By Paul Festa
Staff Writer CNET News.com
February 25, 1999, 12:10 p.m. PT

The open source earthquake has hit 3D on the Web--an area desperately in need of a shake-up.

Following a shake-up of its own, 3D browser and tools owner Platinum Technologies has signed a letter of intent with the Web3D Consortium to turn over the source code to those products for some kind of open source development project.

Under open source development, the underlying source code to a piece of software is published, enabling any developer to work it. Firms embracing open source must create or rely on organizations to shepherd such development efforts; one famous example is Netscape Communications' Mozilla.org, which manages open source development of Netscape's Communicator Web browsing software.

As in the Netscape example, Platinum appears to have turned to the open source solution as way of rescuing a foundering effort. In Netscape's case, the browser was succumbing to Microsoft's Internet Explorer in market share and the company was depending on it less and less for revenue, ultimately giving it away free of charge.

In Platinum's case, the decision to give away the source code to its 3D browser and tools comes as the company lays off 1,000 employees, including many in its Intervista and Cosmo units. Platinum acquired those businesses to add visualization technologies to its infrastructure management solutions. But as the company has fallen on hard times, development efforts on the 3D browser and tools have proved an impractical drain on resources. Enter open source.

The immediate recipient of the source code is the Web 3D Consortium. Formerly known as the VRML Consortium, the group last year changed its name after deciding to embrace technologies other than Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML, which rhymes with "thermal").

The consortium's major accomplishment has been the issuance of VRML 97 by the International Organization for Standardization. Its failure has been the lack of any widespread adoption of VRML or any other 3D technology on the Web.

The consortium took one step toward remedying that situation with this month's announcement of a next-generation specification called X3D. This new technology will make VRML more lightweight and componentized. That means developers who need just one part of the technology can pick and choose among various components.

X3D, as the name suggests, implements the World Wide Web Consortium's Extensible Markup Language (XML) recommendation. The consortium has expressed interest in the past in XML, particularly as it is implemented in Microsoft's Chromeffects technology.

The consortium and Platinum have yet to hammer out tricky issues on the open source effort, including intellectual property rights and licensing terms.

Once development gets started, it will have an effect directly on the browser and tools, and indirectly on the shaping of the X3D next-generation specification.

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: By Paul Festa : Staff Writer CNET News.com : February 25, 1999, 12:10 p.m. PT : The open source earthquake has hit 3D on the Web--an area desperately in need of a shake-up. : Following a shake-up of its own, 3D browser and tools owner Platinum Technologies has signed a letter of intent with the Web3D Consortium to turn over the source code to those products for some kind of open source development project. : Under open source development, the underlying source code to a piece of software is published, enabling any developer to work it. Firms embracing open source must create or rely on organizations to shepherd such development efforts; one famous example is Netscape Communications' Mozilla.org, which manages open source development of Netscape's Communicator Web browsing software. : As in the Netscape example, Platinum appears to have turned to the open source solution as way of rescuing a foundering effort. In Netscape's case, the browser was succumbing to Microsoft's Internet Explorer in market share and the company was depending on it less and less for revenue, ultimately giving it away free of charge. : In Platinum's case, the decision to give away the source code to its 3D browser and tools comes as the company lays off 1,000 employees, including many in its Intervista and Cosmo units. Platinum acquired those businesses to add visualization technologies to its infrastructure management solutions. But as the company has fallen on hard times, development efforts on the 3D browser and tools have proved an impractical drain on resources. Enter open source. : The immediate recipient of the source code is the Web 3D Consortium. Formerly known as the VRML Consortium, the group last year changed its name after deciding to embrace technologies other than Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML, which rhymes with "thermal"). : The consortium's major accomplishment has been the issuance of VRML 97 by the International Organization for Standardization. Its failure has been the lack of any widespread adoption of VRML or any other 3D technology on the Web. : The consortium took one step toward remedying that situation with this month's announcement of a next-generation specification called X3D. This new technology will make VRML more lightweight and componentized. That means developers who need just one part of the technology can pick and choose among various components. : X3D, as the name suggests, implements the World Wide Web Consortium's Extensible Markup Language (XML) recommendation. The consortium has expressed interest in the past in XML, particularly as it is implemented in Microsoft's Chromeffects technology. : The consortium and Platinum have yet to hammer out tricky issues on the open source effort, including intellectual property rights and licensing terms. : Once development gets started, it will have an effect directly on the browser and tools, and indirectly on the shaping of the X3D next-generation specification.

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