Palmer Luckey Will Leave Oculus On March 31

[Dosflores]

Even if they had gotten a product to market by now, there's no telling how much impact FB's investment had. Just comparing DK2 vs. Rift, it's clear they came a long way.

It's not only about the hardware. FB's money continues to foster sofware development for Oculus' platforms, which is vital for the long-term success of their hardware.

And the lawsuit was caused by John Carmack leaving Bethesda and joining Oculus, which happened before FB's purchase. And Carmack was vital in convincing Samsung to join the Gear VR project, which is currently Oculus' most succesful business.

So, the only way for Oculus to become as big as Palmer wanted it to be, was to give it up. Sad but true.

 

[bit_user]

So, the only way for Oculus to become as big as Palmer wanted it to be, was to give it up. Sad but true.

Well, when you say "give it up", you mean for him to relinquish a controlling stake? Then yes, that's what I was trying to say. Either you're a rich founder or you're at the mercy of the investors.

Note that Zenimax didn't sue Oculus over Carmack's departure. They sued over copyright and NDA violations. So, if all had been more careful, Zenimax probably wouldn't have had a case.

 

[Dosflores]

Note that Zenimax didn't sue Oculus over Carmack's departure. They sued over copyright and NDA violations. So, if all had been more careful, Zenimax probably wouldn't have had a case.

I don't think it would have been possible not to have a case. Carmack started working on VR under Zenimax. And Zenimax says that everything Carmack did belongs to them.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that Carmack actually copied some code from Zenimax and took it to Oculus. But, of course, it was impossible for him to remove from his brain everything that he had learnt. And he leveraged the knowledge he had acquired at Zenimax when he joined Oculus.

It's another example of the copyright/patent nonsense that plagues the technology industries, just like Apple suing Samsung for "copying" the iPhone.

 

[bit_user]

I don't think it would have been possible not to have a case. Carmack started working on VR under Zenimax. And Zenimax says that everything Carmack did belongs to them.

They took their strongest claims to court, and of those, the only ones they succeeded with were copyright and NDA violations. So, they might've still sued, but if foreseeable and avoidable errors hadn't been made by Oculus and Carmack, presumably Zenimax would've lost.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that Carmack actually copied some code from Zenimax and took it to Oculus.

He admitted under oath to taking a hard drive full of it. He said he didn't use it, but then they had an expert witness argue that he discovered some kind of indirect copy. Carmack wasn't allowed to review the evidence, as he wasn't a defendant. Sneaky trick, IMO.

But, of course, it was impossible for him to remove from his brain everything that he had learnt. And he leveraged the knowledge he had acquired at Zenimax when he joined Oculus.

You can't sue over what somebody knows. Only for violation of non-compete agreements, theft of trade secrets, patent infringement, copyright infringement, NDA violations, or other specific grievances. If Zenimax had no non-compete agreement, then they couldn't sue him for merely going to Oculus. And if they hadn't taken the copyrighted material, then Zenimax would have to prove that he stole some trade secret idea he had while working with them, which is harder and probably why they didn't try that approach. Also, they couldn't have gone after Luckey & Iribe for that (but maybe still Facebook).

Again, these errors were foreseeable and avoidable. That's why it reflects so poorly on Luckey.

BTW, founders usually don't stick around for long, after a company is acquired. It takes a different skillset and interests than being a successful startup founder. I imagine he might've been an exception to this trend, but we'll never know.

 

[Dosflores]

He admitted under oath to taking a hard drive full of it. He said he didn't use it, but then they had an expert witness argue that he discovered some kind of indirect copy. Carmack wasn't allowed to review the evidence, as he wasn't a defendant.

Oh, so someone said that Carmack copied some code, but Carmack wasn't allowed to defend himself. Forgive me if I still don't buy the copyright infringement point.

The "theft of trade secrets" point looks awesome, because there's no way in the world to properly define what a "trade secret" is. You can only give examples like "Coca-Cola's Secret Formula". In the Zenimax vs. Oculus case, it doesn't seem that simple, does it? It could be what I already said: everything that Carmack had learnt while working on VR at Zenimax. I doubt he "stole" some other "secret" from Zenimax. Of course, Zenimax can argue that anything Carmack learnt while working for them was their property, and they wanted it to be secret. So, when Carmack used that very same knowledge at Oculus, "their trade secret was stolen". Some judge or jury may buy that, but I don't.

