Re: [9fans] which linux! which gcc!

[Theo Honohan <theo@ideaworks3d.com>]

On Saturday 2 June, andrey mirtchovski wrote:
> 
> now, how many people are interested in seeing opengl for plan9? i have that
> weird idea that it may look great and actually have bragging value :)
> 
> pros? cons? 

Well, getting *an* OpenGL implementation running shouldn't be hard --
the SGI reference implementation is now open, along with Mesa, and
they're both in C.  A GLUT implementation for Rio would be the next
thing.

I can see it being tougher to integrate cleanly with Rio and /dev/draw
(and I expect that some degree of integration would be required to allow
hardware acceleration).  If you want to create a /dev/draw style
"/dev/gl" file interface, you'll probably find yourself redesigning and
reimplementing the GLX protocol, with a few incompatible changes.  (The
GLX protocol is documented in the GLX source archive available from
SGI's Open Source site.)  There's quite a bit of reinvention of the
wheel required for you to be able run GL applications across the network
in a plan 9 way.

Theo