[Lsb-infrastructure] OpenGL and LSB

Wichmann, Mats D mats.d.wichmann at intel.com
Sat Apr 12 08:13:36 PDT 2008


Here's an update/backgrounder on OpenGL in the LSB,
after the brief discussion near the end of the F2F
left it clear some people were looking for more info.


The LSB specification for OpenGL defers directly to
a document named OpenGL Application Binary Interface
for Linux 1.0.  This document was completed in 2000
and became referenced by LSB sometime after that.

OpenGL on Linux depends on an open implementation
existing, and with appropriate disclaimers that it's
not certified OpenGL, etc. etc. Mesa 3D is that
implementation.  The Linux ABI 1.0 is based on
OpenGL 1.2, and the matching implementation of
Mesa was 3.0, released in 1998.  SO basically we're
talking about a 10-year-old standard, probably a bit
older if we go back to the completion of OpenGL 1.2
itself - I didn't check this. 

OpenGL has, of course, continued to evolve.  The
current release series is 2.1., which rolled out
in 2006; it's promised (or claimed, or whatever the
right word here is) to be upward compatible such that
it can run programs built to 2.0, 1.5, and earlier.

The mesa3d.org page has a history table that shows
which Mesa versions map onto which OpenGL versions,
summarized here with release dates:

Oct 2001 Mesa 4.0 - OpenGL 1.3
Not 2002 Mesa 5.0 - OpenGL 1.4
Jan 2003 Mesa 6.0 - OpenGL 1.5
Jun 2007 Mesa 7.0 - OpenGL 2.1

SLE 10 ships with Mesa 6.4.2, since we often report
on the status of the "oldest" enterprise distro
targeted for the forthcoming release.


Jon Leech was the editor of the original Linux ABI,
and has subsequently popped up on the list here with
offers to help us move things forward (I don't think
this means he has volunteered to "write the spec",
but as we need expertise we should be able to ask
questions, etc.).  If he hasn't given up on us in
frustration over no action, he might offer some more
words on this "status reset".




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