HDMI Forum Rejects Open-Source HDMI 2.1 Driver Support Sought By AMD

[duby229]

I have zero clue what patents are involved here (or even if they are). I just think it's a bad idea to assume things about this situation just because you'd like them to be true, if you don't actually know for sure.

What you are saying definitely does not apply in many situations. Does it here? Maybe. It's certainly possible. I just don't know.

Well, that's not HDMI's obligation to say what elements of their implementation is patented. It's up to the reverse engineers to determine whether -any- patent applies and that's what clean room techniques reveal. Once it's absolutely positive that the specifications revealed don't infringe -any- patents, that's when an original work can be made.

Developing an alternative means to acheive an end result doesn't invalidate a patent. You can't patent an end result, only an exact means to acheive that end result.

Once an original work exists then by definition there won't be a patent lawsuit. At which point you won't be able to distribute it until a court determines it's necessary for interoperability and I think in this scenario that argument can be made and won. Interoperability would be the only thing a court would need to get involved in. Reverse engineering is already legal, clean room techniques would ensure no patent encumbrance and provide proof of it. That leaves only interoperability as the legal issue and once that is determined you'd be able to legally distribute it.

[ezst036]

I wasn't talking about the developers, I was talking about the mentality of the people that demand all software be free but they would have a fit if someone demanded they work for free.

Trying to weasel your way out eh?

That isn't going to work as your beliefs are out of phase with reality. Free software does not have to mean software developers are facing a future of chattel slavery. Developers will continue to be paid handsomely in the OSS future that gets brighter every single day. Nobody will be working for free as coders unless they specifically make the choice to work for free.

[stesmi]

F.Ultra think about it you prove the patent does not apply to your product you have chance of getting costs and damages. The reality if you have clean room work you will try every other legal method to avoid the patent before you use it as a company. The cost of no damages and no costs because you used clean room to invalidate the patent. You have the same problem if you prove the patent was invalid due to prior invention. This is where the patent system really bad. The patent system does not encourage patent invalidation in fact it punishes any party attempting this.

Not to mention that you actually may not WANT to invalidate the patent. If you don't infringe it, you can patent YOUR way of doing it, effectively locking out anyone trying to make an implementation using either your OR the other company's patent, which means less competition.

If you invalidate the other patent, not only you are able copy it, but any other company can as well.

[chithanh]

A reddit user claims 'VRR is working.' That's your proof? I wouldn't trust that - not with the prices of those adapters.

Not just one Reddit user, that was used to illustrate what Blurbusters (one of the leading authorities of the subject) found, and give you pointers for reading. That certain firmware versions successfully enable VRR is also corroborated by reports in Blurbusters forum and elsewhere e.g. on ComputerBase (in German).

Perhaps, one of the reviewers can test it? It seems to be a small niche market - Linux users who want to use amd gpu cards with HDMI TVs?
Some ppl on a github site claim (iirc) that if they update the firmware - it then works - so either a) you need to update/install firmware - unless, the company (Cable Matters?) is updating the version of their adapters to include the new firmware? That is, if this *solves* the issue in the first place - so the new firmware is able to 'translate the EDID properly?'

The 124 firmware for Chinese adapters doesn't enable VRR on Windows for some reason, so I doubt Cable Matters will update their description. VRR is also still quite fickle even without the adapter, the newest 6.7.6-201 kernel on Nobara seems to have a regression that causes VRR to malfunction in the same way it does when HDR is enabled even in SDR (refresh rate jumping).

Indeed. There is still ongoing work from the firmware developers and from the community side to figure out how to make things work reliably. Before this is done it would be a bad idea to officially advertise VRR support, this would only lead to customer disappointment and more returns. And CableMatters will probably never advertise VRR for their existing products, due to channel inventory with old firmware. But the proof that it works is there.

[oiaohm]

The Oracle vs Google 2012 case was not about clean room for the patents. For both patents, Google successfully argued that they didn't use the methods from Oracle:s patent claims, the '104 patent required a symbol reference but Googles implementation did not contain one and the '520 patent used "simulated execution" while Googles implementation used parsing instead. So again a case of deliberate patent workarounds and not clean room.

So this one doesn't count, so so far no unicorn.

Oracle vs Google 2012 ruling That a patent case.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/oracle-tells-jury-clean-room-not-enough-to-avoid-patent-infringement/

You need to read though the jury rulings. Google did use clean room on some of the patents.

They were designed to work in a smartphone, without any reference at all to the Sun patents.

