
Facebook’s Virtual Reality Foray Derided as ‘Fanciful Story’ - euroclydon
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/facebook-s-virtual-reality-foray-challenged-as-fanciful-story
======
probablybroken
This whole case seems utterly bizarre; I followed the development of the rift
pre-Oculus, and none of what Zenimax are saying seems to be grounded in
reality. As I remember, Carmack's real innovation was to create a full screen
effect that compensated for the cheap optics that palmer's design used; Now
you could claim that as a member of staff, this innovation belonged to
Zenimax, but this does not appear to be the case that they are making. In
addition, how come other independent organisations have been able to create
working VR without treading all over their patents if they were really betting
on the technology?

~~~
cr0sh
> I followed the development of the rift pre-Oculus, and none of what Zenimax
> are saying seems to be grounded in reality.

I was following Palmer's progress on the MTBS3D forums long before he even
thought about the Rift. He'd been modding HMDs and recombining old 90's
hardware in very interesting ways - as someone who was very into homebrew VR
back in the mid-1990s, by 2012 it had become something of a "once-upon-a-time"
fad (VR winter, maybe?) - nobody sold any kind of real HMD, nobody was really
doing anything - it fascinated me.

At the time, I was collecting up what little detritus of the 90s VR craze
existed (I managed to get a complete collection of PCVR magazine before it was
impossible to do so, plus numerous HMDs, Powergloves, Ascension FOBs trackers,
etc). When I saw what Palmer was doing, he was like one of a handful of people
I knew of who was playing with this stuff. It was really in left-field at the
time! I had stopped really playing with it myself, pursuing other things - but
when I saw what he was doing, I knew at that time that if VR was to ever make
a comeback, Palmer would be at the front.

Which is what led me to back his KS when he announced it.

> As I remember, Carmack's real innovation was to create a full screen effect
> that compensated for the cheap optics that palmer's design used

He may have coded up one of the first shaders for this, but the idea of doing
a software-based barrel warp transform has been around since the early-1990s
or further, when LEEP was selling their optics system:

[http://www.leepvr.com/](http://www.leepvr.com/)

It was insanely expensive. I have no doubt that Palmer knew of them, since he
was playing with old-school VR parts. His drive indicated to me that he
probably has read all of the old-school books/magazines on VR and such, which
all talked about the LEEP system.

The patent on the optics ran out sometime in the early-2000s, IIRC (?) - and I
think Palmer jumped on it, especially when low-cost, high-res phone displays
became available for experimenters.

~~~
ABCLAW
Reading your post reminded me of a post you submitted a month ago on the same
topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13124415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13124415)

I think the previous post is a gem and will be helpful for readers.

------
pawadu
Read Carmacks biography!

His first job was at a small computer shop where he wrote business software.
He felt the job was boring and with some friends started developing PC games
in secret, on work machines and while lifting wages. This is how id software
was born. Due to that book, I think he will have a hard time convincing a jury
he is innocent.

edit: its even on wikipedia

 _Softdisk, [...] hired Carmack to work on Softdisk G-S [...] introducing him
to John Romero and other future key members of id Software such as Adrian
Carmack [...]. In 1990, while still at Softdisk, Carmack, Romero, and others
created the first of the Commander Keen games, [...]_

~~~
Paul_S
If you don't believe it, read Masters of Doom - it's a hugely sympathetic
history of id and they still manage to look like sociopaths in it, especially
Carmack. They steal, lie and backstab their friends.

~~~
Raphmedia
Sociopath? There's no friends in business.

~~~
metaphorm
...is what a sociopath would say

------
wmccullough
As soon as I saw the suit was ZeniMax I dismissed it immediately. They'd sue
me for this comment if they could figure out how.

~~~
vanattab
Could you elaborate? Do they have a history of frivolous lawsuits? I could not
find anything in a quick google search.

------
rl3
> _ZeniMax contends Carmack was responsible for the breakthroughs that
> transformed the Rift into a “powerful immersive virtual reality
> experience.”_

...that was completely trampled by the HTC Vive. It's like ZeniMax insists on
squabbling over the scraps of a failure.

