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It's Official: Mesa 8.0 With OpenGL 3.0

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  • #31
    Originally posted by drag View Post
    I suppose you'd like the library to be able to give blowjobs, too. But like that S3TC is not going to happen, for what should be obvious reasons.
    Eventually the patent will expire or somebody will officially release a 'promise not to sue' and then it would be accepted.
    Whatever happened with this: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=OTkxMQ ???
    Anybody hear of any progress in this investigation?

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Reloaded211 View Post
      Linux devs are targetting the lowest common denominator among graphics drivers, and currently it's Mesa. As soon as OGL 3.0 support is in place, it's usage will go mainstream. I remember KDE devs speaking about using GL3 features in KWin a year ago, so it will quite likely happen this year, I guess. Same can be said about Direct3D. Because XP is still the most used Windows distro out there, game developers are using DX9 despite two newer versions being released already.
      You're missing the point that you can't ship a compliant OpenGL 3 stack without paying patent tax to SGI (float textures), and many things that need OpenGL at all (even going back to 1.x) will call S3 Texture Compression, which is controlled by an outright patent troll.

      If we can't throw Khronos under the bus for their lousy stewardship of OpenGL (the name does imply that it is open, but anything patent-encumbered really is not), then we should at least get rid of OpenGL and just go with OpenGL ES. The problem with that is that even though it is currently not infringing patents, there's no guarantee that one of the hardware vendors that controls the Khronos sock puppet won't stuff it full of patents at some later date like what has been done to OpenGL itself.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by kraftman View Post
        I'm in the same situation, but keep in mind mesa drivers probably fully support our hardware. Furthermore, if Ubuntu 10.04 ships with catalyst 9.3 we still have support from AMD.
        Nope nope nope!! Ubuntu 10.04 cannot run Catalyst 9.3 and Catalyst 9.3 is the last Catalyst driver to support a lot of legacy AMD/ATI graphics hardware. These users will have to use Gallium and many of them will have to forfeit their MSAA and about 15% graphics performance because of it. The performance loss I can deal with since the GPU seems to run cooler as a result of it, which works out well in my laptop, but MSAA is important to me because my laptop screen resolution is low and it's a big screen.... and the hardware doesn't have the features to run MLAA.

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        • #34
          I should also point out that it's rather selfish and arrogant to suggest we should risk an entire free software operating system distribution just because 1-2 people out of every 100 users needed a feature that was encumbered by patents. If you need them so bad, why don't you go negotiate with SGI and S3? So far they haven't listened to or made any exceptions for free software projects, but if you think you can come up with a more compelling presentation that will get them to cooperate than what the ENTIRE free software community has managed so far, I'm sure we'd all be...grateful

          When you get protectionism via software patents, it makes it illegal for free software to compete with proprietary software. That's antitrust right there, but the US government is so corrupt they let it go on under the false premise of "intellectual property protection".

          BTW, I get worked up when I hear someone use the term "intellectual property" because I rightly get the mental image of an unholy coven of corporate lawyers scheming on how they can get me to pay to use my own property. Bridgman of AMD uses that term a lot and it really pisses me off.
          Last edited by DaemonFC; 10 January 2012, 01:11 PM.

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          • #35
            "These features can be enabled if rebuilding Mesa with non-default build switches and pulling in the external S3TC library, but no major distribution vendor (unless counting Arch) is doing so out of legal concerns."
            Why require hardlinking to this library? Wouldnt it be possible to make mesa search for it and load it if available? Or perhaps load a default dummy library and make it possible to change a config file in order to make it load the real lib?

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            • #36
              Originally posted by DaemonFC View Post
              BTW, I get worked up when I hear someone use the term "intellectual property" because I rightly get the mental image of an unholy coven of corporate lawyers scheming on how they can get me to pay to use my own property. Bridgman of AMD uses that term a lot and it really pisses me off.
              Everybody does.. The whole S3TC situation and software patents in general is complete BS. Patents are there to reward innovators so that they can keep innovating and creating great new things for the good of all people.. Companies abuse the hell out of the patent system and turned it upside down and now use it to screw over other companies as well as the public to block all competition...

              Then they take all their money they made from screwing over other people and put it towards lobbying the government.

              The system is quite broken.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Sidicas View Post
                Everybody does.. The whole S3TC situation and software patents in general is complete BS. Patents are there to reward innovators so that they can keep innovating and creating great new things for the good of all people.. Companies abuse the hell out of the patent system and turned it upside down and now use it to screw over other companies as well as the public to block all competition...

                Then they take all their money they made from screwing over other people and put it towards lobbying the government.

                The system is quite broken.
                I understand why AMDs employees trip all over themselves to be nice to their employer, which is one of the offenders. I just don't think I could ever contain myself long enough to get a job for a company that expected me to tow that line.

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by DaemonFC View Post
                  BTW, I get worked up when I hear someone use the term "intellectual property" because I rightly get the mental image of an unholy coven of corporate lawyers scheming on how they can get me to pay to use my own property. Bridgman of AMD uses that term a lot and it really pisses me off.
                  I have offered a few times to use something different if someone can come up with a good catch-all word that covers trade secrets, patents, copyrighted code, along with anything similar that I might have forgotten to mention. So far I have received a few rants back but nothing I could actually use in a sentence

                  Obvious terms like "secrets" don't work because we're really talking about a mix of "secrets" and "legally protected" stuff. The best I could come up with was "secret sauce" but that's kinda hokey too.
                  Test signature

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by bridgman View Post
                    I have offered a few times to use something different if someone can come up with a good catch-all word that covers trade secrets, patents, copyrighted code, along with anything similar that I might have forgotten to mention. So far I have received a few rants back but nothing I could actually use in a sentence

                    Obvious terms like "secrets" don't work because we're really talking about a mix of "secrets" and "legally protected" stuff. The best I could come up with was "secret sauce" but that's kinda hokey too.
                    I still don't understand why you can't say. "We can't do this because it is copyright restricted" "We can't do that because someone has a patent they won't let us use."

                    If you can't say what you mean, then you can't mean what you say. When you say "IP" you could be talking about several very different legal frameworks meant for very different situations. It's a term intended to shotgun and confuse "simple folk" who aren't lawyers, and suggest that there's some all-powerful unified legal "We own that, end of story" framework. There is no such thing, at least in the US. I guess a few more bribes to congress could fix that though.

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                    • #40
                      I'll expand. "You can't implement OpenGL, because it is the IP of SGI, Khronos, etc.".

                      OK, you can't call it OpenGL because that is a TRADEMARK. Mesa doesn't call itself OpenGL and never has. Big companies like to use the term IP so you can't guess what it is they own.

                      If a company says you can't use their marks, then you could avoid the legal problems by just not using their marks. If they say "that is our IP", you don't know what they mean. Is it copyright on their code? Is it a trade mark? Did they patent something? Who knows. That's the point of the confusing and malicious term of "Intellectual Property".

                      Everyone who uses that term does so with the deliberate and malicious intent of confusing the listener. It's not about expedience, it is about confusion. How much less expedient is it to say "trademark", "patent", or "copyright"? it might take a few more seconds but it clarifies what your'e talking about. If you want to be obtuse, you will say "IP".
                      Last edited by DaemonFC; 10 January 2012, 05:02 PM.

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