library_surfaces?

I am curious as to why the concept of a library of surfaces doesn’t exist.

It seems like something like this would be needed to share a global cubemap (or something similar) across many effects at once.

Or am I missing something from the specification that makes this unnecessary?

Good idea.
You should submit a feature request to www.khronos.org/bugzilla

The working group can look into it.

-Andy

I posted a bug report here.

http://www.khronos.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=33

Any idea what the turnaround time for something like this would be? (or an alternative fix that addresses the issues with the current format)

Does Khronos post any details regarding its release schedule?