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.
