Zenimax, owners of id software, have accused former id dev and co-founder John Carmack of taking software he has made for Zenimax to Oculus Rift. The situation seems this close to a lawsuit.
Just how close to a lawsuit is this? Zenimax has already sent a legal claim to Oculus’ legal department, claiming that Oculus would not have even been completed without the work Zenimax owns. They also claim they have already attempted to settle with Oculus, but to no avail.
Oculus VR has denied the claims, and there are these tweets from Carmack:
No work I have ever done has been patented. Zenimax owns the code that I wrote, but they don't own VR.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 1, 2014
Oculus uses zero lines of code that I wrote while under contract to Zenimax.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 1, 2014
At this point, if push comes to shove it will be down to a fight between id’s and Oculus’ owners, Zenimax and Facebook, which makes for interesting headlines for us, but would not be good for VR, and the industry as a whole. We wholeheartedly hope they can settle this shortly.
