Modders already breaking Oculus exclusivity (updated- June 24th 2016)

[Zah]

22 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Thinking back I remember when 3D Acceleration took off and VooDoo decided they were gonna use Glide instead of OpenGL. Even back then it didn't work out too well, if my memory serves me correct I think there was about 10 or so games which used Glide, then DX seemed to come out of nowhere and take over and VooDd went bankrupt shortly after.

Pretty much.  The company that actually supported OpenGL and made it the best thing until I think DX7 though (and then bought Voodoo)?  That was nvidia.

 

Supporting open standards seems to actually make you successful in tech it looks like.

[Sakkura]

3 hours ago, Humbug said:

How are they blocking it?

Just asking; cause the openVR drivers are open sourced and documented.

 

So anybody can write an HTC Vive application and get it working on your own. Without any store... you can do it without Valve ever knowing.

 

Here

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/wiki/API-Documentation

 

So the HMD hardware is not locked to steamVR. I'm sure even if Valve had wanted to do something that stupid HTC wouldn't have agreed cause it limits them.

They are preventing support for the Oculus SDK on the HTC Vive. That way they effectively lock their headset to "OpenVR" and the Steam platform.

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, Pintend said:

Valve aren't blocking anything. It's Oculus that is doing all the blocking.

 

The Oculus Store only supports genuine oculus certified products which only happen to be the Rift and the Samsung Gear VR.

 

In order to check for this, both devices through the Oculus SDK have a form of DRM that tells the store whether or not the device they are using is a certified oculus product.

If the device is not a certified oculus product, no oculus store for you!

 

So you're right, the oculus store does support more than the rift, it just happens to be a mobile headset co-created by oculus made for only a select number of handhelds.

Valve are blocking Oculus from supporting the Vive with the Oculus SDK.

[Anult]

8 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Valve are blocking Oculus from supporting the Vive with the Oculus SDK.

Valve are not blocking support for the Oculus SDK with the Vive.

 

The issue currently lies with Oculus and their SDK.

 

The same SDK that has built in DRM so it only works with Oculus certified products.

 

The same SDK that Oculus hasn't given to other VR headset manufacturers to work with so that Oculus games that only use the Oculus SDK will work with headsets other than the Rift/Gear VR.

[Sakkura]

14 minutes ago, Pintend said:

Valve are not blocking support for the Oculus SDK with the Vive.

 

The issue currently lies with Oculus and their SDK.

 

The same SDK that has built in DRM so it only works with Oculus certified products.

 

The same SDK that Oculus hasn't given to other VR headset manufacturers to work with so that Oculus games that only use the Oculus SDK will work with headsets other than the Rift/Gear VR.

Yes they are. GabeN was asked this question and dodged it, instead saying that "The Vive isn't tied to Steam" which is technically true, it's just cut off from the Oculus SDK and thus the store.

 

The SDK checks that the product is certified, so they can ensure that it offers a good experience. Otherwise you'd have all these Chinese knockoff VR devices making people sick in Oculus' environment. The Vive just needs to support the Oculus SDK and then it can be certified. It's not DRM.

[Anult]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Yes they are. GabeN was asked this question and dodged it, instead saying that "The Vive isn't tied to Steam" which is technically true, it's just cut off from the Oculus SDK and thus the store.

 

The SDK checks that the product is certified, so they can ensure that it offers a good experience. Otherwise you'd have all these Chinese knockoff VR devices making people sick in Oculus' environment. The Vive just needs to support the Oculus SDK and then it can be certified. It's not DRM.

Except the Oculus licence agreement regarding the SDK says otherwise:

 

"The Oculus VR Rift SDK may not be used to interface with unapproved commercial virtual reality mobile or non-mobile products or hardware"

 

Also, the SDK does have DRM to check for "unauthorised" DLL files through the means of signed code that the SDK looks for when you try and use it on a device that is not Oculus certified.

 

Like I said, it's all on Oculus whether or not the SDK works with the Vive.

Valve can't do shit unless they want to end up in a court battle with Oculus/Facebook because they broke the licence agreement.

 

[LAwLz]

On 4/15/2016 at 0:39 PM, Sakkura said:

No, they don't.

 

It's just people spreading FUD about the Oculus Rift.

 

There are games that are exclusive to the Oculus Store, but the Oculus Store is not exclusive to the Oculus Rift headset.

 

However, Valve are blocking Oculus from supporting the HTC Vive in the Oculus Store, in order to keep people on the Steam platform.

[Citation Needed]

 

In fact, the only reason why this work is because Valve are not blocking anything. Someone just made a mod that translates the calls from the Oculus Rift to the open source equivalence that Valve has developed. They had to modify the Oculus code to get this to work, not the Valve code. What you are saying, that Valve is blocking Oculus from adding Vive support to the Oculus Store, makes no sense.

 

 

52 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

They are preventing support for the Oculus SDK on the HTC Vive. That way they effectively lock their headset to "OpenVR" and the Steam platform.

That is pure bullshit from you. The only ones who are preventing the Vive from using the Oculus SDK are Oculus themselves. Why did you put citation marks around "OpenVR"? OpenVR is an open source SDK which already works with other headsets.

The license agreement for the Oculus Rift even states that you are not allowed to do modification to the source code if they introduce the ability for it to work with other headsets, without approval from Oculus.

Quote

If you license, sublicense or redistribute RIFT SDK Derivatives in and of themselves (not as a part of a piece of Developer Content) then you may only do that solely with and in conjunction with either the RIFT SDK or LibOVR. The RIFT SDK (including, but not limited to LibOVR),any RIFT SDK Derivatives, and any Developer Content may only be used with Oculus Approved Rift Products and may not be used, licensed, or sublicensed to interface with mobile software or hardware or other commercial headsets, mobile tablets or phones that are not authorized and approved by Oculus VR;

 

I don't know why you are so hell-bent on defending Oculus, but they truly are the issue here. I wouldn't be surprised if you blame Valve when Oculus breaks compatibility for this mod as well.

