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<p>Sending from a mobile, pardon my terseness. ~ C.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Aug 8, 2011 6:12 AM, "Rudolf Polzer" <<a href="mailto:divverent@xonotic.org">divverent@xonotic.org</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution">> On Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 05:49:09AM -0700, Jose Fonseca wrote:<br>
>> ----- Original Message -----<br>>> > The suggestion however is to include a S2TC-like method with Mesa, to<br>>> > basically<br>>> > make sure that in the long run NO distro has no support for S3TC<br>
>> > uploading,<br>>> > without requiring an extra decision in each distro.<br>>> <br>>> I wouldn't oppose bundling S2TC for software renderers, but enabling S3TC decompression on hardware is an orthogonal matter, which depends on the licensing terms between the IHV and S3.<br>
>> <br>>> If you wanna fix this, convince IHVs to fully license the S3TC use in their hardware for Linux. So far the only IHV that _seems_ to have such wide cross-OS license is NVIDIA.<br>>> <br>>> I think it would be good to add a FAQ about this in the docs. But I'm done with this stupid thread. I'll enjoy my vacation and stop wasting time with this nonsense.<br>
> <br>> In other words: you want the EXISTING support in Mesa to upload S3TC compressed<br>> textures (pre-compressed, not runtime compressed) to the hardware removed.<br>> <br>> It is the driconf option "Enable S3TC texture compression even if software<br>
> support is not available" ("force_s3tc_enable" in the configuration file or<br>> environment).<br>> <br>> There is already existing games that use this method to silently enable<br>> precompressed texture even when no libtxc_dxtn library is available:<br>
> <br>> <a href="http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/575">http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/575</a><br>> <br>> So effectively, Mesa already does this. If you were right with your opinion,<br>> this would mean Mesa is ALREADY violating the patent, because any game can<br>
> set that environment variable and thus TRANSPARENTLY use S3TC, without the<br>> user being aware that the patented technology is being used. And then I would<br>> ask how it is any MORE illegal if a distro bundles the S2TC lib, and thus<br>
> S3TC upload is available WITHOUT setting force_s3tc_enable.<br>> <br>> Summarizing: in the EXISTING code, it's already possible for any application to<br>> enable S3TC decompression. Just enable force_s3tc_enable before initializing<br>
> OpenGL. So it is available, just by a "different API" than the one in the<br>> OpenGL extension spec (due to an extra putenv() call being required). Including<br>> S2TC, and thus enabling compressed texture upload by default, only changes the<br>
> API by which this functionality is enabled to the standard OpenGL one (without<br>> the putenv() call).<br>> <br>> Best regards,<br>> <br>> Rudolf Polzer<br>> _______________________________________________<br>
> mesa-dev mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org">mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org</a><br>> <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev">http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev</a><br>
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