News: 0001614373

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Intel's Discontinued Open-Source OpenPGL Project Finds A New Home

([Intel] 5 Hours Ago OpenPGL)


Back in 2022 [1]Intel announced OpenPGL as an open-source library for path guiding to help enhance the quality of path-based renderers. With time [2]Blender began making use of OpenPGL and other industry interest and adoption. Unfortunately, Intel quietly ended work on OpenPGL in 2025 but has now fortunately found a new home.

The Apache 2.0 licensed Intel Open Path Guiding Library was started as part of the Intel (oneAPI) Rendering Toolkit and found use by not only Blender but also OpenMoonRay as well as reportedly in commercial offerings from Autodesk, Corona, Cinema 4D, V-Ray, and more. But amid cost-cutting at Intel over the course of 2025, OpenPGL development ceased as one of many open-source projects Intel cut back on.

Intel's [3]OpenPGL repository on GitHub hasn't been archived or formally discontinued but hasn't seen any commits now in eight months. It turns out indeed that it's no longer being developed.

Intel dropping OpenPGL development was confirmed in [4]this ticket :

"The project was initiated in 2022 by Intel as part of the Intel oneAPI Rendering Toolkit, but was recently discontinued due to restructuring and shifting priorities. Given the project's widespread adoption and usefulness to the VFX industry, we want to bring OpenPGL under the ASWF umbrella."

Following recent voting by the Technical Advisory Council (TAC), the OpenPGL project is now being picked up by the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF). The [5]Academy Software Foundation is the Linux Foundation hosted project for advancing open-source in the content creation industry from this neural forum. A great fit for OpenPGL development moving forward.

The OpenPGL is becoming a new working group with the ASWF. [6]This PDF slide deck laid out the case for OpenPGL at the foundation. Interestingly there it also notes Disney's Hyperion making use of Intel OpenPGL and that Zootopia 2 was the first released movie making use of this former Intel software project. Sebastian Herholz who had worked at Intel as the main OpenPGL developer is also mentioned as soon joining Blender.

At least now this former-Intel, widely-used open-source project will be able to live on at the Academy Software Foundation.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-OpenPGL

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Blender-3.4

[3] https://github.com/OpenPathGuidingLibrary/openpgl

[4] https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1218

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Academy+Software+Foundation

[6] https://github.com/user-attachments/files/24088890/OpenPGL-ASWF-project-proposal.pdf


The Blue Screen Of Advocacy

The Federal Bureau of Investigation & Privacy Violations has issued a
national advisory warning computer stores to be on the lookout for the
"Bluescreen Bandits". These extreme Linux zealots go from store to store
and from computer to computer typing in "C:\CON\CON" and causing the demo
machines to crash and display the Blue Screen Of Death.

Efforts to apprehend the bandits have so far been unsuccessful. The
outlaws were caught on tape at a CompUSSR location in Southern California,
but in an ironic twist, the surveillance system bluescreened just before
the penguinistas came into clear view.

"We don't have many clues. It's not clear whether a small group is behind
the bluescreen vandalism, or whether hundreds or even thousands of geek
zealots are involved," said the manager of a Capacitor City store.

The manager has good reason to be upset. The bluescreen raid was the top
story in the local newspaper and quickly became a hot topic of discussion.
As a result, the local school board halted its controversial plans to
migrate their computers from Macs to PCs.