Fixed function is no easier to make safe than shaders so that's a false assumption.

OpenGL ES 1.1 on JavaScript would be a joke. Do you really think JavaScript is up to tens of thousands of

   glVertex
   glColor
   glNormal

calls per model per frame?

The rest of the graphics world left OpenGL 1.x long ago. OpenGL 4.0 has none of the fixed function stuff in it anymore either.

Using fixed function features in 2012 is like using oldskool 80s BASIC with line numbers and no functions as your programming language.

It's time to move on.

I've delivered a paid contract that would say otherwise =)

(Not OpenGL ES1.1 but a similar narrow API. One frame latency penalty in my case as the calls enter a staging area for analysis one frame before tiling and dispatch).

Dont forget the original iPhone also has been fully sandboxed OpenGL ES1.x

So its already been done.

Things like PCC (NaCl) and Xax (to a lesser degree) also reveal surprising results as you would know.

OpenGL ES 1.1 != OpenGL 1.1

OpenGL ES 1.1 does not have support for immediate mode, thus no glBegin/glEnd and no glVertex etc. It's just VBO:s.

Do note that fixed function does not mean same as immediate mode (which is what the glVertex etc calls are all about).

Based on Wikipedia, the 945GM has a GMA950, which supports Pixel Shader 2.0. That should be enough for WebGL.

At that point, the issue is more likely to be driver quality. Allowing people to use weird fixed-function corner cases of the OpenGL spec would make problems more likely.

Are you kidding? The 945GM doesn't have fixed-function hardware! The entire 3D pipeline save for the shaders is implemented in _software_.

Intel didn't even add fixed-function hardware until the GMA X3000 series in the G/GM965 and GL960 chipsets. Hell, it looks like they removed it in everything since the i740.