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Another anti-competitive initiative disguised as "Apple-led innovation" - maybe Apple should get on board with Vulkan, everyone else has, instead of complaining

Another anti-competitive initiative disguised as "Apple-led innovation" - maybe Apple should get on board with Vulkan, everyone else has, instead of complaining about there being no cross-platform solutions.

eridius 10y ago
How is this anti-competitive? They're explicitly trying to create a cross-platform JavaScript API for graphics, one that can be built on top of whatever platform-specific low-level APIs that exist. This seems to be the exact opposite of anti-competitive.
- nkkollaw 10y ago
  Because it's their own. How convenient to propose your own standard as the standard, made specifically for your own engine...
  - vlozko 10y ago
    Do you know what a proposal is, by definition? Such things tend to go through a number of web standard committees and are often changed throughout the process. It's not like Apple can directly dictate web standards and expect everyone to fall in line.
    - nkkollaw 10y ago
      I know, but they could make a proposal based on what most people already agree on, instead of their own thing made for Metal.
      - xenadu02 10y ago
        That's not true because there is no alternative standard proposed for low-level graphics on the web. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. DOES. NOT. EXIST. The major browser vendors have basically already committed to this sort of effort and the GPU vendors are signed on as well. The blog post even says they don't expect the final syntax to look like their proposed syntax. It's called a prototype for a reason and it helps inform the thinking around what to do and what not to do. This is just HN anti-Apple mania. If you have a bone to pick about Vulkan support then go file a radar. Email DTS. Email Apple leadership and lay out your case in detail for why Apple should support Vulkan. None of that has anything to do with trying to standardize low-level graphics on the web.
  - eridius 10y ago
    No it's not. I get the feeling you didn't really read the blog post. This proposed standard is supposed to be able to be implemented on top of all 3 platform-specific APIs, it's not made specifically for Metal. Yes, they're using the Metal Shading Language in this initial proposal. But in the blog post they explicitly say that the choice of the shading language is likely to be contentious (or, as they put it, "fun"), and so they're deferring the issue right now and just picking the Metal Shading Language because they're Apple developers. The actual choice of shading language in the final version of this proposal is going to be the result of the standardization process, and will probably not end up being the Metal Shading Language.
    - esrauch 10y ago
      While I'm far less negative about this blog post than most of the other commentators seem to be, the part where you cite seems more like "well yeah, we're proposing Metal, and that's obviously going to be contentious so lets sheepishly point out that again this is all subject to negotiation". My interpretation might be too uncharitable, or yours might be too charitable by taking it at face value, it's pretty difficult to know without having insider knowledge.
      - MBCook 10y ago
        My reading was "we have to pick something so here's something we have on hand because we don't want to spend all the time of making a fake one we intend to throw out anyway".
      - eridius 10y ago
        The blog post explicitly says they're choosing to "defer the issue". That seems very clear to me as saying "we're not seriously proposing the Metal Shading Language, this is just a placeholder for the purposes of writing up this proposal, we'll let the standardization process decide on the actual language".
        esrauch 10y ago
        I understand what the text literally says, my point is that if a company proposes a strawman that is literally just their proprietary solution on the web any one liner disclaimer that says "but we're not actually necessarily proposing that it use our proprietary solution for this (but maybe!)" can be reasonably suspected as potentially being disingenuous.

eridius 10y ago

How is this anti-competitive? They're explicitly trying to create a cross-platform JavaScript API for graphics, one that can be built on top of whatever platform-specific low-level APIs that exist. This seems to be the exact opposite of anti-competitive.

nkkollaw 10y ago
Because it's their own. How convenient to propose your own standard as the standard, made specifically for your own engine...
- vlozko 10y ago
  Do you know what a proposal is, by definition? Such things tend to go through a number of web standard committees and are often changed throughout the process. It's not like Apple can directly dictate web standards and expect everyone to fall in line.
  - nkkollaw 10y ago
    I know, but they could make a proposal based on what most people already agree on, instead of their own thing made for Metal.
    - xenadu02 10y ago
      That's not true because there is no alternative standard proposed for low-level graphics on the web. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. DOES. NOT. EXIST. The major browser vendors have basically already committed to this sort of effort and the GPU vendors are signed on as well. The blog post even says they don't expect the final syntax to look like their proposed syntax. It's called a prototype for a reason and it helps inform the thinking around what to do and what not to do. This is just HN anti-Apple mania. If you have a bone to pick about Vulkan support then go file a radar. Email DTS. Email Apple leadership and lay out your case in detail for why Apple should support Vulkan. None of that has anything to do with trying to standardize low-level graphics on the web.
- eridius 10y ago
  No it's not. I get the feeling you didn't really read the blog post. This proposed standard is supposed to be able to be implemented on top of all 3 platform-specific APIs, it's not made specifically for Metal. Yes, they're using the Metal Shading Language in this initial proposal. But in the blog post they explicitly say that the choice of the shading language is likely to be contentious (or, as they put it, "fun"), and so they're deferring the issue right now and just picking the Metal Shading Language because they're Apple developers. The actual choice of shading language in the final version of this proposal is going to be the result of the standardization process, and will probably not end up being the Metal Shading Language.
  - esrauch 10y ago
    While I'm far less negative about this blog post than most of the other commentators seem to be, the part where you cite seems more like "well yeah, we're proposing Metal, and that's obviously going to be contentious so lets sheepishly point out that again this is all subject to negotiation". My interpretation might be too uncharitable, or yours might be too charitable by taking it at face value, it's pretty difficult to know without having insider knowledge.
    - MBCook 10y ago
      My reading was "we have to pick something so here's something we have on hand because we don't want to spend all the time of making a fake one we intend to throw out anyway".
    - eridius 10y ago
      The blog post explicitly says they're choosing to "defer the issue". That seems very clear to me as saying "we're not seriously proposing the Metal Shading Language, this is just a placeholder for the purposes of writing up this proposal, we'll let the standardization process decide on the actual language".
      - esrauch 10y ago
        I understand what the text literally says, my point is that if a company proposes a strawman that is literally just their proprietary solution on the web any one liner disclaimer that says "but we're not actually necessarily proposing that it use our proprietary solution for this (but maybe!)" can be reasonably suspected as potentially being disingenuous.