This line from Google legal argument with patent part of case does include clean room and Oracle directly arguing against clean room being usable(tOracle lose this point in the ruling). The jury upheld the clean room bit. You are not infringing if the patent is invalid. There is more to the oracle vs google case 2012 patent ruling than just Google did not Infringe.

Clean room is used in Patent legal arguments. You will attempt to win by proving that that you design does not match what is patented. But you will also argue clean room as the catch me path. Jury then rules what one of these arguments win. Clean room argument wins the patent is void and you cannot infringe on a void patent and you cannot patent clean room implementation either if this has happened. Comes important what point did the jury rule you did not infringe by.

F.Ultra clean room is used in patent legal arguments and time to time and clean room has cases where jury backs it. Clean room argument winning is patent termination solution and blocking patenting the clean implementation. Winning the Clean room argument in patent cases is everyone loses.

Yes media abridged versions of rulings will normally hide cases where clean room in patent cases was the winning factor.

[sophisticles]

Trying to weasel your way out eh?

That isn't going to work as your beliefs are out of phase with reality. Free software does not have to mean software developers are facing a future of chattel slavery. Developers will continue to be paid handsomely in the OSS future that gets brighter every single day. Nobody will be working for free as coders unless they specifically make the choice to work for free.

Feel free to explain to this weasel the economic principle that enables someone to make money from giving their product away for free, other than donations that is.

When i was working on my college degrees, i needed to pay tuition and consequently accumulated significant amounts of student loan debt.

Show me any math model where I work to produce a good or service, give it away for free and still somehow generate revenue.

[Panix]

Not just one Reddit user, that was used to illustrate what Blurbusters (one of the leading authorities of the subject) found, and give you pointers for reading. That certain firmware versions successfully enable VRR is also corroborated by reports in Blurbusters forum and elsewhere e.g. on ComputerBase (in German).



Indeed. There is still ongoing work from the firmware developers and from the community side to figure out how to make things work reliably. Before this is done it would be a bad idea to officially advertise VRR support, this would only lead to customer disappointment and more returns. And CableMatters will probably never advertise VRR for their existing products, due to channel inventory with old firmware. But the proof that it works is there.

Yet, you include no source(s)....figures.....

[F.Ultra]

Oracle vs Google 2012 ruling That a patent case.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/oracle-tells-jury-clean-room-not-enough-to-avoid-patent-infringement/

You need to read though the jury rulings. Google did use clean room on some of the patents.



This line from Google legal argument with patent part of case does include clean room and Oracle directly arguing against clean room being usable(tOracle lose this point in the ruling). The jury upheld the clean room bit. You are not infringing if the patent is invalid. There is more to the oracle vs google case 2012 patent ruling than just Google did not Infringe.

Clean room is used in Patent legal arguments. You will attempt to win by proving that that you design does not match what is patented. But you will also argue clean room as the catch me path. Jury then rules what one of these arguments win. Clean room argument wins the patent is void and you cannot infringe on a void patent and you cannot patent clean room implementation either if this has happened. Comes important what point did the jury rule you did not infringe by.

F.Ultra clean room is used in patent legal arguments and time to time and clean room has cases where jury backs it. Clean room argument winning is patent termination solution and blocking patenting the clean implementation. Winning the Clean room argument in patent cases is everyone loses.

Yes media abridged versions of rulings will normally hide cases where clean room in patent cases was the winning factor.

I did read the judgement before I wrote the previous comment and I stand by what I wrote, it's you who apparantly only read the first paragraph of it and stopped on the "clean room' is irrelevant" part and decided that because the Judge filed in Googles favour that this means that clean room was relevant. But it wasn't, Oracle was correct here.

What saved Google wasn't a clean room, but "The features in Android that are accused are fundamentally different from any of the claims of the '104 or '502 patents", aka they do not match the claims of the patents. The fact that they where independently developed doesn't matter, that there exists independent implementations is the whole reason why patents exists vs copyright.

I would be very interested to hear your explanation for what role patents fills if they work they way you think they do since they then only works exactly like copyright.

[bridgman]

Show me any math model where I work to produce a good or service, give it away for free and still somehow generate revenue.

The traditional approach is "give away the lemonade and sell the antidote", ie give away the core product but sell support services and add-on products.

That model is hard to apply on a small scale, but did work for larger orgs.

[chithanh]

Yet, you include no source(s)....figures.....

🤷I gave you three links, two from user reports and one from BlurBusters. If you want VRR via DP->HDMI adapter then that is enough pointers to get started. If you just want to argue then no amount of references is going to be enough.

The situation is not yet that you can buy and plug in any random adapter and it works. But modern hardware is capable, just the software and firmware side needs more attention.