Re: [GtkGLExt] Module proposal: GtkGLExt for GNOME 2.22 (fwd)

[Stéphane Brunet <stbru teksavvy com>]

Hi Andreas,

To me, OpenGL support should be included in GTK+ natively rather than in 
a separate package, even if it is a GNOME module for various reasons :
   - other toolkits (e.g. QT) provide OpenGL support natively
   - 3D is ubiquitous nowadays so there is no reason to provide its 
support as a separate package.
   - by transferring the code as a GNOME module, I am not sure you will 
remove the biggest burden for GTKGLext acceptance: its accessibility for 
the end user. As a casual programmer, I don't understand why I have to 
choose between various OpenGL extensions for GTK and why I have to 
install a separate package for this(see previous point). On the end-user 
side, installing "one more package" for some people can also slow down 
its adoption. I am thinking especially of Windows user, because of the 
lack of package/dependencies management software that compares to any 
Linux/Unix free software package management applications.

I do agree with you when you said that GTKGLext is the best OpenGL 
extension for GTK. It is flexible and stable, and still easy to use... I 
don't understand why other are using other OpenGL packages with GTK+ 
(can somebody enlighten me? ;-) ).

If I can help, please let me know. I am quite a bad C programmer 
(definitely not enough practice) but maybe for anything else I could 
provide some time...

Regards,

Stéphane Brunet

Andreas Røsdal a écrit :
> Hello,
>
> I have proposed GtkGLExt as a new GNOME module. This is because I've 
> noticed that the module is no longer maintained, and that I think 
> development could continue with GtkGLExt as a new GNOME module.
>
> Let me know that you think, and if you're interested in helping out 
> with this change for the project. AFAIK, the first step that needs to 
> be taken is to migrate the development of GtkGLExt to the GNOME 
> infrastructure.
>
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2007-September/msg00282.html 
>
>
> - Andreas R.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 13:57:54 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Andreas Røsdal <andreasr gnome org>
> To: desktop-devel-list gnome org
> Subject: Module proposal: GtkGLExt for GNOME 2.22
>
> Hello!
>
> * Proposal: Include GtkGLExt in the GNOME developer platform.
>
> * Purpose: GtkGLExt is an OpenGL extension to GTK+ 2.0, and if 
> accepted into the GNOME developer platform could provide OpenGL 
> support for any GNOME application where this is useful. Language 
> bindings available for C, C++, Python, Scheme, Ruby, DUI, Inti, Perl, 
> FreePascal.
>
> GtkGLExt website: http://gtkglext.sourceforge.net/
>
> * Dependencies:
> - GTK+ 2.0
> - OpenGL or Mesa
> - GTK-Doc (optional)
>
> * Resource usage: I suggest to migrate from the current sf.net project 
> to GNOME FTP, GNOME SVN, GNOME bugzilla.
>
> * Adoption: Fedora, Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions already 
> include GtkGLExt.
>
> * GNOME-ness: Both GNOME and GtkGLExt has a lot to gain by such an 
> inclusion. GtkGLExt could benefit from the GNOME infrastructure, GNOME 
> QA and release process, and increased development effort 
> (improvements, bugfixes, documentation, i18n etc). GNOME would be 
> enriched with the benefits of a good OpenGL extension for GTK+.
>
> * "Election speech":
>
> GtkGLExt is the best currently available OpenGL extension for GTK+ 2.0.
> By accepting GtkGLExt into the GNOME development platform, this will 
> give GtkGLExt increased development resources, more wide usage and 
> availability, so that it will become the leading library for providing 
> OpenGL support in GNOME applications.
>
> GtkGLExt is stable and works well: There has been some effort to 
> integrate gtkglarea into GTK+, but nothing has come of it yet.
> The Clutter library is quite immature and not as widely adopted yet.
> This proposal is therefore to incrementally improve GtkGLExt, rather 
> than a more difficult solution where something has to be invented from 
> scratch.
>
> However, GtkGLExt is currently unmaintained. I will volunteer to 
> maintain it if accepted as a GNOME module, and hope to work with the 
> GNOME community to make it fit in well as a GNOME module.
>
> For an example of a successful GNOME project using GtkGLExt, take a 
> look at glChess. I co-maintained this module, and saw what GtkGLExt 
> could do there. A challenge we had with using GtkGLExt was that it 
> isn't a "blessed" external library, so it had to be optional (a 
> runtime check in Python) if it could be used in the GNOME module GNOME 
> Games. glChess allows rendering the chess board with GtkGLExt, see: 
> http://live.gnome.org/glChess/
>
> There has also been a lot of discussion about this in bug #119189
> "Add OpenGL support to GTK+".
>
> I'm very interested in seeing how GtkGLExt can improve GNOME!
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