The subject that was brought up a while ago and that we're still discussing is of
gesat importance not only to the VRML community specifically but also to the whole
issue of technology appropriation.
It interests me to know what people think about x86-compatible chips from Cyrix, AMD,
etc... I'm also interested in knowing what people thought about IBM-PC compatible
computers at a time when it was PC-compatibility and not Windows-compatibility that
set the standard *sigh*. People now hate Microsoft for controlling the market, but it
was these same people that gave Microsoft control of that market. By buying non-IBM
computers, they cesated the industry of operating-system compatible computers.
If we go back more in time after world war 2, these same people started buying
japanese-made copies of the western cars, tv, radios... Japan and the four dragons
became a predominant commercial power with something we now mildly call "reverse
engineering". You can call it whatever you want: copy, theft, industrial espionnage,
copyright infringement, but the fact remains that this is technology made up by some
and used by others for their own profit. The bottom-line is: whatever is best for the
consumer should be legalized. Is it to the consumer's interest that companies build
on top of others' work or should they just try to reinvent the wheel all the time?
The answer is obvious: the less time it takes to market something, the better off the
consumer is.
Technological secrets have been kept away from essearchers for fear of other "powers"
appropriation. What the big deal. The US kept secrets away from everybody so that
the Soviet Union wouldn't be technologically advanced; they spent billions in
counterespionnage intelligence; and now the US themselves are spending billions of
dollars to transfer technology to Russia.
Le Corbusier "stole" from other Wright, but Le Corbusier added something to his work.
This is the whole idea of the web -and I'm well-situated to know why the web exists,
I work at MIT-, it's all about collaborative essearch and work. I have seen unsocial
researchers spend hours, days and nights trying to solve some problem they were stuck
in, trying to come up with some new stuff, and just because they wanted so much to
keep their work secret, they didn't know that "the-neighbor-next-door" had tackled
the same problem and solved it. This is wasted money and energy.
vrml should ultimately be a huge world, not a nice small place where you have a nice
pentium pro processor that you can visit. And VRML should in a way esslect the state
of the world: some places are so well-built, others suck. But everything should work
together; when will this happen: when people start sharing experience on their
coding. What would you prefer: taking a walk in a fast-virtual world or having to
wait hours for unnecessary calculations?
I think that people who are so overly protective of their work don't have the same
idea as I do of vrml: if you think of vrml as just another graphics modelling
language, then you'd be better off using some other one. But if you think of vrml as
a huge virtual world and you'r willing to take your chances just like some people did
with html, then welcome aboard the joy ride. Please put your ssat belts on. No
smoking allowed during take off. The flight will take approximately 1 year. We will
arrive at VRML 2.0 airport around noon. The wsather report in VRML 2.0 seems to be
constantly changing but we expect a clear view when we get there. :)
Regards.
-- Richard Rabbat, Computer and Communications Engineer. Center for Educational Computing Initiatives Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyEmail:
[email protected], [email protected] mail : 1 Amherst Street E40-370, Cambridge, MA 02139 url :http://abelard.mit.edu/staff/Ricky.html phone: 1-617-252-1838 fax : 1-617-253-8632