No matter how you put it, I don't think they were errors. They were perfectly reasonable behaviors, which were indeed foreseeable to be masked as errors, and brutally exploited. And it couldn't be avoided, because the copyright/patent laws have already shown how useful they are to turn nonsense into lots of money, so Zenimax was obviously going to try it.

 

[bit_user]

He admitted under oath to taking a hard drive full of it. He said he didn't use it, but then they had an expert witness argue that he discovered some kind of indirect copy. Carmack wasn't allowed to review the evidence, as he wasn't a defendant.

Oh, so someone said that Carmack copied some code, but Carmack wasn't allowed to defend himself. Forgive me if I still don't buy the copyright infringement point.

Carmack said he took a disk full of code, etc. in his testimony as a witness. But he said he didn't build it into Oculus products. I think he wasn't cross-examined, or something, so he couldn't do anything about the sketchy expert witness who produced a big, fat document concerning the indirect copyright infringements (I forget the exact term, but it was sort of Orwellian).

The thing is, I think one part (or maybe the main claim) about copyright was concerning demos of some Doom game modified to support Oculus. It seems this was done without permission.

The "theft of trade secrets" point looks awesome, because there's no way in the world to properly define what a "trade secret" is.

From what I know, a trade secret is largely determined by a company's internal procedures around handling and protection of that information. Like I said, I think it's harder to prove or else Zenimax would've tried to. I'm no expert, however. It's dangerous to armchair quarterback this stuff.

No matter how you put it, I don't think they were errors. They were perfectly reasonable behaviors, which were indeed foreseeable to be masked as errors, and brutally exploited.

No, Palmer signed and then violated a NDA. He didn't have to sign it, but he chose to visit Carmack at his office. After signing it, he could've negotiated something with Zenimax, but he didn't. And they shouldn't have been publicly demoing a Doom game without written permission. This is basic stuff.

You really need to look at the specifics of the case & judgement. I agree there's a lot of BS in IP litigation, and the award was utterly ridiculous. But I think the facts of the case don't reflect well on those involved. Like I said, foreseeable and avoidable errors. They couldn't 100% prevent Zenimax from going after them, but they didn't have to make it so easy.

 

[Dosflores]

No, Palmer signed and then violated a NDA. He didn't have to sign it, but he chose to visit Carmack at his office. After signing it, he could've negotiated something with Zenimax, but he didn't. And they shouldn't have been publicly demoing a Doom game without written permission. This is basic stuff.

You really need to look at the specifics of the case & judgement. I agree there's a lot of BS in IP litigation, and the award was utterly ridiculous.

Yes, I agree. The award would have been justified if a trascendental copyright infringement had been convincingly proved. But it's ludicrous considering the only obvious error was the Doom demo affair. And I still think it wasn't an error 😀 The Doom demo, Carmack showing full support for Oculus, was vital in order to get everybody hyped about Oculus VR. If Luckey could go back in time, I think he still would do the exact same thing. Maybe he already expected that Oculus would have to pay some millions to Zenimax at some point, but Zenimax asking Oculus to stop selling Rifts is insane enough not to have been foreseeable.

 

[Frisky_Dingo]

For the record, I don't care who he donated to or who he supports politically. There is one thing people need to stop doing. That's saying that it's the end of free speech or infringing on free speech rights. People not liking who he supports, and choosing not to support him financially is not an infringement of his free speech rights. Period. There is no argument there. No one has to like what you believe in and support, and it is their First Amendment right to not do so. I swear, did anyone actually pay attention to what the First Amendment is back in social studies class? It's like you all just heard the parts you wanted to hear.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

For the record, I don't care who he donated to or who he supports politically. There is one thing people need to stop doing. That's saying that it's the end of free speech or infringing on free speech rights. People not liking who he supports, and choosing not to support him financially is not an infringement of his free speech rights. Period. There is no argument there. No one has to like what you believe in and support, and it is their First Amendment right to not do so. I swear, did anyone actually pay attention to what the First Amendment is back in social studies class? It's like you all just heard the parts you wanted to hear.

