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In a move that's going to raise a lot of eyebrows, Microsoft has joined the Open Invention Network to 'protect Linux and other important open source workloads from patent assertions'.

For those who haven't heard of the OIN, their mission statement is quite a simple and honourable one "The Open Invention Network is a shared defensive patent pool with the mission to protect Linux.". To find out more about the OIN see here.

Hold the phone, this isn't gaming news?

Correct. However, this is still very interesting and extremely surprising from a company that has been pretty hostile to Linux in the past. It's the kind of move that could result in some big shifts in the entire industry.

We know Microsoft’s decision to join OIN may be viewed as surprising to some; it is no secret that there has been friction in the past between Microsoft and the open source community over the issue of patents. For others who have followed our evolution, we hope this announcement will be viewed as the next logical step for a company that is listening to customers and developers and is firmly committed to Linux and other open source programs. 

Surprising is one word for it! Honestly, I'm in shock at this news. Does this mean we can firmly put the "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" phrase to rest and replace it with Embrace, extend, and protect? With Microsoft joining, they're bringing with them around 60,000 patents.

Moves like that, makes me seriously think about how Microsoft have changed, especially since their previous CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux "a cancer".

I think it also shows how far Linux has come as a platform for all things too, especially with Microsoft having a "Windows Subsystem for Linux" along with their support for running Linux on their Azure cloud computing platform.

What do you think to this?

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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123 comments
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Purple Library Guy Oct 13, 2018
Quoting: DrMcCoy
Quoting: Purple Library Guyshouldn't all that FAT stuff be running out at some point? It's friggin' ancient!

[url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT"]exFAT[/url] != FAT. Their patents are still effective for at least 10 years.
Quoting: DrMcCoy
Quoting: Purple Library Guyshouldn't all that FAT stuff be running out at some point? It's friggin' ancient!

[url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT"]exFAT[/url] != FAT. Their patents are still effective for at least 10 years.
Oh well.
amatai Oct 14, 2018
Quoting: Purple Library Guy3. Microsoft have been systematically funneling patents to sort of deniably-affiliated patent trolls and siccing those patent trolls on its opponents rather than getting its own hands dirty, thus allowing it to have its propaganda cake and eat its enemies too. Joining the OIN makes no difference whatsoever to use of this tactic. This is a very important point if true, and would indeed make MS joining the OIN a worthless and deeply cynical move. I have seen techrights articles making this claim before. I've never seen anyone else discussing it, whether to agree or debunk it, so I'm not sure if it's true or not.
They sometimes link to legal decisions https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20180904118 it's legal stuff so it mostly available but hard to find. Who have founded which patent troll is an info available on wikipedia or on legal site about society creation. Techrigths mostly link second hand sources, but it is still possible to go to the legal source by following links. But then, the legal stuff is pretty much unreadable
cprn Oct 16, 2018
Quoting: Kristian
Quoting: cprnI'll believe they've "changed" when they make all their new DirectX releases just thin open source wrappers around Vulkan and only support GPUs with open drivers. Now that would raise a lot of eyebrows. Mostly in Nvidia corner.

But just open sourcing their current(and future) DX versions wouldn't be enough? Even if they ported it to Linux? It has to be on top of Vulkan?

What would access to DirectX source give us? We'd be able to make DirectX better by finding bugs and submitting fixes. That's it. DirectX can't be ported to Linux per se, it's a bunch of Windows core calls. Its API can be re-implemented on Linux, that's what wine does and yeah, maybe wine folks would benefit but nobody else, really. On the other hand the overhead that GPU drivers have just to support all possible APIs is huge. Vulkan solves this and it is a standard. IMHO we don't need Microsoft opening their code, we need them to comply with open standards instead of inventing their own concurrent solution each time new technology comes around.
Kristian Oct 16, 2018
Quoting: cprn
Quoting: Kristian
Quoting: cprnI'll believe they've "changed" when they make all their new DirectX releases just thin open source wrappers around Vulkan and only support GPUs with open drivers. Now that would raise a lot of eyebrows. Mostly in Nvidia corner.

But just open sourcing their current(and future) DX versions wouldn't be enough? Even if they ported it to Linux? It has to be on top of Vulkan?

What would access to DirectX source give us? We'd be able to make DirectX better by finding bugs and submitting fixes. That's it. DirectX can't be ported to Linux per se, it's a bunch of Windows core calls. Its API can be re-implemented on Linux, that's what wine does and yeah, maybe wine folks would benefit but nobody else, really. On the other hand the overhead that GPU drivers have just to support all possible APIs is huge. Vulkan solves this and it is a standard. IMHO we don't need Microsoft opening their code, we need them to comply with open standards instead of inventing their own concurrent solution each time new technology comes around.

Hypothetically DirectX would be suitable as an open standard, replacing Vulkan, right? I mean from a purely technical stand point, they could open source it and turn it over to some standard's body or something. I ask because I am not well informed enough on the technical aspects.

Edit:

Could you imagine the DX12(or 13 or whatever) equivalent of anv, radv etc?


Last edited by Kristian on 16 October 2018 at 11:43 am UTC
Kandarihu Oct 16, 2018
I don't trust Microsoft any more than I can throw them. We know how they work. All the platitudes they have about Linux shouldn't be taken at face value. Maybe they just want to take over the Linux kernel, and make it prohibitively inconvenient to use a forked or older kernel that predates the addition of some really nasty spyware or something like that.

