ZeniMax claiming Palmer is not even capable of creating the DK1 and stole the tec?

[zork2001]

They also mentioned no one knows what Palmer's Job title is at Oculus, which is something I was wondering.

http://uploadvr.com/palmer-luckey-takes-stand-zenimax-court-case/

[DarkTenka]

Warbloke said:

This is obviously quite a big story - but for some reason I lack the enthusiasm to read lots about it.

Im probably missing loads of key-facts... so is this basically whats going on here or not ?:

is it  Zenimax's position ? - that it was a lie that Palmer invented the Oculus Rift... (building it all by himself in his shed like we were all told)... and instead... they say that billionare Palmer wasn't really very clever ) and instead one of their own very clever employees John Carmack who did all the hard work.
That one day Palmer came in with his idea looking to sell it for $500, and given they were not interested. 
Their Clever employeer (John) thought the company he worked for was nuts... that this was a great idea and could be worth a fortune... so he stole some of the research he did while working at Zenimax, buggered off to work with Palmer... and made a goddam fortune.
This made Zenimax sad, as they could have bought that damn thing for $500, and now they see someone having so much money he can basically financially support Trump. This money could have been theirs! and goddamit they are going to try to see if they are owed something as the whole thing wouldn't have been possible had it not been for their employee, and the stuff they owned which they say he stole ?

More or less. Basically Luckey and Carmack were already collaborating to begin with. After Luckey Kickstarted Oculus, then got bought out by Facebook, Zenimax demanded a share of 15% of Oculus under the grounds that there was "some kind of collaboration" between Carmack and Luckey. Luckey refused, Zenimax stripped Carmack from any ability to work on VR, and Carmack left Zenimax after his contract expired and joined Oculus because he wanted to work on VR.

Zenimax is now hanging on the idea that they might be able to convince a Jury that Carmack was paramount to the development of Oculus - during his time with iD/Zenimax - which would make any and all development of Oculus that pertains to that "collaboration" technically the property of Zenimax.

Thing is, Carmack is an extremely talented developer and could easily reproduce the code from scratch without the aid of notes or any of the previous collaboration that may have happened. On top of that, Luckey had already developed tonnes of prototypes before even consulting with Carmack.

They need to prove 2 things: That the Oculus could not have been made without Carmacks Code, and that the code that Carmack produced for Oculus after he left Zenimax is some how linked/involved with the collaboration they had when he worked at Zenimax.

I don't know much about Luckey/Carmack's true intentions but I know a decent enough about programming to know that trying to prove that any piece of code was not written uniquely is near impossible. It would have to have been literally copy/pasted including all comments/tabs/spaces written in exactly the same places to be possibly identifiable "as the same code".

Any variation at all could be evidence of someone re-writing it from scratch, since the way you think is the way you think, and even if the structure of the code is identical it's not that unlikely that you would come to the exact same conclusion - and exact same code - to solve a problem that you did weeks/months ago.

[elrealchiqui]

Better Call Saul

[Warbloke]

it all sounds very exciting. While (of course) I hope the side of right.. truth and justice must win.. I hope Palmer is on the side of 'right' and therefore wins.
I like rooting for the little guy. Have you seen him? He doesn't have much else going for him other than the giant financial windfall Facebook gave him.  Let him have it I say.. the poor guy cant even tie shoelaces and must wear flip flops for gods sake.

[DarkTenka]

Warbloke said:

it all sounds very exciting. While (of course) I hope the side of right.. truth and justice must win.. I hope Palmer is on the side of 'right' and therefore wins.
I like rooting for the little guy. Have you seen him? He doesn't have much else going for him other than the giant financial windfall Facebook gave him.  Let him have it I say.. the poor guy cant even tie shoelaces and must wear flip flops for gods sake.

Honestly I'm more on the side of Anarchy/Rebellion. Zenimax, like most publishers are scum sucking corporate executives who have no interest in pushing artistic endeavours and do things like buying out shares from other stake holders in order to gain a controlling stake in a company (what they recently tried/trying to do to Projekt Red).

I hope they DID steal the code and they get away with it. Fuck the law .. assholes like Zenimax think they can abuse the law for monetary gain. If they succeed, this will not only be a blow to VR but also a blow to technology and developer rights everywhere. They need to be taken down a peg.

[Warbloke]

but but, theft is also against the law...

what if Zenimax didn't abuse the law for monetary gain, and are just fighting for whats right...
... and of course... monitory gain 😕

I agree with you on your earlier post - it will be difficult to prove if code was stolensed (yes 'stolensed' ) as I read somewhere Carmack says not a single line of the stolen... I mean allegedly stolensed code was used in the CV1.