 

Another thing to think about, why do you want everyone to use the Rift SDK, which is 100% controlled by Oculus/Facebook, instead of everyone using OpenVR? I have actually read though the licenses for both OpenVR and the Rift SDK, and let me tell you the license for OpenVR is much, much better.

The Rift SDK has an enormous amount of restrictions attached to it, such as not being allowed to make it work with other headsets except if Facebook/Oculus approves. The document is about 2400 words long and is full of restrictions like that. The OpenVR license is 224 words long, and over half of that is the standard as is statement.

If anything, everyone should use the OpenVR SDK, since that puts less restrictions on developers and users.

 

21 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

The SDK checks that the product is certified, so they can ensure that it offers a good experience. Otherwise you'd have all these Chinese knockoff VR devices making people sick in Oculus' environment. The Vive just needs to support the Oculus SDK and then it can be certified. It's not DRM.

Both the SDK and the HDM needs to support each other, and the license agreement for the Oculus SDK specifically says you are not allowed to make it work with other HMDs.

That by the way, is 100% DRM. It is the pure definition of DRM. It blows my mind that you even say it isn't DRM when you in the previous sentence said that Oculus are restricting access to their platform to prevent Chinese knockoff VR devices to using it. Do you not see the massive disconnect between those two sentences?

If something prevents users from using a service because the device used isn't approved, then it is DRM protected.

[Sakkura]

21 minutes ago, Pintend said:

Except the Oculus licence agreement regarding the SDK says otherwise:

 

"The Oculus VR Rift SDK may not be used to interface with unapproved commercial virtual reality mobile or non-mobile products or hardware"

 

Also, the SDK does have DRM to check for "unauthorised" DLL files through the means of signed code that the SDK looks for when you try and use it on a device that is not Oculus certified.

 

Like I said, it's all on Oculus whether or not the SDK works with the Vive.

Valve can't do shit unless they want to end up in a court battle with Oculus/Facebook because they broke the licence agreement.

 

Yeah it needs to be approved. That doesn't mean only the Rift would be approved.

 

And once again, it's not on Oculus whether the SDK works with the Vive. They need both legal permission and documentation on low-level functions to make the SDK work with the Vive, none of which HTC or Valve have provided. This means Oculus can't implement necessary features like asynchronous timewarp. Valve are focusing on an alternative method to address performance drops, by scaling down visual quality dynamically, but that doesn't make it right to block a competing technique. Especially not when the aim is most likely to lock people into the SteamVR platform.

 

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

[Citation Needed]

 

In fact, the only reason why this work is because Valve are not blocking anything. Someone just made a mod that translates the calls from the Oculus Rift to the open source equivalence that Valve has developed. They had to modify the Oculus code to get this to work, not the Valve code. What you are saying, that Valve is blocking Oculus from adding Vive support to the Oculus Store, makes no sense.

 

 

That is pure bullshit from you. The only ones who are preventing the Vive from using the Oculus SDK are Oculus themselves. Why did you put citation marks around "OpenVR"? OpenVR is an open source SDK which already works with other headsets.

The license agreement for the Oculus Rift even states that you are not allowed to do modification to the source code if they introduce the ability for it to work with other headsets, without approval from Oculus.

 

I don't know why you are so hell-bent on defending Oculus, but they truly are the issue here. I wouldn't be surprised if you blame Valve when Oculus breaks compatibility for this mod as well.

Valve/HTC are blocking these things, they're not giving Oculus access legally or practically. A hacky workaround is nowhere near the same as official, sanctioned support. Of course it was the Oculus code that had to be modified, but the point is Oculus is legally and practically blocked from making the modifications necessary to provide official support for the Vive.

 

OpenVR is only open in the sense that anyone can use it, but it's controlled by Valve. Thus Valve could break Oculus support at any time by changing OpenVR. It's not a proper industry standard like, say, OpenGL.

 

So you guys are the ones hell-bent on defending Valve on this. The paid mod disaster should have revealed that Valve are not saints.

[Humbug]

48 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Another thing to think about, why do you want everyone to use the Rift SDK, which is 100% controlled by Oculus/Facebook, instead of everyone using OpenVR? I have actually read though the licenses for both OpenVR and the Rift SDK, and let me tell you the license for OpenVR is much, much better.

The Rift SDK has an enormous amount of restrictions attached to it, such as not being allowed to make it work with other headsets except if Facebook/Oculus approves. The document is about 2400 words long and is full of restrictions like that. The OpenVR license is 224 words long, and over half of that is the standard as is statement.

If anything, everyone should use the OpenVR SDK, since that puts less restrictions on developers and users.

We can argue about which SDK is better but I think that's besides the point of this topic.

 

The point is should a digital store be specifying which SDK has to be used?

Shouldn't the developers have free choice? Nobody tells devs on steam that they have to use openVR or that they have to use Oculus SDK. They use what they want... and many devs use both to support different HMDs.

 

I suppose the difference is that Oculus sees their store as their specific VR ecosystem, whereas Valve sees Steam as a more general purpose PC gaming store.

[LAwLz]

35 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Yeah it needs to be approved. That doesn't mean only the Rift would be approved.

It does however mean that Oculus are in full control. Something we should avoid at all cost.

 

35 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

And once again, it's not on Oculus whether the SDK works with the Vive. They need both legal permission and documentation on low-level functions to make the SDK work with the Vive, none of which HTC or Valve have provided. This means Oculus can't implement necessary features like asynchronous timewarp. Valve are focusing on an alternative method to address performance drops, by scaling down visual quality dynamically, but that doesn't make it right to block a competing technique. Especially not when the aim is most likely to lock people into the SteamVR platform.

Ehh... Yes it most certainly is on Oculus to make the SDK work with the Vive. Do you even understand how software development works? You are basically saying "AMD are blocking Nvidia from adding PhysX support for AMD GPUs". They are not. Nvidia are the ones in control of the SDK and therefore they are the ones that control which devices are supported.

 

 

35 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Valve/HTC are blocking these things, they're not giving Oculus access legally or practically. A hacky workaround is nowhere near the same as official, sanctioned support. Of course it was the Oculus code that had to be modified, but the point is Oculus is legally and practically blocked from making the modifications necessary to provide official support for the Vive.

