Subject: Re: Thoughts on the Gabe Newell 's Mac comments. 2007-10-05 - By Jean-Francois Roy
Back
[Boilerplate] This is my personal view and does not represent the
position of my employer.
Do keep in mind OpenGL is a complex piece of software that spans
userland all the way down to the kernel. There's the GL framework, the
AGL / NSGL / CGL frameworks, GLD, GLE, the float renderer, etc. I
certainly would like to see more backporting to be done, but it
reasonably isn't always possible.
On Oct 5, 2007, at 14:18, Errol Sayre wrote:
>> From my perspective (just personally, not-representing-my-employer,
>> etc.), I can see huge dividends for OpenGL patches separate from OS
>> updates. When we find an OpenGL bug, even if the fix is a simple
>> one-liner for Apple to implement, it has to wait for the next OS
>> update. If the OS has end-of-lifed, then there's no vehicle for the
>> fix at all. Just as one concrete example, there was a problem
>> introduced with the 10.3.9 update affecting Warcraft III on GF2MX,
>> and that was never fixed because there were no future 10.3 updates.
>> We had to tell users to downgrade to 10.3.8 or upgrade to Tiger to
>> solve it (it was fixed early on in 10.4's lifespan, shortly after
>> 10.4.0). Of course there is no official way to downgrade to 10.3.8
>> other than a reinstall, which is difficult for everyone involved.
>> If OpenGL wasn't tied to OS updates, we could have just told the
>> 10.3 users to run Software Update and the next driver release would
>> have fixed it.
>
> What's a shame ?to me at least ?is that these things really aren't a
> part of the OS and could be upgraded independently. QuickTime is a
> prime example of this.
>
> Now, as I said before, if some kernel change, or cocoa change is
> what spurned the fix, I could see why Apple wouldn't release an
> upgrade for an older OS, but I just don't see how a minor bug fix
> like this in OpenGL would be dependent upon any such thing...
>
> I don't see any reason why Apple couldn't release a "Core Graphics
> Update" or "OpenGL Update" for an older version even if those
> updates are included in a "Mac OS X Update" for a later version...
>
> How exactly does one file a bug report about just plain bad
> practices? I guess you could file a bug report that the fix still
> hasn't been applied to an old version but there's nothing stopping
> Apple from marking that as a duplicate of the fixed version...
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<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit
-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>[Boilerplate] This is my personal view
and does not represent the position of my employer.</div><div><br class="webkit
-block-placeholder"></div><div>Do keep in mind OpenGL is a complex piece of
software that spans userland all the way down to the kernel. There's the GL
framework, the AGL / NSGL / CGL frameworks, GLD, GLE, the float renderer, etc.
I certainly would like to see more backporting to be done, but it reasonably
isn't always possible.</div><br><div><div>On Oct 5, 2007, at 14:18, Errol Sayre
wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div
style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after
-white-space; "><div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin
-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">From my perspective (just
personally, not-representing-my-employer, etc.), I can see huge dividends for
OpenGL patches separate from OS updates. When we find an OpenGL bug, even if
the fix is a simple one-liner for Apple to implement, it has to wait for the
next OS update. If the OS has end-of-lifed, then there's no vehicle for the fix
at all. Just as one concrete example, there was a problem introduced with the
10.3.9 update affecting Warcraft III on GF2MX, and that was never fixed because
there were no future 10.3 updates. We had to tell users to downgrade to 10.3.8
or upgrade to Tiger to solve it (it was fixed early on in 10.4's lifespan,
shortly after 10.4.0). Of course there is no official way to downgrade to 10.3
.8 other than a reinstall, which is difficult for everyone involved. If OpenGL
wasn't tied to OS updates, we could have just told the 10.3 users to run
Software Update and the next driver release would have fixed it.</div><
/blockquote></div><br><div><span class="Apple-style-span">What's a shame ?to me
at least ?is that these things really aren't a part of the OS and <i>could be
upgraded</i> independently. QuickTime is a prime example of this.</span><
/div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><span class="Apple
-style-span">Now, as I said before, if some kernel change, or cocoa change is
what spurned the fix, I could see why Apple wouldn't release an upgrade for an
older OS, but I just don't see how a minor bug fix like this in OpenGL would be
dependent upon any such thing...</span></div><div><br class="khtml-block
-placeholder"></div><div>I don't see any reason why Apple couldn't release a
"Core Graphics Update" or "OpenGL Update" for an older version even if those
updates are included in a "Mac OS X Update" for a later version...</div><div>
<br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>How exactly does one file a bug
report about just plain bad practices? I guess you could file a bug report that
the fix still hasn't been applied to an old version but there's nothing
stopping Apple from marking that as a duplicate of the fixed version...</div><
/div> __ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____<br>Do not post admin
requests to the list. They will be ignored.<br>Mac-games-dev mailing list  
; (<a href="mailto:Mac-games-dev@(protected)">Mac
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><a href="http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/mac-games-dev/bahamut
%40macstorm.org">http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/mac-games-dev/bahamut
%40macstorm.org</a><br><br>This email sent to bahamut@(protected)</blockquote><
/div><br></body></html>
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