The Most Important Project Since Mesa 1.0?

[johnc]

Have you heard of this thing called WINE?

WINE is a reverse-engineered hack.

And all it does is translate D3D calls to OpenGL anyway. Nothing is guaranteed to be faithful or performing up to the hardware's potential.

To say that D3D is no less "open" than OpenGL is ridiculous. Can I ship a console with an official D3D implementation?

It is like saying CUDA is as open as OpenCL.

[Luke_Wolf]

If DirectX is so open, why isn't there an implementation on Linux?

Or, more generally, why is there not an implementation on any non-Microsoft platform?

Have you heard of this thing called WINE?

EDIT: also unlike openGL the people writing drivers for windows don't have to reimplement DirectX, because Microsoft has them use their reference implementation. As a direct result neither AMD nor Nvidia really have the motive to rewrite the Direct3D/DirectX stack particularly as they already have a working openGL stack that is shared across for the other platforms they support, as a result the remaining implementations boil down to either A. compatibility with windows programs (i.e. WINE) or B. support for Virtualization.

[johnc]

If DirectX is so open, why isn't there an implementation on Linux?

Or, more generally, why is there not an implementation on any non-Microsoft platform?

[Luke_Wolf]

well Linux is not about do what everyone else does, is adopt and promote open technologies and try to do things right, current adoption is by ppl that understand this and appreciate open technologies and no vendor locks not to be the next microsoft or to follow whatever microsoft does.

I'll leave the openGL vs DirectX debate to Elanthis since he seems to know best out of anyone. However, why does that mean rejecting Microsoft technologies even when they're open standards even when they're a better technology? And why is it that most of the people pushing this sort of argument are pushing Apple technologies which is a company that is particularly agressive when it comes to suing and is the company we have to thank for software patents existing in the first place for. And .NET is an open standard with large parts of it under the Apache license.

in the case of .NET as many more do, i consider it a very bad implementation[technically speaking], sure is quite used, sure have good support for now from microsoft and sure is easier to write[after all is an script language using a costume of compiled language] since is higher level than C++ but in linux won't have a chance never in its current form, maybe if microsoft later fix it and remove the garbage collector and the JIT stages to add proper compiler support maybe it gets a chance.

If you really want Ahead of Time Compiling Mono can do that, and while I get that you hate managed languages, and I can understand why you and other people dislike them, when we're speaking in terms of managed languages and their frameworks .NET is simply one of the best and is vastly superior to Java, because in terms of a managed language framework it's actually very well designed, and if you stop and actually take the time to understand it C# is basically a redesign of C++ holding to the same principles just gutting out the requirement of C compatibility. As a programmer and one who tends towards C++ and Qt, C# is actually very pleasant for me to use and unlike Java I'm not bashing my head against the inherent limitations of language designers thinking they know better than programmers who the language designers believe will abuse their baby, because Microsoft Language Division has a very strong focus on "how do we empower programmers and make their jobs easier".

in case of any "fanboi bla bla bla linux will never gain market like that bla bla bla directX rocks bla bla .NET bla bla" to use .NET/DX ill just use windows and stay with closed techs, i want linux to grow open and strong using open technologies and that is the point

Except .NET is an open technology, so what you're really saying is if you wanted to use a Microsoft Technology you'd just use windows. Need I say more?

[elanthis]

The only "OpenGL is more open" point I can come up with is that D3D does not document its binary SM4/SM5 shader file formats, which OpenGL doesn't either but then OpenGL binary shaders aren't meant to be distributed like D3D ones are. This is undocumented not because of some conspiracy by management or an unwillingness to support outside tools/implementations but purely because said documentation doesn't actually exist outside of the source code and none of the current DX engineers are gunning to write and maintain any public docs. (Paying customer needing access generally just gets NDA access to the code.) Still, it is a major blocker in terms of getting a properly binary-compatible D3D10/11 state tracker. I still urge people to place (courteous) pressure on Microsoft Connect to assign some engineers to document the format properly. And for the PDB format, while you're at it, which has a similar story.

[Luke_Wolf]

Your right in first four points but lets say we will reimplement DX API in Linux you know what will MS do sue and they can do much more to annoy implementation and usefulness of DX API in Linux
Personally i would like to see OpenGL displaced by DX but it wont happen unless MS will free it and that will never happen.

