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General discussions / Re: Is there any intention for adding support for texture compression?
« on: February 04, 2014, 05:33:52 am »But because of patent it doesn't come in some Linux distros by default. In Fedora I had to install the extension for GL myself, in OpenSUSE it doesn't come by default too I think, it used to not come with Ubuntu, now it does (I think). I think that extension is technically illegal under USA law but no patent holder would go after pebbles from suing singular users.
Most of us are not from United States of Patents so for 'us' personally it doesn't matter, especially Laurent is in France (I presume) and look at what clusterf**k of patent breaking software is VLC under French law.
It's reliant on proprietary drives, yes. But so what? Shouldn't the game dev decide if they want to use it and not us?
Anywho, I just thought of a good reason to have it. I like the simplicity of creating an in-game interface with SFML. I could easily see people using it to create interfaces in 3D games. The issue is that in 3D games the devs and artists have to be very careful with their memory budget, which is why they use compressed textures. You can't do that with SFML.