Interesting 3DLabs Interview

[Wenzula]

Hi guys,

i am new here and wanted to tell you that their is a interesting 3DLabs Interview on a german hardware page i am working for.

The interview is in german but on the last page their is a link to the english version.

http://www.within3d.net/Files/3Dlabs interview english.rtf

Would be kind of you if you tell me what do you think about this interview.

Wenzula

*sorry for my bad english, it is not my native langaue*

 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Confidence, Exuberance and extremely positive. I've heard it too many times to believe it at face value. However, I hope they'll be able to get a part out in time.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Heres a comment: Those questions are almost a direct rip-off of our own interview with 3DLabs some time ago:

http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/creative3dlabs/index.php

 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Dave,

Although I had nothing to do with that interview, I was also set to do a separate interview with 3Dlabs a few weeks ago. After I had my first draft figured out, your inteview was published. I have to say due to the limited scope of the subject and the fact that every one's mind has roughly the same thing, many questions are bound to be repeats. While not taking sides, I have to say there is a good chance his interview was done independently of yours.

-JF

 

[Wenzula]

Dave,

i am really disappointed that you think, that we just rip off your questions, because that is not true. We wanted to make that Interview with 3DLabs before you had posted it. That the questions seems to be similar somehow, is just as JF_Aidan_Pryde said that it had to do with the limited scope of the subject. Perhaps we can have a talk about it via MSN Messenger to clear thinks up.

Wenzula

 

[Nexus]

Wavey you seem to be quite moody lately. It is clear that within3d.net's interview is not a "direct rip-off". I think as an editor in chief a public apology would be appropriate.

http://216.12.218.25/domain/www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=672

Can't you control yourself? We all know that you put much effort into B3D, maybe you should take some free time.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Sorry, even within the limited scope of the content matter it strikes me as remarkable that that some of those questions are merely coincidence such as:

Can you give us any indications as to the size of the hardware and software engineering resource within 3Dlabs currently? Given that the likes of NVIDIA and ATi have accrued something in the order of 900+ employee's dedicated to this area of their business (albeit, diversified over a wider range of graphics related products) can 3Dlabs sustain the same kind of development pace as these, or do you feel that Creative will provide the necessary backing and funding to increase resources as required?

w3D: Can you tell us about the size of the hardware and software engineering resources within 3Dlabs? Are they comparable to nVidia’s or Ati’s? Will it be enough to compete with them?

or

How will this affect the development of OpenGL 2.0 that you are currently spearheading within the OpenGL ARB?

w3D: 3Dlabs has been quite active in developing OpenGL 2.0. Do you expect that the acquisition will somehow affect this development?

or

Presumably your upcoming technology will feature, in hardware, many / all of the principals you are putting forward for OpenGL 2.0, is this the case? If so do you think, given the recent acquisition and the new market focus it creates, you, and hence your OpenGL 2.0 proposals, may be met a little more guardedly from other members of the ARB such as NVIDIA and ATI?

w3D: Two other members of the ARB, ATi and nVidia, will be direct competitors to Creative / 3Dlabs as soon as you’re entering the consumer market. Do you think this will influence their futures stance on 3Dlabs leading OpenGL 2.0 development?

To name but a few.

The fact that it was posted after (and having carried a link to our interview in the news) would tend to make me a little suspicious, not least because someone else has already ripped off an interview in its entirety since this site has come back (and it’s a frequent issue that happened to us on previous occasions).

Personally, if the roles were reversed and mine was published later than another that I knew about then I’d always want to seek differentiation, not just in the interests of diversity, but also so I wouldn’t be accused of this type of action. If I had come up with the questions prior to knowing what another site was doing, but by the time I was ready to publish others had already had answers to similar questions then I’d either remove those (and possibly seek answers to alternatives) or do as Adian has done and not bother with it at all.

Edit: Even the gif used in the German version of the interview was copied copied from the one we used:

Beyond3D:

Within3D:

 

[Nexus]

The only thing that was ripped off in my eyes was the gif, which looks really crappy on dark blue.

Did you two (Wenzula & Wavey) talked about it? What is the outcome? Gentlemans agreement?

 

[LittlePenny]

Certainly seems suspicious to me. Although I do not know why anyone would want to repeat a question that is already answered. That pic adds some significant weight to Wavey's side of the arguement.

An after thought I had was how ironic the site names are.

 

[CeiserSöze]

I (I'm the editor in chief of w3D) wrote Dave an e-mail about this (I don't think a public board is the right place to discuss these things) and I hope we can sort things out without starting a war.

I just want to say that this interview is indeed NOT a rip off of B3D's. The questions were already written before CeBIT where we were scheduled to have an interview with 3Dlabs. Because the person we were scheduled to speak with had to leave for the UK on short notice we had to send them the questions afterwards which, of course, delayed the interview.
The only thing I took from this site was the gif-picture which I'm ready to take down or replace it by a version made by me if Dave wishes it.

cheers
Thomas aka "Ceiser Söze"

 

[pascal]

IMHO it is very suspicious, and I perfectly understand Dave.

 

[PrzemKo]

I can only say, that in cases like that it can be quite tricky to call something a rip-off. In my experience it's quite often that I find traces of my work in stuff published by other people, but it's usually impossible to prove such a "crime". Even copyright law in my country supports that: you cannot put a copyrignt on an information itself - however the thing that's protected is a form. So it's quite easy to fight with "copy-paste" kids, but you can't do much if someone will re-edit your work a bit more. Another thing is, tat we usually don't try to make a big deal when we find a "100% offender". It can be hard sometimes (how would you feel if you'd found yourself being ripped-off in latest issue of your favourite popular-science magazine you just bought or by local radiostation?), but it's better to do it calmly - sometimes that helps in selling new content-license or putting our logo in some new place and getting a bit more of advertising.