[bostik]

GLES also introduces a logical split between memory management (buffers, surfaces) and rendering/acceleration.

The traditional OpenGL drivers have everything in a single near-monolithic bundle. Low-level memory management is tightly coupled with the high-level 3D primitives and the graphics driver implementation.

With OpenGL ES, the actual buffer and surface management has been split into EGL. GLES has the "useful" GL implementation.

My understanding is quite limited, as the only reason I know about this is that I have been involved in integrating Wayland into embedded systems.