Re: [Libvisual-devel] GL library linkage

[Burkhard P. <pl...@ip...>]

Vitaly V. Bursov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think Libvisual should not be linked to libGL. It's not right
> to link with libGL anyway - it's a kinda driver and it is different
> for different hardware (and different driver versions, for NVIdia).

If the system is set up corrently, you can exchange the OpenGL
libraries without breaking binaries.
There are MANY OpenGL programs out there, which come dynamically
linked with OpenGL and work after you upgraded to the NVidia
drivers.

> It would be Much better if, say, Libvisual can dynamicaly load libGL
> library and import its functions naming them smth like: lvglBegin()
> etc.

So the plugin authors have to change 100s of OpenGl calls?
I wouldn't do that.

If there is any "standard" in the Graphics world, it's OpenGl.
It's available on many more platforms than libvisual will propably
be ported to. Also the API is extremely clean and stable.
I don't think that there are any ABI issues with OpenGL.

It's a matter of taste, if you link the core lib with OpenGL or some
driver. But plugins must assume that OpenGL is linked somehow (not
just dlopenend).

The only problem I encountered were wrong RPM dependencies if an RPM
is built on a machine with the NVIDIA drivers installed. But the
Redhat/Fedora people are already aware of this.

-- 
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Dr.-Ing. Burkhard Plaum
Institut fuer Plasmaforschung
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