Re: Why run xserver on the OpenGL API?

Keith Packard <[email protected]> wrote:

> Around 19 o'clock on Nov 25, Dave Dodge wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> That's why it's reasonable to provide a portable library interface
> between applications and the underlying graphics hardware interface
> layer.  
> 
> Requiring OpenGL on open source platforms just isn't practical in
> the near term.  Taking advantage of OpenGL where available is
> certainly to be encouraged though, the current mindless duplication
> of rendering code is only slowing down development and making
> distribution and deployment far too difficult. 

I am a bit fuzzy about exactly how you plan to 'take advantage of OpenGL 
where available'. I was under the impression we were talking about DRI 
drivers that would be ported to sit under the new system. But if we are 
talking about say ATI or NVIDIA closed source OpenGL drivers, how exactly 
would they fit into this picture? I mean OpenGL per-se on Linux today 
intrinsicly requires X11 support, since it needs all the glX baggage that 
goes along with it. You simply can't write a client program that does not 
require X11 to go with it.

Since I am sure we are not talking about building an X server based on 
OpenGL that requires an existing OpenGL enabled X server to run, perhaps 
you can clear this up?

Regards,

---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com

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