Universal3D vs. Real Open Standards

viveka writes "Back in April, Slashdot reported the announcement of a Universal 3D File Format by Intel, Microsoft & others - to be "as open as MP3". Of course, that's not all that open. And this turns out to be the sneaky part. There is a real open standard already - X3D is ISO-ratified, royalty-free, and has multiple open source implementations. U3D is "going to be submitted to ISO" - one day - but right now they're talking to ECMA, which allows royalty-bearing patents. I found this article by Tony Parisi, co-chair of the X3D Working Group a fascinating insider's picture of the standards wars, along with insights into what it takes to release an online game, what really killed VRML, and why open standards do (and don't) matter. I mean, a royalty-bearing, pseudo-open universal 3D format from Intel and Microsoft? Sorry, guys. That trick doesn't work anymore ;)"

Comments

mp3 open?

[AmigaAvenger]

maybe someone forgot to tell them, but mp3 is far from open... it is owned and to legally use it there are copyright fees involved...

Re:Storing 3D vector data in a text file is braind

[Timothy Brownawell]

The XML encoding enables smooth integration with web services

JPEG, PNG, mp3, flash, etc. integrate just fine, and they're not XML.

and cross-platform inter-application file and data transfer.

As does *any* format you have the specification for. Again: JPEG, mp3, etc. work in multiple applications on multiple platforms.

Tim