Croquet Project Releases Initial Developer Release

kourge writes "Croquet Project previously has been slashdotted. Today, Croquet Project released its initial developer release, codenamed 'Jasmine.' Although it isn't a finished product, it still is complete enough for developers to develop in Croquet. Croquet itself is written in Squeak, a branch of the Smalltalk language. Please remember to download Croquet via BitTorrent, which provides faster speeds and won't overload the server." The idea is ambitious: An OpenGL-based "complete development and delivery platform" delivering "shared telepresence, shared authorship of complex spaces and their contents, and shared access to network-deliverable information resources" is only part of it. Croquet's license is blessedly simple, too.

Comments

Hot Goat

[Dolphy]

This release will be noteworthy to both developers and end users who just want to see "see what it's like". Soon after getting Slashdotted so long ago, Croquet.org removed the download and (basically) hasn't updated since. The vast majority of the (casual) interest in the project had to be stemmed off until now. As such, I'm sure we can expect the site to get hit with both old techies who never got a chance to see it, as well as new ones who are just hearing about it for the first time.

I just imagined ..

[ciupman]

.. listening music though my virtual xmms player. The player could be or not attached to my avatar position, in case i wanted the music to folow me or not .. the sound would have 3d positioning (routed somewhat from the real xmms application to a crocket sound output interface), anyone who "aproachs" my avatar would start listening to music gradually (only if the sound output is activated from their side).. This thing has millions of applications, and imho, is the only 3d desktop that would make sence, why? Because of it's resource sharing with others.. This is way too cool! ;)

Re:"blessedly simple" license

[Fnkmaster]

The license you find troublingly ambiguous is also known as the MIT License. It's identical. And the MIT License has been used for years on many successful software products. Is is as well-honed as the Modified BSD license? Not quite, but some people seem to prefer it because it's so damned simple. What part of "deal without restriction" and "including, without limitation" don't you understand? It means do whatever you want as long as you keep the Copyright notice intact somewhere in the software.

The license applies to binary and source form distributions, they are generally held to both be covered by copyright law, so they are both implicitly under the license. Almost EVERY Open Source license has this clause in it. People generally put the copyright notice in the documentation accompanying the binaries (documentation files are included in their definition of "the Software"), in a README file, or you can probably compile it as a string if you prefer. If the license doesn't specify, then anything that complies with the license can be presumed to be valid.

As for "this software", the license only applies to _this software_. Not to other software that you write, that links to this software - that's the way copyright law works, unless you put unusual clauses in place like the GPL does.

You are looking for surprises where there aren't any. This isn't some strange new license, it's just the simplest possible Open Source license (whether you think this means it's the best is a different issue).