I have learnt about some ray-tracing features in the new DirectX library (version 11)
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=526
This would, again, let the OpenGL library as lagging behind and playing catch up with the proprietary library DirectX. This would again turn away game developers and gamers from our free software operating systems. As said in the article at TechARP, on the hardware side, AMD and Intel would have no problem making their devices compatible with the new library. But Nvidia, is said to be in trouble.
Completely unofficial and unrelated (after all, of all companies said to be involved only AMD recognizes it is working on this raytracing thing for DirectX), I see this as an oportunity to gain the support of Nvidia to add such features to OpenGL - and make them compatible with Nvidia cards.
With Nvidia financing and their marketing muscle we could get financial support to run a fund raising campaign - similar to the "Free Blender" fund raising one - to add something like Blender engine ray-tracing features to OpenGL.
What I think about Nvidia: I find they do bad not to release their Linux drivers under a free license, but I have no problem using their commercial interests for the advancement of freedom - this time in OpenGL.
Here's about "Free Blender" campaign: http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/history/
Here are some ray tracing rendering engines: Blender rendering options in Blender v. 2.3 http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-232/rendering-option...
Blender itself is available under the GPL license see http://www.blender.org/documentation/htmlII/a11911.html
Another free as in freedom ray tracing engine (LGPL) http://www.yafray.org/
Here is more about OpenGL library http://opengl.org/about/licensing/
Direct X: I intentionally left out of the message the name of producer of the Direct_X library. This is also part of a personal campaign not mention their name in posts - as they are not worthy of it.