If that's the case why hasn't a certain WINE producer been sued yet? Also the whole they're going to sue us FUD is silly at best. of all of the things they might sue over their development libraries and languages are the least likely. Why? because Microsoft wants people using their technologies and if they sue over them then would you care to make a guess at what people are less likely to do? That's right, stop or lessen use of it due to fear of getting sued themselves.

[doom_Oo7]

" lets say we will reimplement DX API in Linux you know what will MS do sue "

You are aware that APIs aren't covered by patents, right ?
The only way for MS to sue would be to use MS patents in the implementation.

[Ramiliez]

Pop quiz: can you name a single way that OpenGL is more open than Direct3D, other than its name?

* Community? Nope, OpenGL specs pop out of Khronos with almost no community involvement or feedback involved, with GL3.0 and its secret years-long development being a huge "screw you" to the community.
* IHV involvement? They're all very involved with Microsoft, too, and help define the upcoming D3D revisions that OpenGL then spends the next several years catching up to.
* Gratis? APIs cannot be copyrighted, at best only "certified;" Mesa is an unofficial implementation of OpenGL just like a Gallium D3D state tracker would be an unofficial D3D implementation, so this is a non-point.
* Patent issues? *GL3 has those, though admittedly slightly smaller number of them (by putting more hardware functionality into optional extensions, hurting compatibility between implementations and making the API a pain in the butt, as extensions do)
* Micro$haft suxx0rz? I counter with Linsux and Open Sores, if we're giving up on maturity. Name calling is so easy that a 4th grader can do it!

Your right in first four points but lets say we will reimplement DX API in Linux you know what will MS do sue and they can do much more to annoy implementation and usefulness of DX API in Linux
Personally i would like to see OpenGL displaced by DX but it wont happen unless MS will free it and that will never happen.

[elanthis]

well Linux is not about do what everyone else does, is adopt and promote open technologies and try to do things right

Pop quiz: can you name a single way that OpenGL is more open than Direct3D, other than its name?

* Community? Nope, OpenGL specs pop out of Khronos with almost no community involvement or feedback involved, with GL3.0 and its secret years-long development being a huge "screw you" to the community.
* IHV involvement? They're all very involved with Microsoft, too, and help define the upcoming D3D revisions that OpenGL then spends the next several years catching up to.
* Gratis? APIs cannot be copyrighted, at best only "certified;" Mesa is an unofficial implementation of OpenGL just like a Gallium D3D state tracker would be an unofficial D3D implementation, so this is a non-point.
* Patent issues? *GL3 has those, though admittedly slightly smaller number of them (by putting more hardware functionality into optional extensions, hurting compatibility between implementations and making the API a pain in the butt, as extensions do)
* Micro$haft suxx0rz? I counter with Linsux and Open Sores, if we're giving up on maturity. Name calling is so easy that a 4th grader can do it!

[jrch2k8]

Basically it's the same group that whines and FUDs about .NET because it's technologies developed by Microsoft so obviously they have to be evil and trojans that Microsoft is setting up in order to later sue while anyone who says otherwise is obviously a Microsoft fanboy while they're playing around with their Apple devices. That said though I basically agree that this shouldn't be used to make new stuff not because of OpenGL but because Direct3D 9.0c is ridiculously obsolete. However this should be useful to both WINE and virtualization, although what'd be particularly nice for WINE usage is if someone would write a GLide implementation, why? well because a lot of games of the late 90s to early-mid 2000s had GLide as an available option and it was as the rule the best renderer, and as a bonus you solve a major chunk of the compatibility issues with pre Dx9 games. Yeah I know you can use a GLide wrapper under WINE but as a wrapper it's still having to rely upon their D3D translation layer for most of them (there are some openGL based ones) which isn't the best.

well Linux is not about do what everyone else does, is adopt and promote open technologies and try to do things right, current adoption is by ppl that understand this and appreciate open technologies and no vendor locks not to be the next microsoft or to follow whatever microsoft does.

in the case of .NET as many more do, i consider it a very bad implementation[technically speaking], sure is quite used, sure have good support for now from microsoft and sure is easier to write[after all is an script language using a costume of compiled language] since is higher level than C++ but in linux won't have a chance never in its current form, maybe if microsoft later fix it and remove the garbage collector and the JIT stages to add proper compiler support maybe it gets a chance.

in case of any "fanboi bla bla bla linux will never gain market like that bla bla bla directX rocks bla bla .NET bla bla" to use .NET/DX ill just use windows and stay with closed techs, i want linux to grow open and strong using open technologies and that is the point