Comment by troupo

Comment by troupo 10 hours ago

11 replies

Apple didn't like OpenGL, rightfully, and came up with their own Metal which they released two years before first version of Vulkan was released.

Now people pretend that Apple is bad because it never adopted Vulkan and never implemented the "good modern OpenGL" (which never really existed).

jsheard 10 hours ago

It runs deeper than that, during the development of WebGPU it came to light that Apple was vetoing the use of any Khronos IP whatsoever, due to a private legal dispute between them. That led to WebGPU having to re-invent the wheel with a brand new shader language because Apples lawyers wouldn't sign off on using GLSL or SPIR-V under any circumstances.

The actual details of the dispute never came out, so we don't know if it has been resolved or not.

  • binary132 10 hours ago

    Apple, refusing to use open standards, and instead demanding everyone else do things their way? Say it’s not so!

    • jsheard 9 hours ago

      The bizarre thing is that Apple did used to cooperate with Khronos, they were involved with OpenGL and even donated the initial version of the OpenCL spec to them. Something dramatic happened behind the scenes at some point.

      • ferbivore 5 hours ago

        My absurd pet theory is that this was related to their 2017-2020 dispute with Imagination. Apple started (allegedly) violating Imagination's IP in 2017. They were, at the very least, threatened with a lawsuit, and the threats were compelling enough that they've been paying up since 2020. It could be Apple pulled out of the Khronos IP pool to prepare a lawsuit, or to have better chances of dodging one.

      • pjmlp 9 hours ago

        Most likely related to how Khronos managed OpenCL after getting hold of it.