About the OpenGL ARB "Architecture Review Board"

The OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB), was an independent consortium formed in 1992, that governed the future of OpenGL, proposing and approving changes to the specification, new releases, and conformance testing.

OpenGL ARB now part of the Khronos Group

The Khronos Group is very pleased to be the new home of the OpenGL® ARB (Architecture Review Board), the governing body for OpenGL. In Fall of 2006, the ARB and the Khronos Board of Directors voted to transfer control of the OpenGL API standard to the Khronos Group. The Khronos Group voted to establish The OpenGL ARB Working Group to control and evolve this vital standard for cross-platform 3D graphics with significantly enhanced participation. Full support for OpenGL and its evolution has continued uninterrupted and we will continue to service both development communities www.opengl.org and www.khronos.org.

OpenGL ARB Khronos Collaborate to Ensure Consistency

The OpenGL ARB and the Khronos Group have long collaborated to ensure consistency in the OpenGL, OpenGL ES, OpenML, COLLADA and OpenGL SC standards. As a result of this transition all OpenGL- related activities will now occur under the single Khronos participation framework to enable fully- integrated cooperation between these related standards activities so that OpenGL may form the foundation for a coherent set of standards to bring advanced 3D graphics to all hardware platforms and operating systems - from supercomputers to jet fighters to cell phones.

"The evolution of the OpenGL API and the membership of the ARB have reflected the changes in the graphics industry over the years as the use of 3D graphics moved from high-end workstations and simulators to PCs and mobile laptops, thanks to a new generation of consumer-oriented companies such as ATI and NVIDIA," observes ARB secretary Jon Leech. "Now 3D acceleration is moving to cell phones and OpenGL is there too as OpenGL ES, the successful subset of OpenGL for embedded systems created within the Khronos Group. We have decided to move OpenGL into Khronos to ensure the future health of OpenGL in all its forms."

Khronos API Roadmap Strategy

This transition will enable Khronos to coordinate a joint roadmap strategy for OpenGL, OpenGL ES, OpenGL SC and COLLADA to maximize synergies between the various members of the OpenGL-related standards family to accelerate its architectural evolution to support advanced programmable features while minimizing differences between diverse platforms. Additionally, COLLADA will be enabled to form a vital link to authoring platforms for both OpenGL and OpenGL ES, and Khronos will be able to leverage work in its cross-platform EGL standard to augment and perhaps eventually replace the GLX/WGL/AGL platform-specific variations.

"As a long-time Promoter Level member of the Khronos Group and the OpenGL ARB, ATI strongly supports the transition of the OpenGL specifications and workgroups to the Khronos Group," said Robert Feldstein, vice president, engineering, ATI Technologies. "The communities for OpenGL, OpenGL ES, OpenVG, and other Khronos standards will enjoy the advantages of working more directly together. We envision that OpenGL will continue to evolve into a coherent family of APIs focused on bringing advanced graphics processing everywhere."