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SGI Releases OpenGL As Free Software
StoneLion writes "Since its release, the OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question have been rewritten, the problems resolved, and the code freed. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, says, 'This represents a huge gift to the free software community.'"
There are still a number of patents covering portions of the OpenGL functions. Does this grant a license for use or are we stuck with partial implementations?
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Interfaces are one of the most important things in modern software creation. Interfaces are often established by implementations. This change by SGI makes sure OpenGL will stay used and even wider adopted. As far as I can see, it is the only graphics library standard that has the potential for long-term usage.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Don't be a jerk about it. From the article.
"Someone came to me on IRC and asked if people should start sending angry faxes to SGI, telling them to please clean up their licenses. And I was like, 'No, that's not the right message right now.' We were trying to avoid that kind of reaction, because among the people in the GNewSense community, there was a visceral reaction initially, and it took some time for people to realize that we needed to give them a chance. And it really paid off. SGI was very willing to work with us throughout the entire process.""
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Great news for the community. Now lets hope this helps redirect resources, so I can get those laptop drivers fixed, and then I can finally sleep/hibernate properly!
I've never heard of ACPI depending on an API for generating polygons, but hey whateva.
The code was already "free" for a given definition of "free", however, three problems were identified.
The old licences:
As such, it was easy to modify the code, but it wasn't free or open enough by the standards of either the Free Software Foundation or the Open Source Initiative.
OpenGL is a standard, just like Java is. The fact that there are many implementations of those standards doesn't mean that there is a problem. Besides which, it doesn't really matter, most people will code for the reference implementation (Sun Java and SGI OpenGL).
I wank in the shower.
Um, OpenGL already has a documented extension mechanism that is widely used, by virtually every vendor, to provide documented and open access to their extensions. Changing the licensing on one implementation of the standard will not increase the fragmentation of OpenGL, and fragmentation of OpenGL has not led nVidia and ATI to drop it.
In fact... looking at the listed extensions I see 15 _ATI_ extensions and 54 _NV_ extensions. :)
The response to the latest opengl release has been, to put it mildly, underwhelming. A number of opengl developers in the blogs I have read have declared intentions of moving over to directx. This is the way for opengl developers to get a bigger share of the open source developer mindshare and development effort to make up for the egg they laid earlier this year.
I wait for the day were the posts change from "Why don't my drivers work" to "Dude, wtf is the problem with this linux pos. This sux!!!'
The funny thing is I always had more success being a bit insulting when I needed Linux help on a forum. If I asked "I can't get foo to work. I've read the docs and tried bar and baz, but it didn't help." I'd get crickets. If I said "Linux sucks because it can't do foo." Then a ton of fanboys would pile on, call me every name in the book, and then explain in exacting detail how foo can be done. They might've thought I'm a retard, but at least my question got answered. :-)