I switched to Linux to get away from Microsoft. And I won't stand for their encroachment on our Operating System of choice.
Purple Library Guy Oct 17, 2018
Quoting: Kristian
Quoting: cprnDirectX can't be ported to Linux per se, it's a bunch of Windows core calls. Its API can be re-implemented on Linux, that's what wine does and yeah, maybe wine folks would benefit but nobody else, really.

Hypothetically DirectX would be suitable as an open standard, replacing Vulkan, right? I mean from a purely technical stand point, they could open source it and turn it over to some standard's body or something. I ask because I am not well informed enough on the technical aspects.
Neither am I, but I infer from what cprn said that DirectX is fundamentally different from Vulkan in that Vulkan is a sort of set of specifications of how stuff is supposed to work, which is then implemented in different OSes and stuff, whereas DirectX is instead an implementation of thingies that tell Windows specifically what to do in language Windows specifically understands . . . an implementation which no doubt has some documentation which may superficially look like a specification, except they aren't, because the specific code comes first and the description of what it does comes second.
If I'm right about that, it means that DirectX is inappropriate for being a standard for much the same reasons the Word .docx format is inappropriate to be a standard. All non-Windows implementations would be second-class citizens because the Windows implementation would be the real thing, and anywhere the "specification" varied from the actual behaviour of the Windows implementation (which would be plenty of places), it's the Windows implementation that would be the reference. And since what it's hooked into is closed code (Windows) it may be hard even to know precisely what the implementation is actually doing.
tuubi Oct 17, 2018
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Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Kristian
Quoting: cprnDirectX can't be ported to Linux per se, it's a bunch of Windows core calls. Its API can be re-implemented on Linux, that's what wine does and yeah, maybe wine folks would benefit but nobody else, really.

Hypothetically DirectX would be suitable as an open standard, replacing Vulkan, right? I mean from a purely technical stand point, they could open source it and turn it over to some standard's body or something. I ask because I am not well informed enough on the technical aspects.
Neither am I, but I infer from what cprn said that DirectX is fundamentally different from Vulkan in that Vulkan is a sort of set of specifications of how stuff is supposed to work, which is then implemented in different OSes and stuff, whereas DirectX is instead an implementation of thingies that tell Windows specifically what to do in language Windows specifically understands . . . an implementation which no doubt has some documentation which may superficially look like a specification, except they aren't, because the specific code comes first and the description of what it does comes second.
DirectX 12, or more specifically the graphics API Direct3D 12 is very similar to Vulkan. Both APIs were built on AMD's Mantle, and I don't see a technical reason why hardware vendors couldn't implement both in their Linux drivers. Vulkan 1.1 even added a bunch of DX12 compatibility extensions which makes the difference even smaller.

However, even if Microsoft hypothetically released an open DX12 spec, (deliberately) breaking their own "standards" and making competitors scramble for compatibility with their own implementations would be par for the course. They don't exactly have a stellar record when it comes to playing fair. I wouldn't trust Khronos either if they had their own platform to push. Instead they have all the interested parties working on a common spec. (Note that even Microsoft is a Khronos "contributor" member.)

There's also the fact that MS would never give up total control of the API. They like their lock-in as long as they're the big dog with nothing to lose.
Kristian Oct 17, 2018
"even if Microsoft hypothetically released an open DX12 spec, (deliberately) breaking their own "standards" and making competitors scramble for compatibility with their own implementations would be par for the course."

Them not doing this, or anything like it, was intended as part of my hypothetical.
tuubi Oct 17, 2018
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Quoting: Kristian"even if Microsoft hypothetically released an open DX12 spec, (deliberately) breaking their own "standards" and making competitors scramble for compatibility with their own implementations would be par for the course."

Them not doing this, or anything like it, was intended as part of my hypothetical.
I still don't see the point. What would DX12 bring to the table that Vulkan doesn't offer? Many companies have invested a lot in Vulkan support and know-how already. Why would they want to switch to another API now, equivalent or not?

DX12 is more limited in scope and hardware support by the way. It only needs to support XBox and anything that runs Windows 10. Vulkan is supported everywhere from the Nintendo Switch to specialised safety critical aircraft hardware. Vulkan could replace DX12 as is, but not the other way around.
Kristian Oct 17, 2018
"I still don't see the point. What would DX12 bring to the table that Vulkan doesn't offer? Many companies have invested a lot in Vulkan support and know-how already. Why would they want to switch to another API now, equivalent or not?"

I am not sure it would be useful at all. But in the (unlikely) event my hypothetical came true, it would show a change in attitude on the part of Microsoft, right?

The reason I suspect such a hypothetical situation might be useful is because DirectX has a lot of mindshare, tools, tutorials, books etc and most of all games that actually use it. Have many games ship with DirectX support vs support for open API's?

Hopefully that will change with Vulkan. If open API's are used more and more on the Windows side of things then that will help Linux gaming.

By the way is Vulkan seeing any widespread adoption by Switch developers? AFAIK Nintendo only offers Vulkan as an alternative to their own API's. If Vulkan was the only option for a major console that would also help alot.


Last edited by Kristian on 17 October 2018 at 12:03 pm UTC
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