Licensing costs vary quite a bit depending on the exact circumstances, so that can't be easily answered.
The IHVs do work on conformance for their Windows drivers; they can't pass WHQL certification without it. Similarly for the workstation vendors on IRIX, HP/UX, Solaris, etc. On Linux or other OSes this hasn't become an issue yet; I don't know of any IHVs who are supporting their own OpenGL drivers for these platforms. This will change (is already changing at some companies), and at that point they'll put the effort in to pass conformance as part of their driver work.
There's a common misconception being expressed in this thread. The conformance tests cannot be used to test an API or a collection of source code, because conformance is a property of the actual driver binary and hardware being used. It is highly unlikely that (for example) software Mesa, the Matrox driver based on Mesa, and the Nvidia driver based on Mesa will all have the same conformance test results. Thus it is literally impossible to say that "Mesa is conformant", only that a particular driver based on Mesa is conformant.
That said, we did give Brian Paul access to the conformance tests for his own personal use, as an aid to improving Mesa.
There will be a great deal of OpenGL activity on Linux in the next few months, from SGI as well as others. Stay tuned. BTW, if anyone is thinking about going to the Open Source / Open Science conference at Brookhaven National Lab in October, I'll be speaking on OpenGL and Linux there (mostly a status update aimed at researchers, though).
Anyone here this one@SigGraph: Sgi gave RedHat some OpenGl "consession" in exchange for small mods to future Redhat release so Sgi can ship "redhat complient" boxes? Read "not linux complient, but _Redhat_ complient." (worrysome?)
No more worrisome than, say, Mandrake. There are lots of distributions based on other distributions, and it happens that the SGI distribution is based on Red Hat 6.0 at the moment.
I know for a fact that both Xig and RedHat were courting SGI for a while regarding hardware OpenGL. Seems the battle is quietly over.
I have no idea what "battle" you are referring to. Xi Graphics has been an OpenGL licensee for years, as has Metro Link. We add new licensees all the time. SGI and Red Hat have both funded some of the work Precision Insight has done as well, but that has nothing to do with OpenGL licensing, Red Hat compatibility, or concessions of any sort.
Re:Of course, No-one bothered with Galilleo
on
Cassini visits Earth
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· Score: 1
Actually, the Christic Institute and fellow travellers did try to obtain an injunction to block the Galileo launch and did raise a ruckus during flybys. Thankfully the judge threw out their request and in general these morons have been treated as they deserve: ignored into obscurity.
Still, political sensitivities are high enough at this point that it's unlikely NASA will launch more high-profile missions using RTGs. That's a shame, but the bigger shame is that the NASA budget and in particular the planetary science budget may be savaged to the tune of $1 billion this year, killing most interesting new science missions. Dr. Evil is alive and well and living in the U.S. Congress, apparently.
1) When asked "How many people here are from Microsoft?" nobody raised their hands. Jon Leech said "I suspect a couple of you are fibbing...but anyway..." and then went off into the rest of the meeting.
Heh, I was just being polite; I'm certain some of them were there. I was told one woman started to raise her hand and stopped real fast when she realized it was a trick question:-)
Kurt Akeley from SGI, one of the two or three people most responsible for OpenGL, spoke passionately about Linux, OpenGL, and how SGI is going to work with both of them. He said that "A win for Linux is a win for SGI". Now, somebody else saying that would have just been more platitudes, but Akeley has the authority to back it up. He's committed to making Linux a true contender in 3D, and is putting SGI behind that.
Kurt and Mark Segal were the co-creators of OpenGL. Working with Kurt is one of the joys of being at SGI, and I'm very happy that he's just been elevated to Chief Technical Officer of the company. Many of us are jazzed about the new commitment to Linux, too - various bits and pieces have been in the works for quite a while (e.g. the GLX open source release, funding PI, etc.) but it's all starting to come together now.
> Does this mean that SGI promises that at the end > of this year they will have production-quality X > and OpenGL with hardware acceleration support on > them?
> They don't talk about it too much, but I believe that SGI is funding PI in their DRI effort.
That's right (jointly funded together with Red Hat, actually). I've also put together a group to define compile and runtime standards for OpenGL and Mesa on Linux, so that no matter what the underlying OpenGL driver (DRI, commercial from Metro Link or Xi, etc.), apps can run cleanly. This will be important in 6 months or so, as more hardware drivers become available.
This is just FUD pushed by competitors like Intergraph. You can buy memory for the Visual Workstations at Kingston and other 3rd party vendors. Much of the I/O, including things like Firewire and video, is built in so no addon cards are needed to begin with. The machine uses standard USB keyboards and mice, standard hard disks, standard monitors, etc.
Yes, the VW are not standard white boxes using an Intel motherboard - the Cobalt graphics hardware precludes that. If all you want is a run of the mill PC, they're easy enough to find.
