-trust violations are informed of this. Does any one know of how to contact these guys?</strong><hr></blockquote>Here is part of an e-mail I got.
[quote]The Justice Department is asking for public feedback regarding the Microsoft Anti-trust suite. While my own view are outspoken I am asking that each of us take the 5 to 10 minutes necessary to type a short email and send it in to the Justice Dept.
The email address is microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov
and they ask that your subject line be Microsoft Settlement.<hr></blockquote>
The deadline for submission is January 28th, 2002.
[ 01-17-2002: Message edited by: Xeo ]</p>
<strong>Here is part of an e-mail I got.</strong><hr></blockquote>Weird - who'd you get that email from?
1. The Register did not say "all", they said "much" of the patents.
2. Where does it say OpenGL are included there.
3. I could be wrong here, but OpenGL is an open standard - MS can't just kill it.
Did you see that Microsoft posted a $2.3 Billion profit this quarter? That was disappointing for them too. They took a $660 million hit in legal fees. But we're taking about a $2.3 Billion profit, and people are disappointed about it.
Apple posts a $38 million profit, and we're all thrilled. But with $7.74 Billion in revenue, Microsoft really is in the driver's seat.
BTW, if you absolutely must do some DirectX programming, I suggest using <a href="http://www.cdxlib.com" target="_blank">CDX</a>. It is a bunch of wrappers that hide DirectX and COM, thus making DirectX far easier to use.
If MS wants to kill OpenGL, and they want to, they will. The only ones who can avoid that are the competitors and graphics card manufacturers by threatening MS with Dirext X abandon, which they won't do...thus, if MS really just did buy OpenGL, or major parts that eventually make up OpenGL, and we're as lucky with them as we've been in the past, OpenGL will meet Glide on the eternal hunting grounds within the next 2 years.
G-News
[ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: G-News ]</p>
1] SGI does _not_ own OpenGL. They owned IrisGL, OpenGLs precessor.
2] OpenGL is an _open_ standard ruled by the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (referred to as the OpenGL ARB), which includes companies from Microsoft, NVidia, HP to some other bigwigs in the 3D industry as Evans & Sutherland and similiar.
3] OpenGL is an API that does not have anything to do with 3D patents, it's just a software library to access the 3D functionality of a 3D graphics card. The "reference" implementation was open-sourced by SGI (a few?) years ago.
4] Even if SGI held any "patents" on OpenGL, the curent version of OpenGL is 1.3 whereas the development of OpenGL 2.0 is on it's way. The shift from 1.3 to 2.0 represents a major technology redesign, which would also mean that any "possible" patents on OpenGL would more or less be rendered useless with the rewrite.
5] While DirectX 8 and later versions really shine for game implementation, Direct X is a "library" with functions from 3D graphics, to networking, input device handling and 3D sound - much more than OpenGL was ever intended to cover. And while DirectX is great for Windows games it would make little sense to write scientific visualization apps with it, as many do with OpenGL so they are both not really conflicting.
6] OpenGL is used by many software vendors releasing software on more than the Windows platform (HP/UX, Solaris, IRIX, MacOS) which is in my eyes a solid guarantee that OpenGL will survive since scientists wont do a mass-switch to windows if M$ went around saying "OpenGL is dead, use DirectX". People don't go with Sun workstations without a reason and I doubt any department that uses UNIX workstations would switch to Windows XP and DirectX just like that. No matter how hard M$ wants it.
7] I believe that M$ aquired the patents from SGI in order to have ammunition in the gaming console market in case they need to sue Sony or Nintendo fast.
8] Last but not least noone exactly knows what patents M$ bought, how old they are, what exactly they cover and when they expire.
t-t-t-that's all, folks
...IRIX
<strong>...IRIX
That's exactly what I'd aquire if I were M$. No crappy 3D patents, but a real OS.
<strong>I'm not sure what's going to happen to OpenGL, but I'm sure Apple would never adopt DirectX. Apple will create their own 3D standard before they put DirectX in OS X. And it's not just because Microsoft developed it. DirectX is just too poorly designed and too hard to program (relative to the functionality that it is providing). Plus, unless they made major modifications to it, OS X would also to have to support COM which is even crappier and harder to use than DirectX. But then again, none of these deficiencies have stopped M$ before.
BTW, if you absolutely must do some DirectX programming, I suggest using <a href="http://www.cdxlib.com" target="_blank">CDX</a>. It is a bunch of wrappers that hide DirectX and COM, thus making DirectX far easier to use.</strong><hr></blockquote>
From what I hear, a lot of developers prefer the X-Box because of DirectX. Supposedly its EASIER to use. But I wouldn't know for sure.
However, I DO use COM and I have no problem with it at all. I don't think its crappy or hard to use, but I've been developing on the windows side for awhile, so maybe I'm just used to it.
> From what I hear, a lot of developers prefer
> the X-Box because of DirectX. Supposedly its
> EASIER to use. But I wouldn't know for sure.
It's easier to use than coding for PSX 2, especially if the developers only need to port the title from the PC DirectX version.
Also DirectX isn't hard to code with anymore, it used to be at 3.0 but with 8.0 it's actually fun (or so they say). The thing is that stupid microsoft wont port it to OSX or Linux. Oh well.
And if you are familiar with file systems, XFS is simply one of the most earth-shatering technologies that has come from SGI (of course, besides OpenGL and the MIPS).