[Citation Needed]

I have provided links to the official license agreements. Now I want you to provide equally valid sources for your claims, because right now I'd say you are just making shit up.

 

 

35 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

OpenVR is only open in the sense that anyone can use it, but it's controlled by Valve. Thus Valve could break Oculus support at any time by changing OpenVR. It's not a proper industry standard like, say, OpenGL.

No it's not. Read the license I linked. Anyone is free to fork OpenVR if they want. The same can not be said for the Oculus SDK.

 

 

35 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

So you guys are the ones hell-bent on defending Valve on this. The paid mod disaster should have revealed that Valve are not saints.

The "paid mod disaster" has absolutely nothing to do with this. Stop being a colossal fanboy and look at facts instead. I have linked you to legal documents showing that my points are valid. You have not proved anything.

I am not hell-bent on defending Valve. Look at my post history and you will see that I have been extremely harsh on them when it is justified. I am hell-bent on defending the truth.

 

 

 

14 minutes ago, Humbug said:

We can argue about which SDK is better but I think that's besides the point of this argument.

 

The point is should a digital store be specifying which SDK has to be used?

Shouldn't the developers have free choice. Nobody tells devs on steam that they have to use openVR or that they have to use Oculus SDK. They use what they want...

 

I suppose the difference is that Oculus sees their store as their VR ecosystem, whereas Valve sees Steam as a more general purpose PC gaming store.

Well, you don't need to use Steam to use the Vive, nor do you need to use Oculus Home to use the Rift so I don't think that's what we should be discussing.

What we need is for all headsets to support the same SDK. Right now OpenVR is by far the best SDK for that purpose, as far as licensing agreement goes.

[Sakkura]

38 minutes ago, Humbug said:

We can argue about which SDK is better but I think that's besides the point of this topic.

 

The point is should a digital store be specifying which SDK has to be used?

Shouldn't the developers have free choice? Nobody tells devs on steam that they have to use openVR or that they have to use Oculus SDK. They use what they want... and many devs use both to support different HMDs.

 

I suppose the difference is that Oculus sees their store as their specific VR ecosystem, whereas Valve sees Steam as a more general purpose PC gaming store.

That is a good question. Ultimately, Oculus doesn't want people to get motion sickness from using their store. I believe the Oculus Store does still allow support for OpenVR and SteamVR though, apps just also must support the Oculus SDK.

25 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It does however mean that Oculus are in full control. Something we should avoid at all cost.

 

Ehh... Yes it most certainly is on Oculus to make the SDK work with the Vive. Do you even understand how software development works? You are basically saying "AMD are blocking Nvidia from adding PhysX support for AMD GPUs". They are not. Nvidia are the ones in control of the SDK and therefore they are the ones that control which devices are supported.

 

 

[Citation Needed]

I have provided links to the official license agreements. Now I want you to provide equally valid sources for your claims, because right now I'd say you are just making shit up.

 

 

No it's not. Read the license I linked. Anyone is free to fork OpenVR if they want. The same can not be said for the Oculus SDK.

 

 

The "paid mod disaster" has absolutely nothing to do with this. Stop being a colossal fanboy and look at facts instead. I have linked you to legal documents showing that my points are valid. You have not proved anything.

I am not hell-bent on defending Valve. Look at my post history and you will see that I have been extremely harsh on them when it is justified. I am hell-bent on defending the truth.

Oculus are not in full control; they would be in sort of full control of apps in the Oculus Store, but not apps available elsewhere. With OpenVR, Valve is in full control of VR everywhere.

 

No, it is not on Oculus alone to make the SDK work with the Vive. They can't just make the changes. It's like AMD putting CUDA and PhysX in their driver.

 

You have provided irrelevant links that do not support your claims. Here is Palmer Luckey confirming that they are not allowed to support the Vive with the Oculus SDK. Here is GabeN dodging the question and thus implicitly confirming Luckey's claim.

 

Forking OpenVR means cutting yourself off from mainstream OpenVR compatibility. Not viable at this point.

 

The paid mods showed that Valve are not the saints you are claiming, and that's the real fanboying here. Want me to criticize Oculus? I can certainly do that. Their store sucks, their launch issues are severe and their communication around it was horrible.

[LAwLz]

24 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Oculus are not in full control; they would be in sort of full control of apps in the Oculus Store, but not apps available elsewhere. With OpenVR, Valve is in full control of VR everywhere.

Can you please stop spewing garbage lies like that? Read the licenses I linked above. They are the legal documents that developers has to follow.

Valve has next to 0 control over OpenVR. Any developer is free to do copy and modify the SDK however they like. With the Oculus SDK however, Oculus has a massive amount of control despite the SDK being open source. An example is that you are not allowed to modify the SDK to work with other headsets, such as the Vive, unless Oculus/Facebook approves of it.

 

 

26 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

No, it is not on Oculus alone to make the SDK work with the Vive. They can't just make the changes. It's like AMD putting CUDA and PhysX in their driver.

What are you on about? Of course they can make the changes to make the Oculus SDK support the Vive. Do you have any knowledge of software development at all? It doesn't sound like it. How do you think these modders got Oculus games to work on the Vive? It was not by modifying the Vive. It was by intercepting the calls from the Oculus SDK and changing them.

 

28 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

You have provided irrelevant links that do not support your claims. Here is Palmer Luckey confirming that they are not allowed to support the Vive with the Oculus SDK. Here is GabeN dodging the question and thus implicitly confirming Luckey's claim.

1) Palmer did not confirm it in that post.

2) A Reddit post from a person with vested interest is not a valid source.

3) Palmer is not the one in charge anymore.

4) There is nothing in the licensing agreement (again, the legally binding contract, which is what actually matters here) preventing Oculus from doing it.

 

You can quote however many statements you want, but the fact still remains that there is absolutely nothing stopping Oculus from doing it. When you develop software you follow the license, and I have already linked the license and it does not prevent Oculus from doing anything. The Oculus license on the other hand, does prevent Valve from making the Oculus SDK work on the Vive. I don't understand how you can find this so hard to understand. All you have to do is look at the legal documents and you will see that Valve aren't preventing anyone from doing anything. It is Oculus who has are blocking things. It is right there in the legally binding documents that I have linked earlier.

