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It's driven by Apple hating Khronos, so we all have to come up with a new, non-Khronos thing if it's to be used in browsers made by Apple.
by ericflo 7y ago
It's driven by Apple hating Khronos, so we all have to come up with a new, non-Khronos thing if it's to be used in browsers made by Apple.
- thewebcount 7y agoThat seems a bit harsh. Isn't WebGPU to WebGL what Vulkan is OpenGL? It's the next generation of more efficient 3D rendering pipeline.
- FreeFull 7y agoVulkan itself supports both GLSL and HLSL (and any other shading language that can compile to SPIR-V), so you'd still usually end up writing GLSL anyway.
- ericflo 7y agoYes, but if you follow the discussions, the clear consensus was to use SPIR-V. Except Apple, who came up with all kinds of technical reasons not to use it, before eventually admitting they have a legal dispute with Khronos group. Now we get this weird language that is SPIR-V in text form but not by Khronos, and suddenly there is consensus.
- shmerl 7y ago> before eventually admitting they have a legal dispute with Khronos group. Interesting, that's the first time I hear about it. Do you have some links on the topic? What is the essence of the dispute?
- ericflo 7y agoFrom the meeting notes [1]: MS: Apple is not comfortable working under Khronos IP framework, because of dispute between Apple Legal & Khronos which is private. Can’t talk about the substance of this dispute. Can’t make any statement for Apple to agree to Khronos IP framework. So 1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F6ns6I3zs-2JL_dT9hOkX_253vEtKxuUkTGvxpuv8Ac/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F6ns6I3zs-2JL_dT9hOkX_25...
- shmerl 7y agoApple should stop messing things up and should support SPIR-V, sure. But to generate SPIR-V you still need a high level language. So is this useful for it?
- mwkaufma 7y agoLots of languages _already_ compile to SPIR-V - GLSL and HLSL for a start. Why add _another_ syntax?
- shmerl 7y agoI suppose current options aren't optimal. Or at least that could be a valid motivation to create one. If the motivation is to replace SPIR-V itself, then it's not valid.
- mwkaufma 7y agoExcept it wasn't designed to be an "optimal target for SPIR-V" -- it was designed by Apple according to Metal's semantics, to promote Metal over Vulkan, and had to be rejiggered. It's worse, by your standard, than existing, battle-proven GLSL/HLSL toolchains.
- kvark 7y agoThis is not correct. The WGSL is renamed from Tint, which is a Google's proposal for a shading language, in agreement with all parties.
- kevingadd 7y agoThey're on record that their motive is disputes with Khronos, it's in some past meeting notes.
- shmerl 7y agoThen this should be rejected.
- kvark 7y agoIt's not driven by Apple, please double check your sources.
- mschuetz 7y agoIt absolutely is driven by Apple. I've been following this for a while. I actually like having a text based shader format since I do a lot of dynamic shader generation and compilation at runtime, but I don't quite understand why it has to be something entirely different to existing shader languages.
- kvark 7y agoErr, WGSL is essentially renamed from Tint, which was developed and proposed by Google. Where do you see Apple the driver?
- mschuetz 7y agoApple refused to support SPIRV, which Chrome (and Firefox?) already implemented, and lobbied for a text based language. Please read the minutes, I'm not going to look it up for you.
- kvark 7y agoI was in the minutes. Just because it's text doesn't mean it's driven by Apple.
- hajile 7y agoApple clearly says it's not an option because of a legal dispute. If everyone else is at the negotiating table, but Apple says absolutely NO, how is that decision not driven by Apple?
- kvark 7y agoApple vetoes SPIR-V binary as an option. Google develops a language based on SPIR-V semantics that we agree on. It's clear that at least today, Google is mainly driving WGSL. They also see the value in WGSL outside of WebGPU context. Claiming the Apple primary role in this is ridiculous.