BTW, people interested in Linux on SGI hardware may want to take a look at the SGI employment page. In particular, position #36505: "Linux OpenGL Software Engineer". The manager responsible for this position (it's in a group closely related to the group I'm in) is on vacation for the rest of this week, but if you're interested and have the right skills, please submit a resume now.
Speaking of G200s - I'm running XFree86 3.3.3. on an 8MB OEM card at 1600x1200, and occasionally get white horizontal flickers while moving big windows. Anyone else have experience with / solutions for this? Basically a good setup, there's just this minor annoyance.
GLX is not a replacement for Mesa; GLX is what connects OpenGL (or Mesa) with the X server. In the near future, GLX and Mesa will be hooked up into XFree86, giving a full software renderer.
Precision Insight is also working on enhancements to GLX which will be the basis for a hardware driver kit that can be used to build drivers for specific boards.
Slashdot Mirror
The IHVs do work on conformance for their Windows drivers; they can't pass WHQL certification without it. Similarly for the workstation vendors on IRIX, HP/UX, Solaris, etc. On Linux or other OSes this hasn't become an issue yet; I don't know of any IHVs who are supporting their own OpenGL drivers for these platforms. This will change (is already changing at some companies), and at that point they'll put the effort in to pass conformance as part of their driver work.
That said, we did give Brian Paul access to the conformance tests for his own personal use, as an aid to improving Mesa.
There will be a great deal of OpenGL activity on Linux in the next few months, from SGI as well as others. Stay tuned. BTW, if anyone is thinking about going to the Open Source / Open Science conference at Brookhaven National Lab in October, I'll be speaking on OpenGL and Linux there (mostly a status update aimed at researchers, though).
Jon Leech
OpenGL Core Engineering
SGI
No more worrisome than, say, Mandrake. There are lots of distributions based on other distributions, and it happens that the SGI distribution is based on Red Hat 6.0 at the moment.
I know for a fact that both Xig and RedHat were courting SGI for a while regarding hardware OpenGL. Seems the battle is quietly over.
I have no idea what "battle" you are referring to. Xi Graphics has been an OpenGL licensee for years, as has Metro Link. We add new licensees all the time. SGI and Red Hat have both funded some of the work Precision Insight has done as well, but that has nothing to do with OpenGL licensing, Red Hat compatibility, or concessions of any sort.
Still, political sensitivities are high enough at this point that it's unlikely NASA will launch more high-profile missions using RTGs. That's a shame, but the bigger shame is that the NASA budget and in particular the planetary science budget may be savaged to the tune of $1 billion this year, killing most interesting new science missions. Dr. Evil is alive and well and living in the U.S. Congress, apparently.
Heh, I was just being polite; I'm certain some of them were there. I was told one woman started to raise her hand and stopped real fast when she realized it was a trick question :-)
Kurt Akeley from SGI, one of the two or three people most responsible for OpenGL, spoke passionately about Linux, OpenGL, and how SGI is going to work with both of them. He said that "A win for Linux is a win for SGI". Now, somebody else saying that would have just been more platitudes, but Akeley has the authority to back it up. He's committed to making Linux a true contender in 3D, and is putting SGI behind that.
Kurt and Mark Segal were the co-creators of OpenGL. Working with Kurt is one of the joys of being at SGI, and I'm very happy that he's just been elevated to Chief Technical Officer of the company. Many of us are jazzed about the new commitment to Linux, too - various bits and pieces have been in the works for quite a while (e.g. the GLX open source release, funding PI, etc.) but it's all starting to come together now.
> Does this mean that SGI promises that at the end
:-)
> of this year they will have production-quality X
> and OpenGL with hardware acceleration support on
> them?
How many will you buy if they do?
That's right (jointly funded together with Red Hat, actually). I've also put together a group to define compile and runtime standards for OpenGL and Mesa on Linux, so that no matter what the underlying OpenGL driver (DRI, commercial from Metro Link or Xi, etc.), apps can run cleanly. This will be important in 6 months or so, as more hardware drivers become available.
Jon Leech
SGI Core OpenGL Group
Yes, the VW are not standard white boxes using an Intel motherboard - the Cobalt graphics hardware precludes that. If all you want is a run of the mill PC, they're easy enough to find.
Jon Leech
SGI Core OpenGL Group
Speaking of G200s - I'm running XFree86 3.3.3. on an 8MB OEM card at 1600x1200, and occasionally get white horizontal flickers while moving big windows. Anyone else have experience with / solutions for this? Basically a good setup, there's just this minor annoyance.
GLX is not a replacement for Mesa; GLX is what connects OpenGL (or Mesa) with the X server. In the near future, GLX and Mesa will be hooked up into XFree86, giving a full software renderer.
Precision Insight is also working on enhancements to GLX which will be the
basis for a hardware driver kit that can be used to build drivers for specific boards.