Re: Why run xserver on the OpenGL API?

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Keith Whitwell wrote:
> There's only a limited window of time where these incomplete machines will
> continue to exist.  I'm told we'll be seeing full GL implementations right
> down to cellphone devices within a year or so.

With drivers? Sure.

With Linux/Unix drivers? Perhaps.

With free (as in cost and distribution) drivers? Maybe.

With open source drivers? That certainly hasn't been the trend lately.
They could of course implement OpenGL in firmware, but how likely are
they to do that if they're also targeting Windows/PocketPC systems?

Consider that if they aren't open source, some Linux distributions
simply will not include the drivers even if they exist. So while you
may have OpenGL on every Linux desktop, it may not be hardware
accelerated on every desktop even if drivers are available (unless
the owner does the extra work of finding and installing the add-on
drivers). Which is pretty much the current situation.

As a data point on older systems and their lifetimes: I've only got
one machine (currently broken) with a really recent video card in it;
the rest are things like rage64, sis 530, and Voodoo3.

                                                  -Dave Dodge