On Sat, 2004-07-03 at 15:19, Dalibor Topic wrote:
According to the page above, there was once a free implementation of
java3d available at http://members.linuxstart.com/~jfreed/ but it
doesn't seem toexist any more. Fortunately, archive.org has saved a copy
of the page on
http://web.archive.org/web/20001012122624/http://members.linuxstart.com/~jfreed/
Jean-Christophe Taveau has been last seen on the newsgroups here
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=jc.taveau&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3DF9A91A.8070907%40pobox.com&rnum=1
Maybe worth looking at if I can still contact him.
Regarding legal things, java3d seems to be covered by some patents. See
http://www.3dcompression.com/patents.phtml for details. I have no idea
how important 3d compression is for Java3d, but since you asked ;)
Good point. How does existing Free Software deal with patents? I know
OpenSSL provides some patented algorithms, leaving it up to the user to
provide licenses if necessary or not compile them. And, yes, I know
what a huge pain in the ass they are -- I've been doing my own bit to
try and stop us getting software patents here in the UK. Would we never
be able to fully implement Java 3D due to patents? This being a heavy
research area, no doubt more than 3D compression is covered.