[Bf-committers] Blender Developers Meeting Minutes - May 27th

[Benjamin Tolputt]

On 27 May 2016, at 3:46 PM, Mike Erwin <significant.bit at gmail.com> wrote:
> On the OpenGL topic, my main question is whether anyone working on Blender
> 2.8 needs Mac support in the next few months.

I’m not working on the code for 2.8 or really need 2.8 at the moment, so this is more of an intellectual objection than a call to “STOP!”.

I’m worried about making the move to OpenGL 3.2 whilst OSX is not working for precisely the points Mike suggests moving ahead. The amount of work to be done to get Blender working (on OSX) with 3.2 is quite large and, more importantly, it’s a boring / hard slog. It’s unexciting work that no-one is really excited to get into and it will remain so. Like kids eating their vegetables, if developers are allowed to get dessert (get into more exciting code) by saying you’ll eat your greens (i.e. fix up OSX) sometime later  - 9 times out of 10, those beans end up in the bin.

I don’t wish to see OSX (my primary Blender platform) getting left behind because that last unexciting 20% of code keeps getting pushed off as Windows & Linux work just fine. I’m reminded of how long it took to get BMesh tools up to the level of pre-BMesh tools because, for most users in most tasks, it was “good enough". I’d hate to see Blender on OSX fall behind and remain there for a long time because, for most users, Windows & Linux are "good enough”.

I have no say in the matter, but thought it best to reply now & be told “It’s all in hand, not to worry” than just hold my peace and have my pessimism proven correct.

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B.J.Tolputt