An NDA could be a reason enough for not talking about OpennGL behind employer’s back, but newsletters were official - no NDA should be in conflict with the very fact that newsletter is released.
He’s talking about an NDA between the ARB/Khronos and someone external to it. The ARB would then be required not to talk publicly about that subject.
Fair enough; however thats speculation. In all fairness Khronos/ARB would still be able to give an information update that: We are currently working on resolving external issues which have slowed down the development of OpenGL 3.0, we hope to resolve this in a nearby future.
That would not disregard any NDA. The lack of information is in my eyes arrogant.
That would not disregard any NDA.
Unless that too was covered by the NDA. It could also be a legal issue, which is also frequently not discussed.
In the latter case, what happens is that someone suggests patent infringement or something. They then say that they’re willing to negotiate terms, but the ARB must not talk about it. And if they do even so much as what you suggests, then the theoretical infringee will stop negotiating immediately and file suit.
Speculation? Certainly. But it makes more sense that “arrogance” (whatever that would mean in this context).
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Then again, there’s this message (scroll down about halfway) from Rob Barris, who is on the ARB. In it, he says:
It’s not my place to provide any more details at this point other than to share my optimism that some deep seated conflicts are finally being resolved between the contributors on a number of levels, a trend I hope to see continue.
This suggests that the delay is purely due to internal issues within the ARB.
It’s official! OpenGL 3.0 is going to become a Ray Tracing API!
Quote: “Over time, I expect the graphics APIs will evolve to embrace ray tracing as part of the 3D graphics “bag of tricks” for making images.” David Kirk, nVidia
Link here. (I’m kidding, of course)
So lets pray that IP rights are resolved in time. Kind of funny that the benefactors of OpenGL seem doing all the right things to leave the industry with no choice but skipping OpenGL. They missed SIGGRAPH, they missed GDC, they really do not have that many chances left. Its hard to base products on a poorly defined standard.
Lets be optimistic as Rob Barris apparently is, perhaps we will see a OpenGL 3.0 Standard for SIGGRAPH 2008?
Come on! NDA? Ok. It is sure that there can be some kinds of NDAs but, continuing with the GDC topic, ATI, NVIDIA and MS talked about the future of D3D, they talk about the details that D3D 10.1 will have and about the things they plan for D3D 11, about how they see the future of the graphics hardware and what kind of features D3D 11 should have to support those features and what are the desires of the developers. They even ask for feedback about what the people will want. Sure, they can’t give some kinds of details about their hw strategies and future products, but this is an obvious thing.
Are you telling me that no one can say anything about OpenGL? It is nonsense. To forget the game developer community is, in my opinion, not very clever.
Of course, this is just my opinion.
game developer community??
do people still use GL for games?
Ok, I’ve found out that there actually is an NDA, but ARB didn’t read it well before they signed it. It begins with:
“Our goal is to ensure the expected future of OpenGL standard”.
And later, there are 2 points written using very small font there:
I’ve also heard that the lawyer, who prepared this NDA recently won a big prize in some small local contest organized by Microsoft.
Trust me at your own risk.
First rule of Kronos, don’t talk about OpenGL (unless it’s ES).
do people still use GL for games?
I heard that the reason for the delay of Duke Nukem Forever was that they’re waiting for OpenGL3.0.
I recall a few prominente members of the forums actually touring with Microsoft and presenting DirectX 10. Requesting feedback and discussing back and forth what should be next. These discussions where not at game conferences only actually there was a wide interrest in the future of DirectX.
Guess we will never see this kind of openness from OpenGL?
Where do you think all the Mac ports come from? Particularly the ones that come out simultaneously with the Windows versions, such as anything from Blizzard.
How fat a contract do you think Blizzard has with Apple? 
I recall a few prominente members of the forums actually touring with Microsoft and presenting DirectX 10. Requesting feedback and discussing back and forth what should be next. These discussions where not at game conferences only actually there was a wide interrest in the future of DirectX.
Guess we will never see this kind of openness from OpenGL? [/QUOTE]
Sure there is. People from nVidia/ATI have come here asking for feedback. In one case, they said we will get rid of NV_evaluators if nobody minds. They wanted feedback for EXT_framebuffer_object.
GLSL 1.20 is the result of some requests about having inverse an transpose modelview matrix.
Somehow I knew someone would reference WoW.
Just browse this list and count the number of less-than-4-years old titles…
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/We…re/action_games
I use GL for both games and visualization purposes, and I enjoy using it.
which games have you written with GL? Maybe I’ve heard of them?
You haven’t, as I haven’t released them. I wrote a solitaire game a while back when I first learned GL, and my latest game is Mahjong.
EDIT: Random screenshot from my game:
http://cse.unl.edu/~shoffert/cardsfixed.png
How fat a contract do you think Blizzard has with Apple?
Right, because the only reason that Blizzard would be willing to make a game for Macs would be due to a contract with Apple. It couldn’t be because they simply want to make Mac games, or that it is in their financial interests to do so.
WoW is a constant revenue stream - I dare say the development costs of the game itself aren’t anywhere as significant as the infrastructure required to maintain the persistent world database, accounts, and credit card numbers. Worth hacking around with GL for a bit longer in order to get that stream of cash flowing.
Offline/non-subscription games, on the other hand, are relying on unit sales alone, so it’s more important to get the dev work done as cheaply as possible.
WoW is not the only game by Blizzard.
Warcraft III, Warcraft II, Starcraft, Diablo II, Diablo are all available on Mac (although only Warcraft III uses 3D graphics, but that’s not the point).
Starcraft II is going to be available on Mac, too.
None of these are generating constant revenue.
