S3TC Now Golden For Linux & Open-Source?

[DeepDayze]

If AMD really do own the patents, perhaps they would be willing to license them for use in Mesa, Gallium3D and the other open linux graphics projects and end this whole mess with S3TC then becoming fully supported everywhere it needs to be.

Maybe bridgman can chime in on that and get us the answer. It would be a really smart move if AMD DOES license these patents for OSS projects if indeed they do own them.

[jonwil]

If AMD really do own the patents, perhaps they would be willing to license them for use in Mesa, Gallium3D and the other open linux graphics projects and end this whole mess with S3TC then becoming fully supported everywhere it needs to be.

[DeepDayze]

The case against Apple in relation to S3's patents seems to be pretty much dead as the court ruled Apple didn't infringe on any of them. So isn't that a sign of better things to come?

[russofris]

German technology website Heise reports S3TC is no longer owned by S3, but was buyed long time ago from ATI and is therefore now owned by AMD.

Maybe we should ask the AMD opensource devision if they can ask their lawyers to make this patent available to MESA for free.

Indeed. News articles seem to suggest that AMD tried to intervene in HTC vs. Apple in December. HTC sued Apple for patent violations, bought the VIA tech, and added a bunch of patents to the war chest. Amd intervened (saying we own the patents), but the ITC threw the case out before any new info came about.

So I'm confused... Does AMD own the S3TC patent, or not?

[Lynxeye]

German technology website Heise reports S3TC is no longer owned by S3, but was buyed long time ago from ATI and is therefore now owned by AMD.

Maybe we should ask the AMD opensource devision if they can ask their lawyers to make this patent available to MESA for free.

[RavFX]

If the extensions don't show up, Mesa can't find libtxc_dxtn.

But my game who require S3TC work. I will check that more carefully this evening.

[marek]

If the extensions don't show up, Mesa can't find libtxc_dxtn.

[RavFX]

Do something changed on mesa side?

Usually we have some OpenGL extensions :
-GL_S3_s3tc
-GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
-GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1
proving that S3TC is enabled but since I have updated MESA, yesterday, they don't show there anymore. Initially I was thinking that it was a bug somewhere or voluntary disabled so I searched on my side, recompiled Mesa and the external libs... Still, theses extensions don't show but : I tested with a game who require S3TC and it still work..

So mesa support S3TC but hide the extension?
Or Mesa just don't show them anymore because enabled by default everywhere? (if they don't need to be displayed in the extension list like if they display them just to show that it's enabled and available.)

I did not find anything useful on the mesa git log.

[DeepDayze]

patents have a limited shelf life. many of them will expire soon enough

17 years is a long time in the IT sector, that's for sure as coding moves at the speed of the internet

[Thatguy]

patents have a limited shelf life. many of them will expire soon enough