Creative has released its new SDK (for windows) only a few monthes ago; see developer.creative.com for it. It supports the OpenAL 1.1 environmental extensions for occlusion and such. Apple has extended its release of OpenAL w/ Leopard as well. Linux support ... well, the latest SI for linux available from www.openal.org is fairly old and always crashed in my trials to open any specific device, and it lacks e.g. device enumeration. The implementation available from the link provided by remdul works well so far, but isn't complete w.r.t. OpenAL 1.1 yet. However, the author seems currently very active to complete it.

So OpenAL seems me not dead yet, I would say it _is_ under active (although slow?) development. But of course its future depends on its attraction of games/engines, and that is a totally other point. The most standpoints in this thread make clear that OpenAL isn't that popular...

Quote:Original post by Kwizatz
why is it supposed to be version 1.1.0 but the source labels it as 0.0.8?

1.1 is the version of the current OpenAL specification, and 0.0.8 is AFAIK the version of their (SI?) implementation.

bubu LV: So, if the SDK is licensed and the redistributable version is not, does that not mean that you must not be a developer in order to use OpenAL? Because i'm talking from the developer point of view, which obviously applies to the OpenAL SDK only.

Kwizatz: 0.0.8 was the last GPL-styled licensed version, new versions seem to be under direct Creative License, it seems. Also, i was talking about the win32 SDK for OpenAL.

Quoting OpenAL.org download page, svn section:

"There are various tagged and branched versions of OpenAL available in openal/tags and openal/branches. These are some of the most relevant:

* Linux_Spec1-0 for the last Linux code before the transition towards OpenAL 1.1 began
* MacOSX1-1_Spec1-0 for the last MacOS X code before the transition towards OpenAL 1.1 began
* Win1-1-2_Spec1-0 for the last Windows code before the transition towards OpenAL 1.1 began"

Doesnt that seem like they want us to download only the code before 1.1? That's why i think 1.1 and such is no longer "valid" as open-source, according to Creative, at least.

Quote:Original post by nuno_silva_pt
Kwizatz: 0.0.8 was the last GPL-styled licensed version, new versions seem to be under direct Creative License, it seems. Also, i was talking about the win32 SDK for OpenAL.

I took a look at the SVN, seems like you could compile your own under Windows as well (uses CMake now).

Now, I may be wrong, but you just can't take a LGPL piece of software and decide to release it under a different license unless you own the IP of said piece of software, which in the case of OpenAL should still belong to Loki or whoever Loki appointed as the holder of rights (its not Creative or is it?).

haegarr's explanation makes more sense in that regard, I know libtool's versioning is closely related to the library's API.

I think it would be interesting to finally find out how well the LGPL/GPL stands in court though.

I hope OpenAL isn't dead yet. SFML uses OpenAL internally. At least as long as I'm using a wrapper, the wrapper's author can reimplement the wrapper functions with OpenSL (Open Sound Library) when it comes out. OpenSL is managed by the Khronos group which is the same group that manages OpenGL.

Quote:Original post by remdul
What is relevant is that, AFAIK, Creative holds the spec and they are not updating it in respect to the demands of the industry.

Out of intrest, what demands are these?

So, in short, your problem is that;

- no one else makes an implimentation apart from Creative
- Creative won't give away their IP for EAX
- The above some how stops others from implimenting their own EFX solution
- This is all Creative's fault despite the spec being public and there being source code out there for people to build on (even if it doesn't include Creative's IP)

The 2D thing might well be a valid issue, although I dare say the rational for not including it is that you can do the same with the 3D system in place just on 2 axis instead of 3. (I've not tried yet, maybe when I do I'll moan about it, we'll see).

However, based on my short list above, and despite having their hardware I'm no Creative fan (the hardware is great, the drivers are often lacking, although I've been pleased thus far with the recent 2 Vista drivers), your complaints seem... lacking.

- No one else doing it is hardly Creative's fault.
- Who gives away IP? Generally no one; GPUs, case and point.
- I've not seen anything in the EFX docs saying 'lulz, Creative only, no else use' which would stop anyone implimenting the interface.
- The stuff is out there, it's free, it's hardly Creative's fault that apart from them no one else bothers with implimenting it.

I don't think implementing a few API functions is giving away your IP! Creative's intellectual property is in the implementation of the algorithms, not in the presumably trivial interface to activate them.

Personally I wish people would use other sound cards and abandon OpenAL. Giving one company control over both most of the hardware and the supposed 'open' standard for sound means progress is going to stay stagnant. Sound has barely improved since the 90s, because Creative were allowed to kill off their leading competitor and have never needed to innovate since then.