 

 

36 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Forking OpenVR means cutting yourself off from mainstream OpenVR compatibility. Not viable at this point.

Not necessarily. Have you never seen an open source project before? If there are compatibility breaking changes made to the original version of OpenVR then those changes can be incorporated in the forks as well. Nothing in the license prevents it.

 

40 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

The paid mods showed that Valve are not the saints you are claiming, and that's the real fanboying here. Want me to criticize Oculus? I can certainly do that. Their store sucks, their launch issues are severe and their communication around it was horrible.

When did I say Valve were saints? You are putting words in my mouth and then calling me a fanboy.

I don't want you to criticize Oculus. I want you to stop lying and spreading misinformation. I want you to actually read the licenses for yourself instead of parroting what an employee for Facebook says on Reddit.

 

 

Next time you post I would like for you to use sources which are actually legally binding documents. Not a Reddit post from a person with vested interests implying things.

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Can you please stop spewing garbage lies like that? Read the licenses I linked above. They are the legal documents that developers has to follow.

Valve has next to 0 control over OpenVR. Any developer is free to do copy and modify the SDK however they like. With the Oculus SDK however, Oculus has a massive amount of control despite the SDK being open source. An example is that you are not allowed to modify the SDK to work with other headsets, such as the Vive, unless Oculus/Facebook approves of it.

 

 

What are you on about? Of course they can make the changes to make the Oculus SDK support the Vive. Do you have any knowledge of software development at all? It doesn't sound like it. How do you think these modders got Oculus games to work on the Vive? It was not by modifying the Vive. It was by intercepting the calls from the Oculus SDK and changing them.

 

1) Palmer did not confirm it in that post.

2) A Reddit post from a person with vested interest is not a valid source.

3) Palmer is not the one in charge anymore.

4) There is nothing in the licensing agreement (again, the legally binding contract, which is what actually matters here) preventing Oculus from doing it.

 

You can quote however many statements you want, but the fact still remains that there is absolutely nothing stopping Oculus from doing it. When you develop software you follow the license, and I have already linked the license and it does not prevent Oculus from doing anything. The Oculus license on the other hand, does prevent Valve from making the Oculus SDK work on the Vive. I don't understand how you can find this so hard to understand. All you have to do is look at the legal documents and you will see that Valve aren't preventing anyone from doing anything. It is Oculus who has are blocking things. It is right there in the legally binding documents that I have linked earlier.

 

 

Not necessarily. Have you never seen an open source project before? If there are compatibility breaking changes made to the original version of OpenVR then those changes can be incorporated in the forks as well. Nothing in the license prevents it.

 

When did I say Valve were saints? You are putting words in my mouth and then calling me a fanboy.

I don't want you to criticize Oculus. I want you to stop lying and spreading misinformation. I want you to actually read the licenses for yourself instead of parroting what an employee for Facebook says on Reddit.

 

 

Next time you post I would like for you to use sources which are actually legally binding documents. Not a Reddit post from a person with vested interests implying things.

Stop spewing your own garbage and accusing me of doing the same.

Valve has full control of OpenVR. Anyone that forks it and makes their own "ObenVR" is immediately off the reservation and will not have any support for the changes they make. It's like making your own version of OpenGL, changing a bunch of stuff, and expecting it to just work with OpenGL games and hardware (OpenGL actually cannot be forked as easily, it's just a hypothetical).

 

Oculus has the same control over their SDK, except they don't allow people to fork it. In practice, that makes no difference at this point.

 

And no, they cannot make those changes to the Oculus SDK, because Valve/HTC are preventing that. Just like Nvidia has blocked AMD from supporting CUDA and PhysX in their GPU drivers. You are illustrating your total ignorance of the software industry in conflating an unofficial workaround with official support. They are not the same. Oculus cannot do this, not only would it expose them to lawsuits at the whim of Valve/HTC, it would put control into the hands of Valve/HTC.

 

1) Yes he did.

2) It is a valid source for his claim, and his claim is validated by GabeN dodging the question.

3) Doesn't matter if he's in charge, he was never the CEO, but he's a representative of Oculus.

4) What are you talking about? It has nothing to do with licensing agreements for something unrelated.

 

You can cry about it from here to eternity, it doesn't change the fact that Valve/HTC are blocking Oculus from supporting the Vive in the Oculus SDK. There's a standards war going on, and you're absolving Valve of their responsibility for that war. This is why I concluded that you are fanboying for Valve. As well as accusing me of lying and spreading misinformation, when in reality that's what you are doing in your anti-Oculus crusade. Again, the licenses are irrelevant.

[Trik'Stari]

8 hours ago, Humbug said:

16/4/2016- Update

 

The mod in it's current state seems to be working well for games based on unity engine and unreal engine.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=200899828#post200899828

 

Also some games with in-house engines are already working fine

e.g. War Thunder

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4er9s4/how_to_run_war_thunder_steam_version_with_librevr/

As more people test this and experiment with it in the coming weeks expect to see more documentation online on how to break different games. Eventually probably we will get a updated version of the mod to cover more use-cases.

 

Oculus has released a statement

 

"This is a hack, and we don’t condone it. Users should expect that hacked games won’t work indefinitely, as regular software updates to games, apps, and our platform are likely to break hacked software. "

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/226641-software-hack-makes-oculus-rift-titles-playable-on-htc-vive

 

It will be interesting to see if the next official patches do something which invalidates the mod. If that does happen it will become an amusing cat and mouse game where the mods keep evolving and the applications keep getting patched.

 

Everyone should have boycotted Oculus the moment they sold out to Faceboob.

 

Fucking Zuckerberg.

[Bananasplit_00]

Awesome read, thanks  well this is really cool and i just hope devs will just add support for both so this dosent need to be a thing, i dont think you really should hack software but i think exclusivity is worse tbh

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

Stop spewing your own garbage and accusing me of doing the same.

