Google is working on an Android based virtual reality OS [0], hopefully that will be free. Google Cardboard has a repo but it's just binaries. Valve/HTC are ost

Google is working on an Android based virtual reality OS [0], hopefully that will be free. Google Cardboard has a repo but it's just binaries. Valve/HTC are ostensibly working on opening their Vive headset through OpenVR, but the repo [1] is a bunch of binaries as well. Oculus freed the DK1 firmware [2] (not the sdk though), Linux support is coming after launch (probably not free though). Slight aside, Palmer said in an interview that they've noticed that people spend more time watching movies than gaming on the GearVR, so there's definitely tracking code in there. Finally there's OSVR, which seems the most promising, though the actual hardware maybe not so much[4]. Ultimately, I think there's enough to be optimistic about. Someone definitely should work on extending X11 or Wayland/Mir to VR, though I'm not sure how doable that is at the moment. Plus things are moving quickly right now, which complicates things even more. Probably will be good to wait for standardization, which Palmer has said will happen eventually, or build a mobile os for vr. [0] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/2016-google-tracker-everything-google-is-working-on-for-the-new-year/5/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/2016-google-tracker-e... [1] https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr [2] https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1 https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1 [3] https://github.com/OSVR/OSVR-Core https://github.com/OSVR/OSVR-Core [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbiIy4_6lMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbiIy4_6lMM