
Microsoft has joined Khronos, WebGL working group - wildpeaks
https://twitter.com/neilt3d/status/498539402407063553
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twotwotwo
They implemented WebGL in IE, so sitting this out would just leave them having
to implement a standard without input into the process.

Also, for old monopolist Microsoft, standards were a bane because they meant
smaller players could interoperate with its software, and even sometimes
influence its future via standards committees. For new underdog-in-certain-
markets Microsoft, standards are a blessing because it means they can
interoperate with larger players' software, and even sometimes influence its
future via standards committees. I'm not sure how much that's taken hold
culturally within MS, though. (And, of course, there are many places they're
still not the underdog.)

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dlitz
I doubt there's really a "new" Microsoft. They're just in the "Embrace" phase
of their usual 3-step process.

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JonoW
This seems such an old fashioned outlook now. MS doesn't have, and probably
will never again have, a monopoly on the browser environment; they have no
choice but to be good web citizens.

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ksk
It's interesting to see so many people supporting webGL. Other than the "same
X, but now X runs inside a browser" novelty aspect, I have yet to see any
evidence that webGL does anything useful. To be fair, in this respect, it's no
different from flash or javascript or any of the other technologies that
people use to produce inferior replacements of native applications.

~~~
pjc50
Running in a browser offers an (imperfect) security sandbox on a desktop PC,
so people don't have to download and run untrusted executables. It also offers
portability, and a certain amount of "copy protection".

If your application is inherently networked, it works just fine in the
browser.

~~~
ksk
The sandbox is a feature afforded by the underlying OS and CPU architecture. I
didn't quite understand your point.

With regards to game distribution, I don't see any particular advantage that a
browser has over something like Steam. You don't need to download multiple
gigabytes either. You could design a game to stream levels/assets/etc on-
demand. In any case, even with webGL, a game would need to do that.

~~~
pjc50
_The sandbox is a feature afforded by the underlying OS and CPU architecture_

Absolutely not; the sandbox of Javascript apps is entirely within the browser.
The CPU architecture may theoretically prevent a userspace app from breaking
into ring 0, but that's not the interesting thing; you're trying to prevent
random apps from gaining access to all the tasty data in userland.

"Please do not download and run random executables" is a lesson that security
people have been trying to get across for a while. Running a native game
executable involves trusting it not to be malware. Running a webgl or HTML5
game does not.

(The sandboxing of webgl may be dodgy, which is a weakness here.)

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ksk
>Absolutely not; the sandbox of Javascript apps is entirely within the
browser. The CPU architecture may theoretically prevent a userspace app from
breaking into ring 0, but that's not the interesting thing; you're trying to
prevent random apps from gaining access to all the tasty data in userland.

I don't know why you felt compelled to state a categorical denial when the
facts dispute it. Please read up on how security tokens work in Windows, for
e.g.

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/bb625957.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/bb625957.aspx)

> Running a native game executable involves trusting it not to be malware.
> Running a webgl or HTML5 game does not.

There is no difference between those two executions in modern operating
systems that implement mandatory access control.

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shmerl
That's good to see. Now if they could support OpenGL on Xbox and WP / Windows
RT, that could be even more useful.

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kevingadd
Nobody wants OpenGL on XBox. If anything, we'd want a PS4/Mantle style
hardware level API. In practice since the hardware is so similar between XBox
and PS4, the APIs would probably be pretty similar too...

On the other hand, the use of Direct3D is a competitive advantage for them. It
made ports easier with the XBox 360 and it probably still makes them easier
for the XBox One.

~~~
threeseed
Would have to agree. The future of Microsoft is one development platform
across Windows, Windows RT, Windows Mobile and XBox.

If as a developer I could have one codebase and target all three platforms it
would be pretty compelling.

~~~
shmerl
Except that MS is losing ground. Gaming is now spilling to other platforms and
Xbox / Windows will be pushed aside with time with more competition.
Developers would prefer to have a good common and open API instead of using 10
different proprietary ones.

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zanny
Then where is the pressure to get opengl on the consoles? In theory right now
you could write some engine that used openglES 3 and ran on Android, iOS, OSX,
Windows, and Linux. Your only missing parts are the three consoles, none of
which show any interest in supporting write once run everywhere.

I mean, I know why - it is because the entire console model is license deals,
app store cuts, and exclusives. If you could write your games and seamlessly
run them everywhere, console manufacturers lose their primary pitch to
consumers. Especially since this console generation isn't amazing value
hardware wise, you can build a computer as powerful as either for the same
price as either.

And peripherals are an awful argument, because they are all wifi / bluetooth /
usb based, nothing stops these companies from selling their accessories like
the Move, Kinect, Wiimote, etc as pc peripherals with open APIs besides their
complacency.