Valve has full control of OpenVR. Anyone that forks it and makes their own "ObenVR" is immediately off the reservation and will not have any support for the changes they make. It's like making your own version of OpenGL, changing a bunch of stuff, and expecting it to just work with OpenGL games and hardware (OpenGL actually cannot be forked as easily, it's just a hypothetical).

I am not spewing garbage, since I actually back my claims up with valid sources.

Yes, Valve has control over the main OpenVR branch. However, people are free to fork it and do whichever modifications they want with it (something they can't do with the Oculus SDK). OpenVR is as open as it gets. Oculus SDK is about as closed an open source project can be. Being cut off from the main branch is not an issue if your fork is actually good. Do you think Ubuntu users are scared that their distro might break because Debian makes changes to their distro? Of course not. The open source community works by sharing changes and improvements to the software.

 

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

Oculus has the same control over their SDK, except they don't allow people to fork it. In practice, that makes no difference at this point.

Oculus has far more control over their SDK. Again, read the license.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

And no, they cannot make those changes to the Oculus SDK, because Valve/HTC are preventing that. Just like Nvidia has blocked AMD from supporting CUDA and PhysX in their GPU drivers. You are illustrating your total ignorance of the software industry in conflating an unofficial workaround with official support. They are not the same. Oculus cannot do this, not only would it expose them to lawsuits at the whim of Valve/HTC, it would put control into the hands of Valve/HTC.

[Citation Needed] on Valve/HTC preventing it. Just because you repeat something over and over does not make it true. The license don't prevent it on the Valve side (it does however on the Oculus side).

I want a citation next time you respond because it is getting tiring listening to statements you grabbed from thin air.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

1) Yes he did.

2) It is a valid source for his claim, and his claim is validated by GabeN dodging the question.

3) Doesn't matter if he's in charge, he was never the CEO, but he's a representative of Oculus.

4) What are you talking about? It has nothing to do with licensing agreements for something unrelated.

1) No he didn't. He was implying it.

2) No it's not a valid source. A valid source would be for example a legally binding document (like the ones I have linked). Palmer implying something on Reddit is not a valid source.

3) So why do you trust a marketing guy talking bad about their competitor?

4) Yes it does. Everything regarding this has to do with the licensing of the software driving these headsets. It is the licenses that determines what people are and aren't allowed to do. Valve would have absolutely no legal right whatsoever to sue Oculus for adding support in the SDK because the license allows Oculus to do it. In order for Valve to actually sue them they would have to violate the license. Do you understand? Valve have said that Oculus are allowed to add Vive support in their SDK. Valve would not be able to sue Oculus at all for this, because their license allows it. What you are saying is absolute bullshit that doesn't make any sense.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

You can cry about it from here to eternity, it doesn't change the fact that Valve/HTC are blocking Oculus from supporting the Vive in the Oculus SDK. There's a standards war going on, and you're absolving Valve of their responsibility for that war. This is why I concluded that you are fanboying for Valve. As well as accusing me of lying and spreading misinformation, when in reality that's what you are doing in your anti-Oculus crusade. Again, the licenses are irrelevant.

PROVE IT!

Prove that Valve are blocking them. I have already proved that they are not blocking them by linking to the license. The license are anything but irrelevant here because it is the licenses which are the legal documents dictating what developers are allowed and not allowed to do. The licenses are the only relevant things here. If this was brought to court then the licenses is what would dictate the outcome.

Do you even understand what a software license is? Because it does not seem like you do.

So again, the only relevant pieces of information we need here are the licenses. They will tell us exactly who is blocking who and what is legally allowed to do.

I have read both of them, and I can with 100% certainty say that there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing at all, preventing Oculus from adding Vive support to their SDK. The law states that Oculus are allowed to do it. The Oculus license, and therefore the law, also states that Valve are not allowed to add Vive support to the Oculus SDK themselves. Oculus has explicitly said that they are not allowed to do it without approval from Oculus first.

 

Again, read the licenses, which are the legally binding documents. The licenses are law. Valve allows it. Oculus don't allow it.

 

 

There is most definitely a standards war going on, and I want the most open and permissive standard to win, regardless of who is making it.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Snip

Exactly correct. HTC & Valve created OpenVR to be open (the clues in the name), Facebook want to lock the Rift down so games can be made exclusively for it (Lucky's Tale for one).

 

If that wasn't the case then this topic wouldn't be a thing, I mean it states modders have broken RIFT exclusive titles to work with VIVE and not the other way around? The reason for that is because there's no need to do it the other way.

[Sakkura]

15 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I am not spewing garbage, since I actually back my claims up with valid sources.

Yes, Valve has control over the main OpenVR branch. However, people are free to fork it and do whichever modifications they want with it (something they can't do with the Oculus SDK). OpenVR is as open as it gets. Oculus SDK is about as closed an open source project can be. Being cut off from the main branch is not an issue if your fork is actually good. Do you think Ubuntu users are scared that their distro might break because Debian makes changes to their distro? Of course not. The open source community works by sharing changes and improvements to the software.

 

Oculus has far more control over their SDK. Again, read the license.

 

 

[Citation Needed] on Valve/HTC preventing it. Just because you repeat something over and over does not make it true. The license don't prevent it on the Valve side (it does however on the Oculus side).

I want a citation next time you respond because it is getting tiring listening to statements you grabbed from thin air.

 

 

1) No he didn't. He was implying it.

2) No it's not a valid source. A valid source would be for example a legally binding document (like the ones I have linked). Palmer implying something on Reddit is not a valid source.

3) So why do you trust a marketing guy talking bad about their competitor?

4) Yes it does. Everything regarding this has to do with the licensing of the software driving these headsets. It is the licenses that determines what people are and aren't allowed to do. Valve would have absolutely no legal right whatsoever to sue Oculus for adding support in the SDK because the license allows Oculus to do it. In order for Valve to actually sue them they would have to violate the license. Do you understand? Valve have said that Oculus are allowed to add Vive support in their SDK. Valve would not be able to sue Oculus at all for this, because their license allows it. What you are saying is absolute bullshit that doesn't make any sense.

