Quote Originally Posted by deanjo View Post
Innovate their own "cutting edge" technology replacement instead of trying to duplicate and get that to become the established standard which would then be protected by prior art.
You apparently don't understand the nature of at least one of these patents. It's on a _fundamental concept_ of all modern computer graphics.

Second, the GL's job is not to innovate. It's to reflect what the hardware is capable of. Despite some common misconception, Microsoft does not just invent new Direct3D versions and then force NVIDIA/AMD to implement hardware for that. Instead, what Microsoft actually does is much more noble: it talks to NVIDIA and AMD, finds out what their future hardware will do, gets some cross-communication going to make sure that the hardware vendors' implementations of similar features are compatible, and then builds an API that reflects that hardware.

The fact that OpenGL comes out with new features later than Direct3D is NOT due to some foul play on Microsoft's part. It's due to Khronos being utterly fucking useless