It might be a blow to VR and tech developers.. but it might be good for corporate justice and intellectual property rights?  Maybe even a lesson to enormously wealthy corporations that you cant just take what you want and do what you want without consequence... and teach them a lesson when shelling out over 2 Billion to maybe do more due diligence ?

Anyways... team Palmer here... until I hear something to make me jump ships.

[DarkTenka]

Warbloke said:

but but, theft is also against the law...

what if Zenimax didn't abuse the law for monetary gain, and are just fighting for whats right...
... and of course... monitory gain 😕

I agree with you on your earlier post - it will be difficult to prove if code was stolensed (yes 'stolensed' ) as I read somewhere Carmack says not a single line of the stolen... I mean allegedly stolensed code was used in the CV1.

It might be a blow to VR and tech developers.. but it might be good for corporate justice and intellectual property rights?  Maybe even a lesson to enormously wealthy corporations that you cant just take what you want and do what you want without consequence... and teach them a lesson when shelling out over 2 Billion to maybe do more due diligence ?

Anyways... team Palmer here... until I hear something to make me jump ships.

Theft is against the law for a reason - it hurts people. e.g. If I steal something from you, you don't have it any more and I now have it. I have profited by hurting someone else.

In this case, Carmack and Luckey took something that they worked hard on because they are passionate and want to revolutionise a new technology. THEY made it, not Zenimax.

Zenimax "possibly within the law" wants to profit from them creating something that THEY made simply because in some contract somewhere there is a line that says "if you make a thing, I own it, not you".

Zenimax are the ones trying to profit from hurting others in this case, it just so happens that it "might" be within the law. That just doesn't sit well with me. I will always rather see the developer have the power rather than the company executives.

[matskatsaba]

KillCard said:
I don't know much about Luckey/Carmack's true intentions but I know a decent enough about programming to know that trying to prove that any piece of code was not written uniquely is near impossible. It would have to have been literally copy/pasted including all comments/tabs/spaces written in exactly the same places to be possibly identifiable "as the same code". 

Any variation at all could be evidence of someone re-writing it from scratch, since the way you think is the way you think, and even if the structure of the code is identical it's not that unlikely that you would come to the exact same conclusion - and exact same code - to solve a problem that you did weeks/months ago.

Actually, not completely.
See google vs oracle.
They lost it at the end, but regarding stolen code, it`s not just a complete match.
Oracle tried and at the end, lost. Now zenimax tries (and will probably lose).
They should have figured already, that buying respected companies like id and bethesda doesn't make them a respectable company.
However, oculus team isn't famous about backing promises.
It's in the same ballpark.
Not at the same level but oculus team didn`t make as many promises in total, to go back on.
With a little cynical tone, what's the guarantee (aside your belief that Luckey/Carmack is a saint) that they are right?
I mean, oculus' goal was all about a best-to-price VR Headset if we believe them.
Now, it's all about leading VR platform - which they actually treat as a service.

The oculus team might have the talent to make it from scratch.
With a little irony, this is contradicted by the fact that it took long months to be able to install vr apps other than your boot partition, and still, after a year, its still impossible to install oculus home other than your boot partition, there's demand, and we all know how extremely hard it is to add an option for a custom install folder.
I get it, some drivers have to be on your boot pt, but 2,6gig is a bit too much for a driver.
They should have been able to produce a software that asks for confirmation before an update.
And so on.

Might as well be better not to care about this at all: it's not an indie studio vs zenimax, it's corporate vs corporate, and neither of them are particularly (or at all) liked. They both want to profit on someone else's work, let them fight it out and see at the grand finale, who was bs-ing more. Zenimax has a head start but who knows? 

[DarkTenka]

matskatsaba said:

KillCard said:
I don't know much about Luckey/Carmack's true intentions but I know a decent enough about programming to know that trying to prove that any piece of code was not written uniquely is near impossible. It would have to have been literally copy/pasted including all comments/tabs/spaces written in exactly the same places to be possibly identifiable "as the same code". 

Any variation at all could be evidence of someone re-writing it from scratch, since the way you think is the way you think, and even if the structure of the code is identical it's not that unlikely that you would come to the exact same conclusion - and exact same code - to solve a problem that you did weeks/months ago.

Actually, not completely.
See google vs oracle.
They lost it at the end, but regarding stolen code, it`s not just a complete match.
Oracle tried and at the end, lost. Now zenimax tries (and will probably lose).

