5 ms·

A bit of a sensational headline. According to Carmack himself, "the workaround added four lines of code and changed two." The validity of that or any software p

A bit of a sensational headline. According to Carmack himself, "the workaround added four lines of code and changed two." The validity of that or any software patent notwithstanding, he's not exactly rewriting the engine. Source: https://twitter.com/#!/ID_AA_Carmack/status/137189212519792640 https://twitter.com/#!/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1371892125197926...

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
So this patent covers an implement of Foo that is 6 lines of code? How is that possible?
- lwat 15y ago
  Welcome to the world of software patents.
- jgh 15y ago
  Technically if he wants to do depth-pass instead of depth-fail, he has to change two or three lines of code. He probably added a workaround for the depth-pass near clipping plane errors.
  - Arelius 15y ago
    Depth-fail is chosen due to working in the Camera-in-shadow-volume case, not the near clipping plane errors. This is the workaround he needs to solve for considering the Doom3 usage case.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  I'm sure six lines of Carmack code can contain a solution that is novel, useful, and non-obvious.
  - greyfade 15y ago
    It's neither novel nor non-obvious. It's a minor variation on a well-known and oft-used algorithm. Carmack himself said as much when he started talking about the algorithm.
    - grannyg00se 15y ago
      And that's where I have a problem with software patents in particular. I'm not in the camps that believe nothing should be patentable, or that some ideas should be patentable - but not software. I'm okay with software patents as a concept (for now). However, with software patents it seems there is a higher than average likelihood that an obvious and trivial patent will be granted. You'll have patents for things like: "a method to confirm a user action whereby a dialog window is presented to the user with several buttons including but not limited to Yes and No." This is just an example but I've seen similar patents granted.
      - greyfade 15y ago
        There is also an non-insignificant number of patents that expressly cover an algorithm that would have been found in most computer science textbooks - verbatim - since the '70s. One notable example is the Quicksort algorithm (US 5,175,857). Another is arithmetic coding (known since at least 1976), which has been patented no less than 31 times. If basic information theory can be patented, there's a problem.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Just thank the gods they haven't (yet) figured out how to patent the idea of "whitespace" and "comments".

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

So this patent covers an implement of Foo that is 6 lines of code? How is that possible?

lwat 15y ago
Welcome to the world of software patents.
jgh 15y ago
Technically if he wants to do depth-pass instead of depth-fail, he has to change two or three lines of code. He probably added a workaround for the depth-pass near clipping plane errors.
- Arelius 15y ago
  Depth-fail is chosen due to working in the Camera-in-shadow-volume case, not the near clipping plane errors. This is the workaround he needs to solve for considering the Doom3 usage case.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
grannyg00se 15y ago
I'm sure six lines of Carmack code can contain a solution that is novel, useful, and non-obvious.
- greyfade 15y ago
  It's neither novel nor non-obvious. It's a minor variation on a well-known and oft-used algorithm. Carmack himself said as much when he started talking about the algorithm.
  - grannyg00se 15y ago
    And that's where I have a problem with software patents in particular. I'm not in the camps that believe nothing should be patentable, or that some ideas should be patentable - but not software. I'm okay with software patents as a concept (for now). However, with software patents it seems there is a higher than average likelihood that an obvious and trivial patent will be granted. You'll have patents for things like: "a method to confirm a user action whereby a dialog window is presented to the user with several buttons including but not limited to Yes and No." This is just an example but I've seen similar patents granted.
    - greyfade 15y ago
      There is also an non-insignificant number of patents that expressly cover an algorithm that would have been found in most computer science textbooks - verbatim - since the '70s. One notable example is the Quicksort algorithm (US 5,175,857). Another is arithmetic coding (known since at least 1976), which has been patented no less than 31 times. If basic information theory can be patented, there's a problem.
sliverstorm 15y ago
Just thank the gods they haven't (yet) figured out how to patent the idea of "whitespace" and "comments".