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Re: [www-vrml] Tim BL Is Baffled, Too Looooooonnnngggggg
vrml/x3d has had a significantly decent amount of time to deliver on this
three fold......
if the consortium would have heeded my advice a while ago , a consortium
sponsored reference platform could have been delivered by now
There is a very good start of one in Xj3D. The consortium has never had
enough funds to develop a reference application. Hence why I've taken
on the test task of creating an open source implementation of the spec.
W3C's implementations have never become the software the masses run.
Xj3D has cost over $500K in development costs to develop. I wager it
will take another $500K to make it really implement all of X3D and be
tested enough with solid installers to really be an asset that all could
utilize.
The consortium at its height had about 300-400K a year in revenue, which
looking at the books never actually materialized(promises memberships
mostly). Since I've been around its had about 200K of revenue a year.
So its never had the funds to actively develop a full implementation of
its standards. It can encourage implementations, but it can't fund
development.
Now the test suite is another interesting thing. Right now there are
maybe 4 people doing active development on it. We'd love more help.
But can we really get people to develop conformance tests. Its a boring
job which requires very close reading of the specifications. NIST did a
great job on part of VRML97, but it was a major effort.
Anyone who wishes to make a contribution to the test suite, email me and
I'll get you a consortium membership for free, you will just have to
sign the participation agreement.
--
Alan Hudson
President: Yumetech, Inc. www.yumetech.com/
Web3D Open Source Chair www.web3d.org/x3d/workgroups/source.html
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