~~~
shmerl
_> Then where is the pressure to get opengl on the consoles?_

Valve is just entering consoles scene. It's too early to call that pressure,
but they at least plan to disrupt it. Time will tell.

 _> it is because the entire console model is license deals, app store cuts,
and exclusives._

Yes, that's why this sick approach needs some serious disruption. Linux gaming
looks like one.

 _> if you could write your games and seamlessly run them everywhere, console
manufacturers lose their primary pitch to consumers._

Exclusivity is a weird pitch. Real pitch of consoles should be in ease of
access, usability and user friendliness.

 _> you can build a computer as powerful as either for the same price as
either._

That's exactly what consoles should be about - plug and play. No building for
those who don't want it. All of that doesn't preclude using cross platform
technologies. Let console makers compete on hardware (Asus, Dell whoever) and
not on locking developers into their walled garden proprietary OS and APIs.

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sliken
So are they going to join, sabotage, and abandon WebGL like they did with
OpenGL?

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CmonDev
Unlikely, but that would've been cool. The monopoly of HTML etc. on the web
has to be stopped somehow.

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erikj
The monopoly of an open standard? What's wrong with you?

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CmonDev
Call it what you want but the end result is obvious: I cannot use anything but
HTML to build a browser-based GUI. It already killed the Flash and
Silverlight. It is slowly spreading the metastases into mobile and desktop as
well.

~~~
vetinari
> It already killed the Flash and Silverlight.

Most people consider that a good thing, considering that both of these
technologies were abominations that required proprietary plugins full of
security holes, that didn't even run everywhere you needed them.

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kibibu
> both of these technologies were abominations

I'll give you that they were buggy, but Flash enabled a LOT of cool stuff to
be delivered on the web that HTML still can't do. Go visit Newgrounds or
Kongregate and see what people have been doing, basically unchanged, since the
late 90s.

I'm not sad that it's gone, but it was pretty great at what it did.

~~~
bad_user
Yes, Flash has some cool functionality in it, but by not being an open
standard, it also held the web back because third parties could not implement
it and Adobe's development model did not scale.

While Apple refusing to embed Flash on iOS is what killed it, truth be told at
that time Adobe wasn't capable of delivering a mobile version that worked
well, as they lacked the resources for it, just how they lack the resources to
deliver a supported and polished Linux / NPAPI version, which was dropped. The
version that was bundled with Android, with all due respect, was horrible.
Flash only worked well due to the Windows monopoly, but the approach
eventually broke down due to mobile devices.

HTML5 may not be so evolved, but at least it works on my Android in both
Chrome and Firefox, it works on my MacBook, it works on my Ubuntu Linux, it
works on my Windows Phone that I keep around as a paper holder and it works on
my iPad. And if portability and instant updates and everything else that makes
the browser great are not that important, then you're better off going native.

~~~
ANTSANTS
>HTML5 may not be so evolved, but at least it works on my Android in both
Chrome and Firefox, it works on my MacBook, it works on my Ubuntu Linux, it
works on my Windows Phone that I keep around as a paper holder and it works on
my iPad.

I dislike HTML5 for this reason. In the heyday of Flash you could sidestep
most of the bloat of the web with a click-to-play plugin setting or by not
installing the extension at all, and 99% of the sites that relied on Flash
completely for navigation etc. weren't worth browsing in the first place. Now
that many of the capabilities of Flash are built into the browser, you don't
really have a way to avoid superfluous animations and awkward nonstandard
interfaces and whatnot. Every time I have to use a Wikia wiki, my computer and
I each shed a single minimalist tear.

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higherpurpose
I wonder if Microsoft will adopt OpenGL ES for Windows Phone (and desktop
Windows), too.

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rescendent
They already did:
[http://msopentech.com/blog/2013/12/20/msopentechcontributest...](http://msopentech.com/blog/2013/12/20/msopentechcontributestoangle/)

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shmerl
ANGLE is not a proper OpenGL support, it's a workaround. Better than nothing
of course, but still second class citizen.

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malkia
Care to explain?

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shmerl
It's not a native OpenGL support, it's a translation layer (so more overhead
naturally).

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jra101
Khronos, not Kronos.

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dang
Thanks. Fixed.

