On Sat, Jul 13, 2002 at 12:36:53AM +0100, José Fonseca wrote: | I would like to know your opinion about the influence this may have for | the DRI and Mesa3D projects in particular, and for the OpenGL API in | general.
Of course Microsoft would love to see OpenGL disappear, and has been working toward that for many years. It's wise not to be naive about Microsoft's intentions. However, it's not clear yet whether this particular move represents a new threat. Vendors are required to notify the OpenGL ARB when they believe they have intellectual property claims on any feature that's being proposed to the ARB. (This is intended to prevent vendors from allowing a feature to be included in the standard, then blackmailing all the other vendors after they've shipped it.) At this point, that's all Microsoft has done. If they had a history of operating in good faith, then there'd be no great reason for concern. Unfortunately, the process of licensing intellectual property to other ARB vendors is not well-defined by the ARB bylaws. So Microsoft could cause problems by (a) delaying the licensing process so as to halt progress on new versions of OpenGL, (b) requiring unacceptable licensing terms (high royalties, cross-licensing of other intellectual property, use only under Windows, etc.), or (c) licensing to only a few selected vendors (excluding open source vendors, for example). So far Microsoft has been using tactic (a). You'll know it's time to worry when there are signs that Microsoft is using tactics (b) or (c). Allen ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Gadgets, caffeine, t-shirts, fun stuff. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
