CFV: New Project: Lanai

[Stuart Marks]

Vote: yes

On 7/9/19 12:13 PM, Phil Race wrote:
> I hereby propose the creation of the Lanai Project to implement a new graphics 
> rendering pipeline for macOS, with Phil Race as the Lead and the 2D Group as the 
> sponsoring Group.
> 
> Background and Motivation:
> Apple Inc. have created the Metal [1] graphics API designed to be their long 
> term replacement for OpenGL as the rendering pipeline on Apple platforms, 
> including macOS. It promises better performance than OpenGL and simpler GPU 
> designs by being a simpler API without the legacies of OpenGL.
> 
> The JDK, and OpenJFX today both use OpenGL as the rendering pipeline on macOS, 
> but Apple have deprecated OpenGL as of MacOS 10.14 [2], and recommend to 
> transition to Metal.
> If OpenGL is not present on a macOS system, the JDK desktop APIs cannot function 
> and will fail to start. OpenJFX is in a very similar position.
> 
> For some months, engineers from Oracle and JetBrains [3], have been exploring 
> the Metal APIs and working on some proofs of concept, starting with the existing 
> OpenGL pipeline as a base and doing prototyping work in the JDK sandbox [4] in 
> the metal-prototype-branch and in the case of JetBrains, separately on github.
> We have also discussed specific issues on the 2d-dev mailing list and have a 
> wiki page [5].
> 
> However to further collaboration and advance the goals we would like to move 
> this work to a location where we can work together and more engineers can 
> contribute, and therefore propose this project.
> 
> Note: the rendering pipelines in the JDK are internal implementation details, so 
> this project will not create, or otherwise be exposed as, Java APIs
> 
> Phil Race is the lead of the Java 2D group and has worked on the Java 2D APIs 
> for many years as well. He has also made significant contributions to the 
> OpenJFX project and to the Swing and AWT APIs
> 
> Goals of the Project:
> This project will create a Java 2D rendering pipeline for macOS using the Apple 
> Metal APIs which aims to be at least as capable, robust and performant, as the 
> current OpenGL pipeline.
> This project will also be the basis of a similar Metal pipeline for the OpenJFX 
> project [6].
> 
> Initial committers will include
> Phil Race (prr)
> Ajit Ghaisas (aghaisas)
> Jay DV (jdv)
> Sergey Bylokhov (serb)
> Kevin Rushforth (kcr)
> Alexey Ushakov (avu)
> 
> A complete list will be provided to the registrar at the successful conclusion 
> of this CFV.
> 
> Votes are due by 5pm PDT on Tuesday July 23rd 2019.
> 
> Only current OpenJDK Members [7] are eligible to vote on this motion. Votes must 
> be cast in the open on the discuss list.
> Replying to this message is sufficient if your mail program honors the Reply-To 
> header.
> 
> For Lazy Consensus voting instructions, see [8].
> 
> -Phil Race.
> 
> [1] https://developer.apple.com/metal/
> [2] 
> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos_release_notes/macos_mojave_10_14_release_notes 
> 
> [3] https://www.jetbrains.com/
> [4] http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/sandbox/
> [5] https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/2d/Metal+Graphics+Pipeline+for+MacOS
> [6] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/openjfx/
> [7] http://openjdk.java.net/census#members
> [8] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/#new-project-vote