Phoronix Member
You are wrong. Wine is irrelevant. The Direct3D state tracker applys to that article almost as much as LLVMpipe itself. It would be useful for open-source implementations of Flash to offer a Direct3D API in case Adobe chooses to directly expose that. (although it's not likely to happen)Originally Posted by Kazade
And I hope that alien 3D API never leaves the blue-print state on Linux too. It would be just like the Flash problem, but on a very core API level.
It's done on mozilla with SMIL, which is a W3C standard:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/SVG...tion_with_SMIL
It's ready to go in Firefox4 Beta.
Using Javascript to animate SVG works already.
Amen. Amen....I wouldn't miss Adobe either.
Phoronix Member
@Michael
So, TransGaming's SwiftShader have a downloadable Demo, I wonder if we could see a speed comparison between that and real 3D hardware and, maybe, LLVMpipe, if posible at all.
I didn't follow the download link, so I don't know if there's a Linux version already.
Phoronix
No, they are just DX9 DLLs.
Phoronix Member
It's incredibly unlikely to happen, what about OSX? Android? They have Flash implementations too, Adobe would be frankly off their head to expose the D3D API directly. The case in point is that even in this article it's an extremely obscure reference, and I wish Michael would stop plugging it as if it's a cure all for every situation. It's not, it's just a state tracker.
Phoronix Member
The millions of windows/mac users don't care lol. This has nothing to do with Linux. Saying that they should adopt something open source doesn't apply because it's not linux/bsd/etc. Besides open source stuff that changes often (Open source really has become synonymous with change these days...I had to edit this post because I was using them interchangeably).
A lot of products take years to develop. So, if it's relying on an API that changes, it's just not viable. I can't think of anything that doesn't change/break things regularly.
That said, again, who cares. HTML5 will ruin Flash, PDF..well, they're not in as much use as they were before. Until there's a REASONABLE API that a company can rely on for cross-platform development (on a per-product basis) you people need to stop bashing on every company because they didn't use some sub-quality open-source equivalent.
With the above said, of course that doesn't apply to their complaining about lack of video APIs because they ARE there, they just don't want to rely on something that they'll have to pay someone to fix whenever it's updated.
That's what makes some of the older systems like BeOS (or Haiku these days), Amiga, etc interesting is because they had their APIs, they didn't have thousands of potential APIs that in the long run didn't end up getting the job done.
Senior Member
Honestly, I don't buy the whole API lag behind thing. Sure there will be some lag, but if the developers $want to$ and they have the man power they'll keep up at a "good enough" pace. Open source lags more because it lacks interested and talented developers more than anything else.
Open source OpenGL development, for example, lags way behind while the closed source offerings are supporting the new OpenGL stuff days after the standard drops. NVidia doesn't have a problem keeping up with the new GLs and D3Ds.
Adobe is sporting "optimization" for the yet to be released IE9 in Flash. Browsers are pushing some HTML5 support despite it not yet being a standard. Samba is doing just fine and works great. Despite the supposedly crippling API lag, there are plenty of examples of keeping up well enough.
If there are enough $interested$ developers around the API in question they seem to keep up just fine.
The real reasons for the lag are lack of interested developers and the fact that many of these projects did not start development until after they were years behind in the first place. Some projects may have the developer power to maintain the pace, but don't have the development force to get over the initial hump.
Where there's $interest$ there's a lot less lag. There's also a lot of backwards compatibility that can be floated on while you "play catchup."
Show me a case of "has enough $interested$ developers" that also "lags behind the API." The truth is, you probably can't find the former to prove the latter is chiefly to blame. It's impossible to say that the API lag is to blame when so many other issues exist and are probably higher up on the blame chain.
Yes API lag is an issue, but I don't buy that it's nearly the destroyer of worlds many make it out to be. Your FUD would be better if you said "sets up for patent trap" or "will never have the developer bucks." At lest then it would be more on the money (pun intended).
Are there projects that aren't developer starved that can't keep up? Lets just define "developer starved" as having significantly fewer man hours from skilled developers than what was/is available to the originating API development effort. What's really going on here?
Senior Member
It doesn't matter if they do or do not care. For them, it will make no difference.
TOTALLY irrelevant.A lot of products take years to develop. So, if it's relying on an API that changes, it's just not viable. I can't think of anything that doesn't change/break things regularly.
You have COMPLETELY failed to read my point.
Phoronix Member
First paragraph or maybe sentence has anything to do with your post. The rest was directed at this thread/at my frustrations with developing using constantly-changing APIs.
Senior Member
As someone who works with .NET at work, I can tell you that the API churn there is incredible. And I think everyone is aware of how often OSX has changed APIs and how difficult it has been to switch from Carbon to Cocoa. So i find complaints about Linux APIs changing too much to be a little humorous.
Phoronix Member
Their changes are calculated and planned..linux changes heavily every release.As someone who works with .NET at work, I can tell you that the API churn there is incredible. And I think everyone is aware of how often OSX has changed APIs and how difficult it has been to switch from Carbon to Cocoa. So i find complaints about Linux APIs changing too much to be a little humorous.
I'm not talking about OS X because quite honestly I dislike Apple more than anything (ESPECIALLY for mixing Mach, a notoriously slow microkernel with FreeBSD, the less-known equal to Linux).
The BSDs are pretty good with keeping their releases as API-compatible as possible. Rather than just update and try to keep up they are opportunistic and update when necessary, which is how it should be done. In fact, for a time (Perhaps still the case) some modules were compatible with both FreeBSD and OpenBSD or NetBSD, and of course don't forget about the totally-awesome DragonFlyBSD (That makes me feel all fuzzy inside that someone is FINALLY trying to get rid of the traditional monolithic kernel without reverting to a really slow microkernel).
It probably has something to do with my frustrations with Fedora. Ahh..the good old days of breaking every two minutes. CentOS is all-right in that they update when necessary (errr, RHEL).
Back to Apple..Apple is the worst along with Adobe. They straight do not update their old software and bring new features i.e. new versions of java that aren't available for the older releases, which is garbage. On windows and probably most linux distros (In fact, all the way back to windows 2k) I can install the latest Java release. Just using it as an example. Apple drops old releases like they're hot then charges ungodly cash to upgrade. I dislike Microsoft as well (Not gonna say hate because I can only hate so many companies at once..Apple and Oracle take priority) but Windows is all-right for my purposes.
tl;dr: Apple sucks. Oracle sucks. Lets stone them.
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