 

 

PROVE IT!

Prove that Valve are blocking them. I have already proved that they are not blocking them by linking to the license. The license are anything but irrelevant here because it is the licenses which are the legal documents dictating what developers are allowed and not allowed to do. The licenses are the only relevant things here. If this was brought to court then the licenses is what would dictate the outcome.

Do you even understand what a software license is? Because it does not seem like you do.

So again, the only relevant pieces of information we need here are the licenses. They will tell us exactly who is blocking who and what is legally allowed to do.

I have read both of them, and I can with 100% certainty say that there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing at all, preventing Oculus from adding Vive support to their SDK. The law states that Oculus are allowed to do it. The Oculus license, and therefore the law, also states that Valve are not allowed to add Vive support to the Oculus SDK themselves. Oculus has explicitly said that they are not allowed to do it without approval from Oculus first.

 

Again, read the licenses, which are the legally binding documents. The licenses are law. Valve allows it. Oculus don't allow it.

 

 

There is most definitely a standards war going on, and I want the most open and permissive standard to win, regardless of who is making it.

No, you haven't backed up your claims with any relevant sources whatsoever.

 

People are free to fork OpenVR, but then they immediately lose mainstream hardware support. HTC/Valve are not going to tailor their hardware (or firmware) to non-standard forks of OpenVR, and games are highly unlikely to rely on them either. I already explained to you that this means OpenVR is NOT as open as it gets. Valve have exclusive control of OpenVR itself, the fact that anyone can fork it doesn't mean anyone else can actually control OpenVR itself.

 

I already demonstrated that Valve/HTC are blocking the Oculus SDK from working on the Vive. You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and go LALALALA to make that fact go away. That nonsense about the license is a strawman, I already explained that this has nothing to do with the SDK license.

 

1) You can't just make yourself right by repeating a demonstrably incorrect statement.

2) Yes it is. A prominent Oculus employee's public statement is a perfect source on the company's stance on the issue.

3) Because statements by that competitor confirm the claims.

4) No, this has NOTHING to do with the SDK license. Oculus isn't trying to use OpenVR, so why should the license for OpenVR matter? It's a retarded argument.

 

I have proved by the preponderance of the evidence that Valve/HTC are blocking Oculus from supporting the Vive in the Oculus SDK. And all your nonsense about licenses is simply irrelevant.

[Humbug]

delete this post

Edited April 17, 2016 by Humbug

[Humbug]

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

People are free to fork OpenVR, but then they immediately lose mainstream hardware support. HTC/Valve are not going to tailor their hardware (or firmware) to non-standard forks of OpenVR, and games are highly unlikely to rely on them either.

Couldn't it work like the Linux gaming ecosystem? On Linux people install steam and play the same games on different distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and even steamOS etc...

 

Obviously the first gen of virtual reality APIs had to be created by somebody. Valve and Oculus are the first to market so they created the APIs. If they had sat back and waited for a standards body to come up with something I don't think it would have happened. So probably them doing the work themselves and open sourcing it was the best solution.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Sakkura said:

No, you haven't backed up your claims with any relevant sources whatsoever.

Yes, I have backed it up with the only relevant source in this entire discussion, the legally binding documents which explains exactly what developers are allowed to do.

 

 

2 hours ago, Sakkura said:

People are free to fork OpenVR, but then they immediately lose mainstream hardware support. HTC/Valve are not going to tailor their hardware (or firmware) to non-standard forks of OpenVR, and games are highly unlikely to rely on them either. I already explained to you that this means OpenVR is NOT as open as it gets. Valve have exclusive control of OpenVR itself, the fact that anyone can fork it doesn't mean anyone else can actually control OpenVR itself.

You don't understand how open source development works, do you? This is as open as it gets. Valve has just as much exclusive control over OpenVR as the Debian project has over Debian, but that doesn't mean distros like Ubuntu gets fucked over as soon as there are changes to Debian, right? In fact, both of them frequently exchange code to improve each other, and without breaking compatibility. And what changes are you even afraid that Valve will do? Break backwards compatibility with the previous OpenVR version? That would be shooting themselves in the foot since it would mean breaking compatibility with all existing games.

 

By the way, you are allowed to make forks of the Oculus SDK as well. It's just that you are a lot more restricted in what changes you are allowed to make (for example making it work with the Vive is not allowed). Oculus also owns the rights to any fork you make.

 

2 hours ago, Sakkura said:

I already demonstrated that Valve/HTC are blocking the Oculus SDK from working on the Vive. You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and go LALALALA to make that fact go away. That nonsense about the license is a strawman, I already explained that this has nothing to do with the SDK license.

No you did not demonstrate it.

No you did not explain why the license is irrelevant here.

 

Please demonstrate how Valve are blocking them. I don't want Palmer implying something in a Reddit post. I want an explanation of how that would even be possible, as well as a source (such as a legally binding document which would hold up in court) that validates that it is actually true. If I found a post from Valve implying that it is Oculus blocking cross-compatibility would you do a 180 and then suddenly believe that is the truth? I wouldn't, because trusting the words of a party with vested interests is quite frankly stupid.

 

I would also like for you to explain how the SDK licenses are not relevant here. As I have already said, they are in fact the legally binding documents that dictates what Oculus are allowed to do with OpenVR, and what Valve are allowed to do with the Oculus SDK. Valve would actually add support for the Vive in the Oculus SDK (similar to how this person made it work), but the license does not allow them to do it without the approval of Oculus. Oculus could add Rift support to OpenVR if they wanted, without the approval from Valve.

Those are the cold hard facts.

 

2 hours ago, Sakkura said:

1) You can't just make yourself right by repeating a demonstrably incorrect statement.

2) Yes it is. A prominent Oculus employee's public statement is a perfect source on the company's stance on the issue.

3) Because statements by that competitor confirm the claims.

4) No, this has NOTHING to do with the SDK license. Oculus isn't trying to use OpenVR, so why should the license for OpenVR matter? It's a retarded argument.

1) I know you can't, and that's why I asked why you keep trying.