They're redefining the Amendments AND the Constitution itself in the school system today. It no longer means what it says, It no longer meant what the founding fathers intended. It no longer means what "old-timers" were taught it meant, It has been redefined.... and none of it officially redefined by Amendment,

 

[shrapnel_indie]

He admitted under oath to taking a hard drive full of it. He said he didn't use it, but then they had an expert witness argue that he discovered some kind of indirect copy. Carmack wasn't allowed to review the evidence, as he wasn't a defendant.

Oh, so someone said that Carmack copied some code, but Carmack wasn't allowed to defend himself. Forgive me if I still don't buy the copyright infringement point.

Carmack said he took a disk full of code, etc. in his testimony as a witness. But he said he didn't build it into Oculus products. I think he wasn't cross-examined, or something, so he couldn't do anything about the sketchy expert witness who produced a big, fat document concerning the indirect copyright infringements (I forget the exact term, but it was sort of Orwellian).

The thing is, I think one part (or maybe the main claim) about copyright was concerning demos of some Doom game modified to support Oculus. It seems this was done without permission.

The "theft of trade secrets" point looks awesome, because there's no way in the world to properly define what a "trade secret" is.

From what I know, a trade secret is largely determined by a company's internal procedures around handling and protection of that information. Like I said, I think it's harder to prove or else Zenimax would've tried to. I'm no expert, however. It's dangerous to armchair quarterback this stuff.

No matter how you put it, I don't think they were errors. They were perfectly reasonable behaviors, which were indeed foreseeable to be masked as errors, and brutally exploited.

No, Palmer signed and then violated a NDA. He didn't have to sign it, but he chose to visit Carmack at his office. After signing it, he could've negotiated something with Zenimax, but he didn't. And they shouldn't have been publicly demoing a Doom game without written permission. This is basic stuff.

You really need to look at the specifics of the case & judgement. I agree there's a lot of BS in IP litigation, and the award was utterly ridiculous. But I think the facts of the case don't reflect well on those involved. Like I said, foreseeable and avoidable errors. They couldn't 100% prevent Zenimax from going after them, but they didn't have to make it so easy.

You're right,,, a ton of BS in the IP litigation.... much of it centered around "non-literal copying" in this case as proposed and championed by a so-called expert on the plaintiff's (Zeni-Max team) part. Not to make an excuse, or condone what happened, but perhaps Carmack thought, he as one of the originators of DOOM, felt he had a right to use it in a demo (and same for grabbing the Hard Drive full of code.) I'm not going to say he was right, because I know nothing of the contracts and other agreements put in place when Zeni-Max absorbed iD into its personal fold.

The breaking of the NDA without consent was a bad move though.

 

[bit_user]

Not to make an excuse, or condone what happened, but perhaps Carmack thought, he as one of the originators of DOOM, felt he had a right to use it in a demo (and same for grabbing the Hard Drive full of code.)

Yeah, I suspect Carmack pretty much just does what he wants, and people are cool with it. I think he co-owned Id Software, before it was acquired. Subsequent to that, his boss probably let him do pretty much whatever he wanted.

He might've even had internal permission to hack up Doom with Oculus support, but the problem was when he kept showing it after he left. And he's just like "I'll just grab some code, in case I don't remember how I did something I need to do again...".

Heh, looking at his wikipedia entry, this jumped out at me:

the report mentions 'no empathy for other human beings' and describes Carmack as 'a brain on legs'

...could explain a lot.

 

[Slesreth]

This read for me a lot like how watching the business politics for Rand Industries played out in Marvel's The Iron Fist on Netflix. "You get to keep your 51% shares. But, we voted you off the committee that runs this company. Your votes no longer count. Enjoy the early retirement!"

Your name is in the history books, and your memoriam is written on the epitaph.

Palmer Freeman Luckey. We will remember you!

 

[drbruce]

It is a sad day when somebody is "outed" for having different political views from the rest of the herd, and is exiled to a virtual gulag because of this. I guess diversity in Silicon Valley is a crime. These effete snobs have a mob mentality and intolerance head and shoulders above the rest.

 

[SkOrPn]

Personally I hope he comes back eventually, just like Steve Jobs finally did for Apple all those years ago.