I wanted to reach out to the community in regarding the recent announcement by Facebook/Meta about their new graphics library IGL GitHub - facebook/igl: Intermediate Graphics Library (IGL) is a cross-platform library that commands the GPU. It provides a single low-level cross-platform interface on top of various graphics APIs (e.g. OpenGL, Metal and Vulkan).. It appears that the community’s response was not exactly what they anticipated.
As someone who has been involved in the Linux development community for 25 years, I felt compelled to share my opinion. I suggested that if the IGL developers are serious about creating something that the community truly wants to use, they should consider incorporating the functionality of libraries like GitHub - bkaradzic/bgfx: Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library. while maintaining the ease and cleanliness of SFML see 2.6 Tutorials (SFML / Learn) for api examples. Please note that I am referring to the functionality rather than suggesting the use of these specific libraries. The point I emphasized was that the community does not require another low-level library that demands significant time and effort to learn. To validate my perspective, I challenged the IGL developers to poll their target audience and inquire whether they share the same sentiment.
I value the Linux community’s opinion and would greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts on this matter. Additionally, I believe there is an opportunity here, and I strongly believe that my viewpoint is correct. If you’re interested, it would be wonderful if you could share your thoughts.
Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/14vp0mk/meta_announced_igl_a_highperformance/
https://www.vulkan.org/news