Might as well be better not to care about this at all: it's not an indie studio vs zenimax, it's corporate vs corporate, and neither of them are particularly (or at all) liked. They both want to profit on someone else's work, let them fight it out and see at the grand finale, who was bs-ing more. Zenimax has a head start but who knows? 

I didn't know about the Google vs Oracle thing, I'll have to look that up. I get what you mean but, in the eyes of the law they can form a different definition. The thing is the nature of code, especially in OOP is that most code is often "shared" in some way.

I just cant fathom justifying 2 peices of code that solve the same problem, even if the structure of the code is the same, provided that different variable names are used and it might be spaced a little differently, you can't realistically say for certain if it was "plaigarised". The code of a program is not like a painting or a song, it's more like words in a book. It would be like if someone patented the phrase "once upon a time" and then no one else ever could use that as an opening for their story. The way that it would hinder all sorts of pieces of writing would be absurd because you couldnt use a certain phrase just because someone else did it that way.

It's the same for code, there are certain optimal ways to do things, and certain specific ways of doing things. If someone were able to patent a certain way of doing it, it would completely screw everyone over from solving the same problem. 

As for it being corporate v corporate, I agree there is less to worry about. Even if FB loses, the 2billion probably would barely scratch the paintwork. But as I see it this sort of is also partially indie v corporate. Even though Palmey and Carmey are working for FB now I still see them as indie's in a sort of way, since they essentially developed their VR prototypes independantly in the first place. Lets call it Corporate vs Indie with a Corporate Backer.

[Warbloke]

KillCard said:

Warbloke said:

but but, theft is also against the law...

what if Zenimax didn't abuse the law for monetary gain, and are just fighting for whats right...
... and of course... monitory gain 😕

I agree with you on your earlier post - it will be difficult to prove if code was stolensed (yes 'stolensed' ) as I read somewhere Carmack says not a single line of the stolen... I mean allegedly stolensed code was used in the CV1.

It might be a blow to VR and tech developers.. but it might be good for corporate justice and intellectual property rights?  Maybe even a lesson to enormously wealthy corporations that you cant just take what you want and do what you want without consequence... and teach them a lesson when shelling out over 2 Billion to maybe do more due diligence ?

Anyways... team Palmer here... until I hear something to make me jump ships.

Theft is against the law for a reason - it hurts people. e.g. If I steal something from you, you don't have it any more and I now have it. I have profited by hurting someone else.

In this case, Carmack and Luckey took something that they worked hard on because they are passionate and want to revolutionise a new technology. THEY made it, not Zenimax.

Zenimax "possibly within the law" wants to profit from them creating something that THEY made simply because in some contract somewhere there is a line that says "if you make a thing, I own it, not you".

Zenimax are the ones trying to profit from hurting others in this case, it just so happens that it "might" be within the law. That just doesn't sit well with me. I will always rather see the developer have the power rather than the company executives.

hmm, fascinating you... rebel you...
you are saying is a crime isn't a crime if there no victim.  ie: The Victimless Crime.

'If' they made what they made while working for Zenimax, while Zenimax was paying them their wages using Zenimax resources etc... while I agree with you that THEY made it and not Zenimax... doesn't what they made still belong to Zenimax?

They must have agreed to that.

I mean, If you were a housing developer/ building company... and I was a builder, and you employed me to build houses for you... and for that you will pay me hopefully a decent wage.. and I agreed to that so came to work for you... 

If I then decided that all of the houses I built for you (while you were paying me, and using your building materials/ resources and time.... these houses were MINE to sell.. cause I built them... and not yours to sell?

So I sold them all claiming I had the right to sell them... then you come along and find out.... has a crime been commited?.... are you a victim?

[nalex66]

Warbloke said:

'If' they made what they made while working for Zenimax, while Zenimax was paying them their wages using Zenimax resources etc... while I agree with you that THEY made it and not Zenimax... doesn't what they made still belong to Zenimax?

They must have agreed to that.

Well, they didn't both work for Zenimax. Palmer was making headset prototypes on his own, and posting about it on the MTBS3D forums (a VR hobby site). Carmack saw it and expressed interest, Luckey sent him a prototype, and Carmack tweaked it a little and showed it off at E3.

There was a period of time where Carmack offered some technical advice to Luckey. Now Zenimax is saying that Carmack invented everything and Luckey did nothing, which is ludicrous. Zenimax was never interested in pursuing VR, but are trying to claim it now because Carmack might have contributed some insight.