NVIDIA Open Sources Cg

Well, according to that press release, nVidia open-sourced the rest of the language (i.e. the compiler). I don't know what, if any, limitations there are on the direction the language goes, however.

 

Chalnoth,

The "language" is not the compiler. nVidia did not "open source" or reliquish any control over the language itself.

Doomtrooper,

OK...I wasn't sure what you were saying.

 

They dont own language, they own a trademark.

 

NVIDIAs Cg is still proprietary.

Open sourcing a parser and compiler (as announced from the beginning) doesn't change this. It's a pity Matt and others don't get the point.

The Cg language is NVIDIA controlled, they define the profiles, the syntax and the future direction of the capabilities of this language. We simply do not need this. There is the DX9 HLSL (as NVIDIA claims that it is the same, so we don't need Cg), and there is the OGL HLSL. I doubt they can adobt the DX9 HLSL because of Microsoft, for the same reason, it will probably be difficult to adopt Cg.

 

They own the specification and hence control over evolution of the specification for the language.

I haven't seen nVidia's response to 3D labs' charge:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,183940,00.asp

 

... but you called the thread "NVIDIA open sources Cg", which is wrong, so it is easy to get the impression I had.

 

Matt,

...and you also said in your first post "I suppose a lot of people are going to be eating their words today. "

That certainly gives one the impression that you believed this to be some development "unexpected" by some people. Why would anyone eat their words? (Unless they believed nVidia was lying when they said they would opensource those parts of Cg?)

 

blah

 

They own the copyrights on the specifications, which are just about useless. They control what you can call Cg, but if you derive your own compiler and profile and call it something else I doubt there is a damn thing they can do about it.

 

So, basicly you suggest releasing another HLSL with its own name, its own compilers and its own specification =)

 

No, the non-secret army called software developers will come and get you, because then you'll have every IHV with "their flavor" of "Cg"....all kind of the same but with differences.

The point is, for IHVs NOT to derive "their own" Cg or HLSL at all. It's for them to support "some industry standard."

One (or two) "real time" HLSLs, neither of which is controlled by any single IHV should be more than enough. To suggest that each IHV derive their own Cg variant is exactly what this industry does not need.

 

Lol...it took me 3 paragraphs to say that.

 

No, Im suggesting that doing so is in no way different from making your own compiler with your own profile and so saying you cannot make your own profile is BS.

 

How the hell would you open source a language BTW? You could free the trademark and let anyone call Cg what they want ... or you could freeze the specification and give everyone equal control, none. Neither seems very attractive.

 

How the hell do you create a specification for a language?

The only thing that's attractive, is to have as FEW languages as possible, and to not have any of those languages controlled by any single IHV. The Cg language is not attractive by that standard.

 

But the ARB is too slow, and m$ doesnt allow extensions ... so whats a company which has hardware ahead of what DX exposes to do?

 

Agreed

For good reason, IMO....

Exactly what nVidia is doing. As I said earlier, there is nothing wrong with nVidia doing this, any more than them creating proprietary GL extensions to support their hardware.

What I disagree with, is some people's notions that the Cg language is something more than exactly that: nVidia's way to expose their hardware. We can debate forever how "possible" it is for other IHV's to support the language, but before that's even considered....WHY would other IHVs do it.