To play devil's advocate, I suppose they didn't know this when they filed, and
Oculus may still prove quite valuable in the future—but either way, they could
probably start their own VR program for what their legal bills are going to
cost in the end.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Worse, the Vive has leapfrogged them with wireless support, additional
trackers, etc. I feel like there's an elephant in the room when discussion the
value or 'success' of the Rift. I don't think most consumers casually
interested in VR realize how behind those guys are.

I do see the Oculus/Rift branding being repurposed for a Facebook social
experience, if not an entire platform for phones to support, but in the realm
of PC gaming or anything that requires desktop GPU/CPU levels of power, I
imagine they'll always be second fiddle and will be surprised if they last
much longer. Tim Sweeney is claiming the Vive outsells the Rift 2-to-1 right
now. That's damning for a company with Facebook heft behind it and several
years of community engagement, developer kits, hype, etc which ultimately when
up against a product that came out of nowhere but delivered everything on day
one: controllers, roomscale, good fov, amazing tracking, immersion, etc as
well as trivially being able to do seated/standing experiences.

~~~
serge2k
> That's damning for a company with Facebook heft behind it

That's not great when their target market is gamers, a large number of whom
distrust facebook, love valve, hate the idea of a VR device trying to become a
walled garden, and are generally entitled jerks who will whine and cry and
talk about how they are never buying an oculus product because palmer lied
about the price/sold out to facebook/whatever.

------
jandrese
IMHO this is likely to be moot anyway. One of the takeaways I got from CES
this year is that Galaxy Gear and Vive have won the VR race. There were zero
Rift demos. This is looking like a fight over who is going to own the IP for
HD-DVD.

~~~
pr0zac
The Galaxy Gear is made by Samsung in collaboration with Oculus.

~~~
alexqgb
Yes, but it's been managed as a separate product, in a separate category
(mobile VR), and now — after the recent reorg at Oculus — in a separate
division. It's also the one that Carmack has been focused on exclusively for
well over a year now. On a day-to-day basis, he doesn't have anything to do
with the Rift.

------
suprfnk
Offtopic, but how do I read that title? Syntax error in my head. I get the
"Goes to Trial" part, but "Carmack Rift Over Oculus"?

~~~
akjainaj
I'd blame the senseless title case that Americans use. If rift was lowercase,
it would be easier to understand.

"Carmack rift over Oculus goes to trial"

~~~
gcp
Yeah but the device is the Oculus Rift.

~~~
DougBTX
Yep, hence the pun

------
Yuioup
> relations between the startups quickly soured

I wouldn't call Zenimax a "startup"

~~~
seppin
well, Uber still is called one

------
aaron-lebo
I got really excited thinking maybe Carmack would be set free, but he's at the
center of it:

 _ZeniMax contends Carmack was responsible for the breakthroughs that
transformed the Rift into a “powerful immersive virtual reality experience.”
But after Carmack and Luckey agreed to use the Rift to showcase a specially
configured version of Doom 3 at a Los Angeles convention in 2012, relations
between the startups quickly soured, according to ZeniMax.

Instead of discussing how Oculus would compensate ZeniMax, Luckey and Oculus’s
then-Chief Executive Officer Brendan Iribe allegedly became “increasingly
evasive and uncooperative.” Next, they hired Carmack, who is accused of
copying thousands of documents from his computer at ZeniMax._

and

 _Carmack says he also offered to manufacture and sell a consumer headset
similar to Luckey’s, but his idea fell flat with ZeniMax’s CEO Robert Altman,
a former lawyer who had also been CEO of the adult entertainment website
FriendFinder Networks Inc._

What a world we live in. Are there any indications to how this case may go?

~~~
HugoDaniel
Wasn't Doom 3 GPL'd ?

~~~
douche
It is, at least the version that is on the Id Software Github

[https://github.com/id-
Software/DOOM-3/blob/master/COPYING.tx...](https://github.com/id-
Software/DOOM-3/blob/master/COPYING.txt)

------
john_reel
> Next, they hired Carmack, who is accused of copying thousands of documents
> from his computer at ZeniMax.

This claim sounds pretty dubious. Has John Carmack said anything about it?

~~~
sho_hn
Does it? Carmack wouldn't be the first engineer to ignore legal details in
pursuit of perceived nobler goals. Many mass-ignore sw patents every day.