 

2) No, because it was not even a statement on the issue. He was implying things, and he has vested interests. Imagine if Nvidia said "well we can only extend GameWorks to work with other GPUs if the manufacturer allows us to do it. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with reasons why they might not be able or interested". Would you say that confirms that AMD are blocking GameWorks from working properly on AMD GPUs? It is ridiculous.

 

3) That's not what you are claiming though. You are claiming that the silence (not answering the question) based on an implication confirms it. Things are not that simple and I really want you to back your claim up with some cold hard data. Something like a license, which would hold up in court and at the end of the day, is the only thing that matters.

 

4) Here is where you are wrong and your lack of software development understanding shines though. It is very much relevant to OpenVR. The license for OpenVR is extremely important here. First of all, it gives the Oculus developers understanding of how the Vive works. It tells them exactly what calls the Vive expects, how they work, how they should be formatted, what they do and so on. That is incredibly important. Like you (incorrectly) said before, Oculus need documentation on low-level functions to make the SDK work with the Vive. This is the documentation they need. In the same post you also said that they need legal permission to do it. This is the legal document which dictates what they are allowed to do, and as you can see it actually allows Oculus to do it. Oculus are allowed to take the code which makes the Vive work, and add it to the Oculus SDK. There is absolutely nothing stopping them, neither technical nor legal, from doing it. Nothing at all. That is why the SDK licenses are so important, because it is about adding things from one SDK to another. The license even allows Oculus to just flat out copy the entire source code for OpenVR and add that to their SDK. All they would need would just be to write a piece of code that maps Oculus calls to OpenVR calls (again, like this modder did). They wouldn't even have to worry about future updates to OpenVR breaking compatibility because they could just copy/paste the code again.

[Sakkura]

6 hours ago, Humbug said:

Couldn't it work like the Linux gaming ecosystem? On Linux people install steam and play the same games on different distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and even steamOS etc...

 

Obviously the first gen of virtual reality APIs had to be created by somebody. Valve and Oculus are the first to market so they created the APIs. If they had sat back and waited for a standards body to come up with something I don't think it would have happened. So probably them doing the work themselves and open sourcing it was the best solution.

Yeah, if they'd made a common, open API controlled by an industry consortium, that would have been optimal. 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Yes, I have backed it up with the only relevant source in this entire discussion, the legally binding documents which explains exactly what developers are allowed to do.

 

 

You don't understand how open source development works, do you? This is as open as it gets. Valve has just as much exclusive control over OpenVR as the Debian project has over Debian, but that doesn't mean distros like Ubuntu gets fucked over as soon as there are changes to Debian, right? In fact, both of them frequently exchange code to improve each other, and without breaking compatibility. And what changes are you even afraid that Valve will do? Break backwards compatibility with the previous OpenVR version? That would be shooting themselves in the foot since it would mean breaking compatibility with all existing games.

 

By the way, you are allowed to make forks of the Oculus SDK as well. It's just that you are a lot more restricted in what changes you are allowed to make (for example making it work with the Vive is not allowed). Oculus also owns the rights to any fork you make.

 

No you did not demonstrate it.

No you did not explain why the license is irrelevant here.

 

Please demonstrate how Valve are blocking them. I don't want Palmer implying something in a Reddit post. I want an explanation of how that would even be possible, as well as a source (such as a legally binding document which would hold up in court) that validates that it is actually true. If I found a post from Valve implying that it is Oculus blocking cross-compatibility would you do a 180 and then suddenly believe that is the truth? I wouldn't, because trusting the words of a party with vested interests is quite frankly stupid.

 

I would also like for you to explain how the SDK licenses are not relevant here. As I have already said, they are in fact the legally binding documents that dictates what Oculus are allowed to do with OpenVR, and what Valve are allowed to do with the Oculus SDK. Valve would actually add support for the Vive in the Oculus SDK (similar to how this person made it work), but the license does not allow them to do it without the approval of Oculus. Oculus could add Rift support to OpenVR if they wanted, without the approval from Valve.

Those are the cold hard facts.

 

1) I know you can't, and that's why I asked why you keep trying.

 

2) No, because it was not even a statement on the issue. He was implying things, and he has vested interests. Imagine if Nvidia said "well we can only extend GameWorks to work with other GPUs if the manufacturer allows us to do it. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with reasons why they might not be able or interested". Would you say that confirms that AMD are blocking GameWorks from working properly on AMD GPUs? It is ridiculous.

 

3) That's not what you are claiming though. You are claiming that the silence (not answering the question) based on an implication confirms it. Things are not that simple and I really want you to back your claim up with some cold hard data. Something like a license, which would hold up in court and at the end of the day, is the only thing that matters.

 

4) Here is where you are wrong and your lack of software development understanding shines though. It is very much relevant to OpenVR. The license for OpenVR is extremely important here. First of all, it gives the Oculus developers understanding of how the Vive works. It tells them exactly what calls the Vive expects, how they work, how they should be formatted, what they do and so on. That is incredibly important. Like you (incorrectly) said before, Oculus need documentation on low-level functions to make the SDK work with the Vive. This is the documentation they need. In the same post you also said that they need legal permission to do it. This is the legal document which dictates what they are allowed to do, and as you can see it actually allows Oculus to do it. Oculus are allowed to take the code which makes the Vive work, and add it to the Oculus SDK. There is absolutely nothing stopping them, neither technical nor legal, from doing it. Nothing at all. That is why the SDK licenses are so important, because it is about adding things from one SDK to another. The license even allows Oculus to just flat out copy the entire source code for OpenVR and add that to their SDK. All they would need would just be to write a piece of code that maps Oculus calls to OpenVR calls (again, like this modder did). They wouldn't even have to worry about future updates to OpenVR breaking compatibility because they could just copy/paste the code again.

 

No. The license for OpenVR is irrelevant to Oculus supporting the Vive in the Oculus SDK. It's not like they would be copying OpenVR stuff into the Oculus SDK. They can't copy the implementation of Async Timewarp from OpenVR, because OpenVR doesn't have that. This is why the licenses are not relevant.

