[HOpenGL] HOpenGL and --enable-threaded-rts

[Wolfgang Thaller]

In short, it doesn't work :-( .
OpenGL (at least on MacOS) keeps track of the "current context" on a 
per-thread basis. The GLUT library sets the current context and calls 
back to the program. With GHC 5.03 compiled with --enable-threaded-rts, 
the callback gets executed in a different thread. There is no OpenGL 
context set up for that thread, so the first OpenGL call crashes.
This might also be a problem for other state-based interfaces that use 
thread-local state.

Has anyone already thought about how to solve this problem?
I'm thinking about adding hooks to the RTS (in grabCapability, 
releaseCapability and scheduleThread_) which would be used for setting 
up the correct thread-local state whenever Haskell execution "switches" 
to a different OS thread. Those hook routines would have to be written 
in C and would be platform-specific most of the time. It's not a nice 
solution, but it's the only one I can think of at this time.
Unless someone comes up with a better idea _quickly_, I'll try it out 
and then report how ugly it really is... :-)

Cheers,

Wolfgang