Epic fail by the Khronos ARB WG

So the Khronos OpenGL ARB WG, after a year of almost complete, unexpected silence instead of the promised OpenGL 3.0 specification, released something that they for some reason call 3.0 but which has almost nothing of what was promised.

Instead of the promised new object model, the one that was supposedly almost done, it contains among other things a slightly modified EXT_framebuffer_object promoted to core. This extension is also known as that horrid piece of amazingly poor design that (according to at least one former ARB member and GL3 contributor) prompted the creation of the new object model in the first place.

Yay.

What bugs me the most, however, isn't even the way the 3.0 spec. turned out, but rather that their year of silence came after their move into Khronos for efficiency reasons and after heralding a new era for OpenGL with these words:

Regardless of the poll, you may find yourself asking, “Why, after all these years, is the OpenGL standards body finally opening up and sharing with its audience, its devoted developers, its enthusiastic end-users, its people?” It must be a maturity thing. It took us a solid 14+ years to shed our youthful shyness and find a voice. The last decade was just an awkward phase. We’re over it now.

Indeed.

The developer community deserves an apology from the ARB WG for their utter failure in communicating their internal problems. If the community had been kept updated on their progress or lack of it, the current backlash could have been avoided.

Of course, GLFW will still be adding support for WGL_ARB_create_context as soon as possible.

PS: Oh, and I saved up for and got a laptop with an Intel X3100, which means I can work mostly unhindered on GLFW again. Yay.

GLFW releases delayed

Unfortunately, GLFW versions 2.6.1 and 3.0 will both likely be severely delayed, as Zepto Computers, the manufacturer of my laptop (a 6214W) refuses to pay for the repair and is asking for about $800 to complete it. As a recipient of disability pension, I don't even have $80 to spare, so even if I wanted to let them get away with this I still couldn't pay for it.

Their claim is that I should have blown compressed air into my laptop more often, and that the damage to the GPU due to supposedly clogged up fans (which were so enclosed that I could neither see nor access them) is my fault. Of course, they never mentioned this bizarre requirement in either their advertisements or their user's manual and the laptop was prone to GPU overheating even when it was brand new. With a GeForce Go 7600 with 512 MB VRAM in a smallish laptop, this is perhaps not so odd, but it's still their responsibility to make sure the unit is properly cooled.

Needless to say, I'm going to fight them over this, but it's going to take a bit of time, and in the meantime all I have is a five year old iBook with far too little RAM.

Also, if you have a Zepto 6014W/6214W/6314W and have had or are having similar problems, please contact me.

Times change

I need to upgrade the software on my N73 and for that I need a Windows machine. As my own PC is currently broken, I was trying to think of a friend close by who might have one.

Okay, so here's the interesting part; it took quite a while for me to think of anyone. Note that this isn't "someone who's primarily running Windows", it's "who might still have Windows on their machine at all".

I think that means something.

What do you think?

Nostalgia, sort of

So, I'm back on Mac OS X. Here's why.

The GPU on Sherka, my primary workstation, finally died. It did so about thirty seconds after I had completed a full backup of my entire home directory to an external drive. So I switch back to Sharon, my iBook, only to find that I've messed up both my Linux kernels' yaboot configs and the combo drive has died so I can't make a live CD. I'd be surprised, except that cluster coincidences like this one are far too common when you're an elmindreda.

So I'm stuck in Mac OS X Tiger on a five year old iBook.

However, I'm finding that it's not a bad place to be. A few apps later and it's a fully usable desktop. It feels almost like home. It now seems even more likely that the next laptop will be a MacBook Pro.

TPOLM Lazy Sunday Radio

The Planet of Leather Moomins has struck again. Get your weird music fix here. It'll be playing most of the day.

Quickie: Super Mario Långben Bros.

Someone made a SMLB film.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Net neutrality exemplified

Here is an image that in a simple and direct way explains why net neutrality is important. It should be made into a poster.

Using Fairly, in summary

Thanks to Copyriot, I attended a (mostly) very interesting conference on copyright and creativity yesterday. Here are my summary notes from the many presentations given:

Being surrounded by and listening primarily to people who talk about art and the creative process was an interesting experience, however, since I've spent most of my life doing stuff and (compared to most people I know) not a lot of time talking about other people's stuff. This meta-world is quite new to me. It was nice, but I don't think I'd want to stay.

Robert Jordan, vanire ortekerana, donye aniar

"The Light shine on you and the Creator shelter you. The last embrace of the Mother welcome you home."

Leyanade nay imino.

Akonade nay onaniar, vendesma so yasterana.

Kite lendiar? Robert Jordan passed away earlier today.

Quickie: So you want to be a game developer?

This strip over on HijiNKS ENSUE is a good summary of the fantasy vs. reality of game development (possibly unless you're at id). Enjoy having any remaining illusions of the glamour of game development shattered. But it's still kind of neat to see your game on the shelves of... well, everywhere.