 

You're the one that doesn't understand how this works. Like if you fork Android, you won't see phones just automatically supporting what you do with your version. And as it is, the official version of OpenVR will always be the one that is best suited to the Vive.

 

If Oculus in parallel implements support for something on the Vive, and HTC then changes the firmware in a way that breaks functionality in the Oculus SDK, but not OpenVR, how is Oculus not getting screwed there? Or heck even if they fork OpenVR and add such implementations into their fork, again support could get broken at the whim of HTC/Valve.
 

1) Try again. You're still just making the same incorrect claims.

 

2) It was a statement on the issue.

 

3) He specifically dodged the question as it came up in relation to the statement from Oculus. That's telling. If you've got your head too far up GabeN's backside to see that, it's not my fault.

 

4) No, the license doesn't give an understanding of how the Vive works. Even the OpenVR API doesn't fully do that. And they are trying to do stuff that's NOT in OpenVR, so how are you still insisting they have permission to take that stuff from OpenVR? That's ridiculous.

[goodtofufriday]

LAwlz it is clear that Sakkura doesn't comprehend what he/she is talking about. Don't waste your time or effort further. Some people just can't be wrong even when they are. 

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, Sakkura said:

No. The license for OpenVR is irrelevant to Oculus supporting the Vive in the Oculus SDK. It's not like they would be copying OpenVR stuff into the Oculus SDK. They can't copy the implementation of Async Timewarp from OpenVR, because OpenVR doesn't have that. This is why the licenses are not relevant.

Yes, they could copy things from OpenVR into the Oculus SDK. That's how software development works. Wanna know how Firefox got high quality image downscaling? They copied it from Chrome. They ripped the image downscaling code out from the Chromium source, and added it into Firefox. Of course it's not just copy/paste, but there is nothing technical or legal hindering Oculus from adding support for the Vive in their SDK. Nothing at all. If you still believe that there is then I want you to explain why. Don't just link to Palmer implying something, I want you to explain with your own words why it is not possible, and then back up your claims with sources. You claimed that Oculus could not do it for technical and legal reasons, and so far you have not backed that up. Even if we mindlessly trusted what Palmer said, you still haven't backed up the claims that it is not technically or legally possible. For the technical part I want you to explain why it is not technically possible, and for the legal part I want a legal document showing that Valve could sue Oculus if they implemented it.

 

They would not have to copy Async Timewarp because ATW is not something the headset handles. It is something the rendering engine handles before sending the frames to the headset. The only thing the headset needs to do is give the rendering engine its positional data, which the Vive already does. If Oculus added Vive support in their SDK then it would be possible to add ATW support to the Vive as well. It is not something the headset handles. It's the game engine that does it.

 

 

7 hours ago, Sakkura said:

You're the one that doesn't understand how this works. Like if you fork Android, you won't see phones just automatically supporting what you do with your version. And as it is, the official version of OpenVR will always be the one that is best suited to the Vive.

I don't understand what you are saying. Since you mentioned forks of Android I will use that as an analogy. Imagine if someone forked Android. Let's pretend that the fork was called Cyanogenmod. The developer of that fork will decide which handsets to support, and then make the ROM work on those phones. Google will release a new version of Android and the ROM developers will look at the code and port over the changes to their ROM. The ROM developers meanwhile, can add their own features, and in some cases even Google will like the features enough to incorporate them into AOSP.

Just because AOSP is the main branch doesn't mean it is the ROM best suited for phones. A lot of people (me included) will argue that Cyanogenmod is better in a lot of ways. The same goes for other ROMs too. You would be surprised by how many things in AOSP were taken from other ROMs. Did Android apps on a phone running Android 5.0 break as soon as Google released Android 6.0? That's what you are trying to argue will happen with OpenVR updates, and I think it sounds silly and completely illogical.

and before you bring up issues with Android updates, that is not because of forks. That is ARM and Android just being a pain in the ass to work with. Look at Ubuntu if you want to see an example of where patches from Debian can often just be applied directly to Ubuntu without needing modifications.

 

7 hours ago, Sakkura said:

If Oculus in parallel implements support for something on the Vive, and HTC then changes the firmware in a way that breaks functionality in the Oculus SDK, but not OpenVR, how is Oculus not getting screwed there? Or heck even if they fork OpenVR and add such implementations into their fork, again support could get broken at the whim of HTC/Valve.

It would not be possible to break compatibility with the Oculus SDK but not OpenVR, because that would break compatibility with all existing software for the Vive (at the time of the change) and the changes would be fairly easy to implement into Oculus SDK again.

That's the beauty of open source software. All changes Valve makes to OpenVR will be public knowledge and can be implemented into the Oculus SDK as well. The type of major change to OpenVR that will break compatibility might happen sometimes, but it will break compatibility with existing games and other software so it is not something Valve will do just to screw Oculus over. In fact, such a change would harm Valve more than Oculus because the Vive goes back to having 0 software for it, while the Oculus still has all the Oculus things left.

You are not thinking logically here.

 

We have already been over the other points way too many times already. I will wait for your own technical and legal explanation of why Oculus can't do what we have talked about (again, with your own words and not just parroting what Palmer was implying in a Reddit post). I also want sources for the claims you make when doing the explanation.

 

Here is an example of what that might look like:

Quote

Oculus are both legally and technically able to do it. There is nothing in the OpenVR license that would allow Valve to sue Oculus for porting the necessary parts to add Vive support to their SDK. The SDK also contains the details and code necessary to implement Vive support.

Here is the license and here is all the source code and documentation needed to make the Vive work.

 

6 hours ago, goodtofufriday said:

LAwlz it is clear that Sakkura doesn't comprehend what he/she is talking about. Don't waste your time or effort further. Some people just can't be wrong even when they are. 

It's not like I have anything better to do on a Sunday night. Also, I think it is important to counter misinformation with actual information. Even if the one you are talking to doesn't want to learn, the other people reading the thread might.

[BuckGup]

Vive seems like a good choice to me. No stupid EULAs. Also seeing the massive amount of games that are coming or are planned is very intriguing.