Guilt needs to be proven, but I don't find it hard to _imagine_.

Side note: HN may not realize, but the public sympathy in this case may not be
with Carmack and Oculus. ZeniMax, as parent of Bethesda, has a largely solid
rep among the video game consumer audience as publisher of respectable games,
and while the acquisition of id was initially seen as id selling out, their
latest game under Bethesda (the first shipped without Carmack at the company)
is widely regarded as a major return to form for a once-struggling game
developer. Meanwhile Occulus burned through most of its initial goodwill with
(perceived to be) disappointing pricing, exclusiviy shenanigans and losing a
lot of ground to HTC's strong Vive offering. Carmack has tons of deserved
cachet with us, but the public at large may be ready to hang him and Oculus.
This will get ugly.

~~~
ghayes
I would argue most software engineers perceive a huge rift between "I am
comfortable violating some software patents" and "I am comfortable
exfiltrating large swaths of my employers code base." I would hope so at
least.

~~~
sho_hn
Most software engineers aren't Carmack, though. He used to co-own his
technology, and graciously rooted for putting much of it under open licenses.
I think Carmack is a pragmatist and certainly understands the business value
of code, but also isn't a big fan of constraints.

It's not like the my mind is made up, I don't know either way. Curious to see
what the trial will bring.

~~~
KallDrexx
Carmack wasn't a freelancer working under Zenimax on an hourly basis. He was a
full time employee working on the same industry in games, and as ex-CTO of id
(and knowing what we know of Carmack's talents and what he's done before) he
was most likely doing a lot more research and prototyping work in his capacity
at Zenimax. Therefore it's a lot less obvious what he has ownership of vs what
Zenimax has ownership of.

------
iaw
> ZeniMax also declined to invest in Oculus in an early financing round and
> was unwilling to accept anything short of “a large non-dilutable stake” in
> Oculus in return for allowing Carmack’s participation as a technical
> adviser, according to Carmack’s filing

If there was an issue with proprietary information wouldn't they have objected
that the financing stage?

------
joeevans1000
After trying both the Vive and the Rift, I immediately stopped worrying about
whether we were all going to have to log into our headsets with Facebook. The
Vive is amazing in comparison.

------
jamesrom
Your heading is much better than Bloomberg's, but still confusing.

------
kelvin0
Why wait all this time to figure out they want to sue? FB bought occulus,
Carmack Joined ... a few years later their lawyers wake up now? Anyone know
more about this, or at least has seen similar strategies before? The only
thing I could guess is that they waited until the goose lay an egg, which
turned out not to be gold ...?

~~~
Yodoshi
This has been in the pipeline for nye on 3 years.

[https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/zenimax-claims-oculus-
st...](https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/zenimax-claims-oculus-stole/)

------
joeevans1000
Once Palmer sold us all out to Facebook it was over. Fortunately, better
headsets are on the scene.

------
thampiman
At Zenimax: "Hey guys. This whole VR is becoming a real thing and we dismissed
it along with this Carmack dude. Lets fill a suit against Zuckerberg for
ludicrous amount of money, maybe we can get couple millions for free via
settlement."

------
omarforgotpwd
Reminds me of that scene from the social network: "Did we use any of your
code? If you guys were the inventors of the Occulus Rift, you would have
invented the occulus rift"

------
gumby
If anyone had the grounds to sue it would be Valve. This one seems absurd on
the face of it. Still, we'll see what comes out.

~~~
serge2k
why?

~~~
gumby
Abrash handed over a lot of Valve IP and prototypes to Oculus (note: Gabe did
not object) before himself joining Oculus. Oculus did their VC demos at Valve
on Valve hardware. I think gabe was hoping that oculus would put all their
games on Steam. Didn't work out that way :-)

Still, my comment was semi-flippant; Valve is no lawsuit monster and even if
they were inclined to sue, they surely would have done so by now. But there
were quite a few unhappy people at Valve about how that went down, and IMHO
the Vive is in part a this-is-how-you-really-do-it fuck you to Oculus.

In any case I feel like this is simply an opportunistic deep-pocket-reaching
lawsuit against FB.

PS: don't know why my original comment was downrated.

