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1Project History
2===============
3
4The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. Here's a short
5history of the project.
6
7August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project has
8no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 3D
9graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially
10inspired by the *VOGL* library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. I had
11been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
12
13November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my
14OpenGL-like graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally
15receptive to the idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal
16department, I get permission to release it.
17
18February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that a
19few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. I was soon
20receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a daily basis.
21That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The name Mesa just
22popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use the terms
23*"Open"* or *"GL"* in the project name and I didn't want to make up a
24new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming language and the
25Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
26
27In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. It even
28took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. Mesa
29filled a big hole during that time. For a lot of people, Mesa was their
30first introduction to OpenGL. I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually
31helped to promote the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the
32project.
33
341995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and
35during my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the
36University of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me
37do this because Mesa is now being using for the
38`Vis5D <https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html>`__ project.
39
40October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1
41specification.
42
43March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo
44graphics card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular
45hardware OpenGL implementation for Linux.
46
47September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available
48implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
49
50March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the
51development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
52
53September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key
54component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for
55XFree86. Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon
56follow.
57
58October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.3
59specification.
60
61November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
62Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica. Tungsten Graphics was
63acquired by VMware in December 2008.
64
65November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.4
66specification.
67
68January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5
69specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
70GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
71
72June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1
73specification and OpenGL Shading Language.
74
752008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
76`Gallium <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D>`__ - a new GPU
77abstraction layer. The latest Mesa drivers are based on Gallium and
78other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
79
80February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0
81specification and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
82
83July 2016: Mesa 12.0 is released, including OpenGL 4.3 support and
84initial support for Vulkan for Intel GPUs. Plus, there's another Gallium
85software driver ("swr") based on LLVM and developed by Intel.
86
87Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for devices designed by
88Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Vivante, plus the VMware and
89VirGL virtual GPUs. There's also several software-based renderers:
90swrast (the legacy Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a Gallium reference
91driver) and llvmpipe (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer).
92
93Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
94of the OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan specifications.
95