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Looking at OpenTK, I notice some disturbing signs:

Does OpenTK exist anymore, or is it abandonware now?

Edit: Some people have expressed concern at my use of "ambiguous" and "loaded terms" like "dead," "abandonware," and others.

What I'm asking is this: software projects comprise of many pieces:

  • The actual software project (such as OpenTK)
  • A group of people who maintain the software (project leads, core developers)
  • Some vehicle by which users can find and consume the latest versions (such as releasing daily builds)
  • A community (can I ask questions about it? Get answers?)
  • Updates (are there new features? New releases? Active development? A roadmap?)

Some projects have all of these things. Most have a few. Some have nothing, other than maybe the actual software project itself.

Is OpenTK one of these? Because it seems like:

  • The actual software project is stable
  • The maintainers don't contribute to it anymore
  • There are no more latest versions (daily builds), not since 2010 (2+ years)
  • The community is very low-traffic (nobody is asking/answering questions, who is actually using this anyway?)
  • There are no updates since 2010
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  • \$\begingroup\$ Well, generally asking a question that is not used to solve a problem is not appreciated in this site. That being said, I am not the one who downvoted and I agree a comment is nice to have. \$\endgroup\$
    – AturSams
    Commented Nov 22, 2012 at 23:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ "Dead", "exist", and "abandonware" aren't really useful terms, in this context. It's a set of binary bits, it isn't alive. And clearly it exists, evidenced by the fact that you managed to link to it. "Abandonware" doesn't really seem an appropriate term in regards to open source software, so I'm assuming that you're trying to imply something different. Since those answers are all extremely obvious, I assume that you actually meant to ask something else? \$\endgroup\$
    – Trevor Powell
    Commented Nov 23, 2012 at 0:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ That's not what 'abandonware' means. And I notice that you're using a lot of loaded terms, such as "stagnation", and "dead" (and, in fact, "abandonware" itself). It seems that what you're really asking, when stripped of your personal redefinitions of dramatic words, is just "is this still under active development?" A question which you apparently already knew the answer to before posting here. So I'm a bit baffled about what you're trying to learn from this question. Am I misunderstanding? \$\endgroup\$
    – Trevor Powell
    Commented Nov 23, 2012 at 14:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ Currently there is a discussion on GitHub: github.com/andykorth/opentk/issues/16 \$\endgroup\$
    – eisberg
    Commented Aug 6, 2013 at 12:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ No, it is not. OpenTK 1.1 is just under active development. \$\endgroup\$
    – Larry
    Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 22:26

5 Answers 5

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OpenTK 1.1 was released in February.

Changelog:

  1. support for OpenGL 4.4 and OpenGL ES 3.0
  2. strongly-typed enums for OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0
  3. new, faster OpenGL bindings based on hand-optimized IL
  4. a new SDL2 backend for improved platform compatibility
  5. new Joystick and GamePad APIs under OpenTK.Input
  6. improved startup time and reduced memory consumption
  7. inline documentation for all OpenGL and OpenGL ES core functions
  8. a greatly expanded math library
  9. numerous bugfixes for Mac OS X, Windows 8 and Linux
  10. ANGLE support for Windows systems without OpenGL drivers
  11. support for Retina / high-DPI monitors
  12. monolinker can now be used to reduce the size of OpenTK.dll
  13. precompiled binaries for optional dependencies (OpenAL, SDL2, monolinker)
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It depends on your definition of dead. I know that it is currently being used by an active project called MonoGame.

In my opinion OpenTK is a stable library with enough developers invested in it that it won't go away anytime soon.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Yeah, I think "stable" is a word that describes OpenTKs state better than "dead". I don't recall missing anything or hitting roadblocks because of WiP areas. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adam
    Commented Nov 23, 2012 at 10:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ OpenTK is a binding of OpenGL for C#, yes? So explain how it can be considered "stable" when it doesn't support OpenGL 4.3 yet. Admittedly, neither does AMD or NVIDIA. But C and C++ bindings had support for 4.3 within hours of 4.3's release. It seems to me that relying on OpenTK for recent OpenGL releases is not viable. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nicol Bolas
    Commented Nov 24, 2012 at 5:39
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    \$\begingroup\$ According to the dictionary stable means "not likely to change or fail". So in this context that's probably true. The fact that it is missing features from future versions only matters if you need those features. I also don't know of any other alternatives for c# opengl, do you? \$\endgroup\$
    – craftworkgames
    Commented Nov 25, 2012 at 11:44
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I had the same concerns, after reading through their OpenTK webpage, didn't feel me with the greatest of confidence - most of it seemed outdated. However their GitHub Commit Statistics page shows a healthy amount of activity in the last year.

Github OpenTK commits in the past year

In addition to that, there are downstream Projects such as Duality, or AgateLib which I hope will spur on further development.

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I couldn't find anything offical, but it seems to be headed that way. The project is still somewhat active as far as the user base goes, as seen on the blog page. And there's still 1000+ downloads per week from the sourceforge site.

However, the developer side of things looks much worse. The nightly builds, which were going fairly regularly (a least a few days a week an new release would be added), stopped back in March.

It's likely it's abandoned by the developer or on track to be abandoned.

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    \$\begingroup\$ This is false. OpenTK is being developed very actively in github. \$\endgroup\$
    – Lasse
    Commented Mar 2, 2014 at 4:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ @lasse check the date. \$\endgroup\$
    – House
    Commented Mar 2, 2014 at 4:42
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    \$\begingroup\$ Whoops. Still, this is the case now, and this answer is outdated. \$\endgroup\$
    – Lasse
    Commented Mar 2, 2014 at 4:43
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As of 4/30/2016 The official OpenTK website has been suspended(a few months after the only maintainer had left the project), and the Fiddler has not been seen on Stackoverflow since May 26 '15 at 14:35. It's safe to assume now that the project is officially dead. The Fiddler had also stated that he had lost interest in OpenTK roughly a year ago, and was focusing more on his academics. I would provide sources and citations for this, but the quote is located on the primary website, which is no longer active.

The lack of OpenTK leaves a massive void in the C# programming world.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Sad but very true. Thanks for writing an answer confirming what we all feared years ago. +1 \$\endgroup\$
    – ashes999
    Commented May 1, 2016 at 0:37
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    \$\begingroup\$ @ashes999 Thankfully, the terms of use for OpenTK allow anyone to pick up the project and continue it. I have been building my own framework to go alongside OpenTK for over a year now, for use with my current game. Things I added were collision objects BoundingBox, Sphere, Frustum, Ray...etc. I may just merge it straight into the OpenTK source and release it all under a new name. Perhaps in the not-to-distant-future. \$\endgroup\$
    – Krythic
    Commented May 1, 2016 at 1:13

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