Oculus Rift Development Kit 1

https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1

by wildpeaks • 12 years ago

124 26 12 years ago

github.com

wildpeaks• 12 years ago

Just released a few minutes ago at Oculus Connect :)

yarrel• 12 years ago

Kudos to Oculus for this.

The firmware is 2-clause BSD with an additional patent grant.

readerrrr2• 12 years ago

PATENTS

Additional Grant of Patent Rights

“Software” means the Rift DK1 Firmware distributed by Oculus VR, Inc. Oculus hereby grants you a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable (subject to the termination provision below) license under any rights in any patent claims owned by Oculus, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Software. For avoidance of doubt, no license is granted under Oculus’s rights in any patent claims that are infringed by (i) modifications to the Software made by you or a third party, or (ii) the Software in combination with any software or other technology provided by you or a third party.

The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, for anyone that makes any claim (including by filing any lawsuit, assertion or other action) alleging (a) direct, indirect, or contributory infringement or inducement to infringe any patent: (i) by Oculus or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software, (ii) by any party if such claim arises in whole or in part from any software, product or service of Oculus or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software, or (iii) by any party relating to the Software; or (b) that any right in any patent claim of Oculus is invalid or unenforceable.

objclxt• 12 years ago

This seems - and I'm not a lawyer and could be totally misreading it - to be a really raw deal, in the sense that in exchange for using the software you're agreeing to not just sue, but even assert in any way that Facebook infringes upon any patent of yours (or anyone else's, for that matter).

Does "any patent" include design patents? Because that seems like a really terrible thing to agree to. Say I'm a company looking to use this library: do I really want to be bound by a license which will be revoked if I ever sue, or even claim publicly that any division of Facebook - because that's what I take "affiliate" to mean - has infringed upon any patent, be it hardware, software, design...

Or am I just misreading this?

readerrrr2• 12 years ago

The second part is just gibberish to me. Someone please translate.

gonehome• 12 years ago

I recall the apache license having a similar clause to reduce patent litigation against them as well.

nknighthb• 12 years ago

You could say it's a raw deal if you think patents should exist. If like me, you don't, then you could say it doesn't go nearly far enough, and should instead terminate all rights to both the patents and the copyrighted work if you attempt to assert any patent against anyone, anywhere.

bdonlan• 12 years ago

IANAL either, but as I read it, if you sue facebook the patent license just goes away. It's essentially the same at that point as if they hadn't mentioned anything at all. So you're either getting something (a conditional license for the patents) at no direct cost to you, or you're getting nothing and losing nothing - how is that a raw deal?

These patent grants are commonly used by companies who gather patent portfolios as a means of patent mutually assured destruction. The goal is to ensure that they will never be sued for patent infringement by making sure they have a broad enough patent portfolio to always be able to countersue.

Now, if you want to use this and retain the ability to safely sue facebook, you could always negotiate a separate, irrevocable patent license. This is what you would need to do (that, or ignore any potential patents and hope you're not sued) in the absence of such a grant in the first place.

rotten• 12 years ago

I wonder if other product and consumer good manufacturers could get away with this too? (Not just software.) "By agreeing to purchase this car at our fabulous discounted price you agree to never sue GM for anything for any other GM owned or licensed technology."

TD-Linux• 12 years ago

Now only if they could release their libOVR library for talking to the Oculus under a free software compatible license.

1qaz2wsx3edc• 12 years ago

I imagine they will so they can dominate the industry as a "standard" leveraging themselves above/against competitors. It would ensure they stay the lead in the emerging VR-industry.

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

Thanks for reminding me just how much I hate Facebook buying Oculus Rift. The last thing we need is for Facebook to become unremovable from yet another industry.

SilentDirge• 12 years ago

Great to see the acquisition hasn't changed the founders promise to be opensource. Bravo!

Looking at the files it's a pretty well designed piece of hardware but nothing too technical. The magic (as usual) is in the software.

The design is pretty good too. They even included the carrying case, though, it's missing a clip, ha.

immy• 12 years ago

Check out the committer, nrpatel (eclecti.cc). Awesome projects.

It's been a while since being impressed by CompE folks like this in college (I'm a software guy).

ChaoticGood• 12 years ago

Check out https://github.com/highfidelity/hifi These ideas go together.

intruder• 12 years ago

Don't forget: Carmack and Abrash are going to give talks today!

http://www.twitch.tv/oculus

clebio• 12 years ago

What are Altium and Gerbers? https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1/tree/master/Schematics

mhb• 12 years ago

Altium: Schematic and printed circuit board design files for Altium brand software.

Gerber: Standard format output files understood by printed circuit board manufacturing companies. These are output by Altium and every other printed circuit board design program. Can also be viewed in a Gerber file viewer.

supahfly_remix2• 12 years ago

I'm surprised at how there are only 3 major components in the schematic: a STM-32 microcontroller, an accelerometer/gyroscope, and a magnetometer. Of course, it gets the job done as simply as possible so nothing more is needed. Does anyone know if a user needs to go through a calibration step (say be moving in a circle) before using it?

fpgaminer• 12 years ago

Yup, the Oculus Config Util, which owners of DK1 can download, includes a calibration function. You hold the Oculus DK1 in place and rotate it around in every which way until the software is happy.

supahfly_remix2• 12 years ago

good to know -- thanks!

Oculus Rift Development Kit 1

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