1C's stance on head-tracking devices for BoB?

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by sigur_ros

Wolf, interface is not property, it is communication protocol that anyone can use if they can understand it, this is protected by law and helps free market. Otherwise interfaces would be too powerful and be like a patent, creating guaranteed monopolies without requiring any officially recognized invention. Wings of Prey still uses unencrypted interface but BoB will be encrypted I think. This encrypting business is very dirty.

Who developed the interface?


The proprietary TrackIR interface has become the de facto standard for view control in PC games and simulations and is only intended for use with TrackIR products. As NaturalPoint convinced more developers and games to support it, other devices inspired by the TrackIR have sought to access the same view control and been successful in reverse engineering the interface. This has allowed non-TrackIR devices to be used for view control, including common video devices like webcams.

Early on NaturalPoint updated the interface to require validation using text strings copyrighted by NaturalPoint, and only granted permission for use of the strings to game and simulation developers. This meant other applications wishing to use the interface without approval from NaturalPoint would have to risk potentially violating NaturalPoint's copyright. Proponents of third party head tracking devices which rely on the TrackIR interface for support in many titles believe the text strings are exempt and fall under fair use for the purposes of interoperability.[14][15]

In October 2008 NaturalPoint changed the TrackIR interface and began encrypting the data stream sent to some new titles. Third party devices which had reverse-engineered the previous TrackIR interface were rendered incompatible with these new game titles due to the encryption. The older TrackIR-1 and TrackIR-2 products that use software drivers which are no longer maintained are also incompatible with titles using the new encrypted interface.


wikipedia

Originally Posted by MikkOwl

One cannot dictate how others choose to spend their toil (FreeTrack software developers for example). If they want to distribute it freely, that is their choice. Did you consider how people with disabilities could potentially benefit from FreeTrack? What if NP was blocked from doing anything within that field back in the day by another company because of similar practices (perhaps because they made products for disabled that were not as competitive, at rip-off prices)?

No one can force the world to support whatever business model they currently have (record companies are a notable example now). So it was with the French artisans who tried to use violence to bring down a factory (with no concern to the livelyhood of the people who designed, those who built and those who would operate and those who would maintain that factory). They created the word "saboteur".

Actually NP have the cheapest and easiest offering going for the handicapped, and if their software had not of been hacked, they would not have had to develop new software with the costs having to be recouped. If you want to point the finger at TIR being expensive and proportion blame for that,mikkowl, point your finger at those who hacked NP software.....