Re: Why run xserver on the OpenGL API?

Around 18 o'clock on Nov 25, "Kendall Bennett" wrote:

> 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.

Yes, that's certainly the current development plan.  And, given a 
demonstrable success in this area, I would not be surprised if hardware 
vendors decided to move in this direction as well; I believe ATI uses the 
DRI for their binary linux drivers, so it should be a relatively simple 
matter for them to offer solutions in this space.   Really, it's nothing 
more than an X server porting strategy at some level; whether one 
particular card is supported in this manner shouldn't make any difference 
to applications running on that card.

> 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?

Yeah, I'm not completely clear in my own mind how all of this is going to
work, but certainly the bottom of the system is an X-independent OpenGL
library sitting atop the raw hardware. 

I would like to know how direct rendered 3D apps will get drawn into X
windows; I'd like to think that the solution involves drawing to an off
screen buffer and then telling the X server to swap buffers so that the
Composite extension could get involved somehow.

-keith