Several readers have independently pointed out that Slashdot took the good news about the release of OpenGL 3.0 and put a spin on it so as to attack OpenGL and promote Microsoft DirectX. Regular readers probably know that trust in Slashdot is gradually being lost as the site gets gamed and trustworthy long-time posters reportedly get cornered and attacked by groups of disruptors. There's a new type of 'mob', a corporate subculture perhaps. So, the old Slashdot is replaced with glorification of an 'open source' Microsoft. They 'sell' Microsoft to geeks.
So, it was with some interest to read on TheRegister and Slashdot that the release of OpenGL 3.0 was met with heavy resistance by existing developers. Strangely, Wikipedia user Paeator Alpha's post seemed to be the most balanced immediate report on OpenGL 3.0, and lets face it, Wikipedia isn't known for being accurate.
It was even stranger to read then from one of the developers actually attending SIGGRAPH that the backlash reported by Slashdot and TheReg, just wasn't happening.
The OpenGL BoF went really well, I think. Nobody showed up with torches or pitchforks. Of course, the free beer may have helped. The most useful part of it for me was the mingling period after all the presentations. I talked with quite a few people and, contrary to the /. reports, nobody was furious. Whew!
[...]
So, Khronos has run into the exact same problem KDE ran into. A lot of people are simply armchair analysts with no actual graphics experience. That's why the actual developers at SIGGRAPH responded so differently than the reports from TheReg and SlashDot would have people believe.
Comments
mpz
2008-08-16 06:48:33
Which is about as much of a 'protest' any individual can do against this sort of thing. However, even if everyone who is unhappy with their spin did it, it probably wouldn't make much difference - they'll attract plenty who are happy with that sort of spin to replace them. After all, such biased reporting doesn't really hurt the 'mainstream specialist press', since people tend to read sites which re-enforce their own viewpoint, and lets face it, the pro-ms 'geek set' outweighs the gnu one somewhat.
The reg is just a laugh - they tend to bag almost everything at one point or another, and I don't think even they take themselves particularly seriously most of the time. It is pretty easy to put a bullshit filter on their stuff.
BTW this 'system gaming' and mob-influence is making me quite uneasy with Wikipedia as well. It basically means any controversial topic cannot be trusted. And since people can get upset about just about anything -- so you cannot always tell what they consider controversial -- you're left wondering if you can trust anything but the most mundane articles.
Jose_X
2008-09-19 01:19:51
I hope that over time sense wins out.. after passions and free-flowing money and interests have died down.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-09-19 07:23:15