Slashdot Mirror
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.
croquet license
Copyright (c) 2002-2004 by Viewpoints Research Institute, Inc. and other individual, corporate, and institutional contributors who have collectively contributed elements of the CroquetTM software code to the Croquet Project. CroquetTM is a trademark of Viewpoints Research Institute, Inc..
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
By sharing a 3D space with avatars you can create some interesting things.
For example, someone enters your croquet space and you open up a local chess app which appears before you both and you can have a game of chess. And yet the chess program is not network aware. This is phenomenally cool and has all sorts of applications.
I know it's been done before in things like "moove" but I think it's rad to have your smb share as a "room" which people can enter. The rooms then have unix-like privelages. So there is a root "machine room" the door to which only authenticated users can enter. And you could have terminals that "float" along with you that only you can see.
It is the next paradigm shift for certain multi-user applications. Sending a freind an file over IM is more of a question of leaping through a hyper-portal and throwing an object over to them. Or they might in your croquet space and you wouldn't have to "give" it to them at all, they'd just see it there in front of them.
Endless possibilities.
Naturally as we are built to use the third dimension of our spacial brain, we can handle and organise, more complex visual information than we are getting from our computers, the 2 dimensional desktop restricts how much we can at once access without our inteface getting cluttered, it's restricting how quickly we can recognise and choose one of many directions or locations, and it's more boring.
Here is how you can work more efficiently:
- One interface to move quickly between any resource or application on the network.
- Same interface to work collaboratively, controlling any application along with other people anywhere in the world.
- Be more aware of all the things that are open, as they will have a 3d spatial reality in your mind and therefore it will be easier to remember their presence as this is how we are wired. You will instinctively know what is "around you", and this will allow having more open/nearby at once.
- Be less frustrated by how much time and work it takes you to view/manipulate all the information you need in a 2 dimensional plan.
Did you check out all the screenshots?
Also, it's open source, which essentially means if it takes off it will never die, and if it's looks like it has great potential (and it takes off), it will eventually fulfill it.
Oh please. The main post was filled with enough marketspeak and buzzwords to choke a Microsoft Marketing Rep. Tell me what it does. Tell me why it is unique or 'cool'. Tell me what problem it solves or why it is an innovation.
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
You can find some great video clips of Alan Kay demoing Croquet here. Well worth watching, this is much more than just a 3D desktop.
Why? Let's see:
- The one huge PITA for me is the navigation. The mouse interface is as disturbing as it can get. If I had a joypad connected, the up=forward system would make perfect sense, but this way I automatically tend to navigate as in _any_ 3D-Shooter. I could adapt, granted, but where is the actual gain? Why is navigating this way supposed to be better?
- Most icons are not very intuitive, be that trained or natural intuition. I can figure how to move, rotate, activate, close and focus those windows, but most of the icons in the menu are absolutely beyond me. Some do nothing, some crash something, some spawn world objects that don't have a closing icon, etc. Tooltips _and_ at least a minimum documentation would be neat... And don't you point me at their getting started section. Have you actually read that? It wasn't much, so the average slashdotter should have been able to...
- How do I get a mozilla window? Or, for that matter, any application? Maybe it is my inability to use the menu icons right, but, if screenshots show off with a webbrowser open, then I expect, even in a developer's version, to be able to easily repeat that.
- Runtime environment. Not much to add, I guess. I have a personal dislike for anything that looks like the kindergarten-gaudy version of drag'n'drop your code. Hell, even QBasic looks more professional. It might be the best language/codebase for the purpose, but it sure looks stupid...
- My last point: Sharing userspace over network. I theory this is great. Having the ability to cyberspace parts of my system is way cool for cooperative work, etc. BUT (big but here) only when I can absolutely retain the ability to seal the rest of my system from intruders. Same problem as shared directories: In theory, great. In realita? Security holes amass. If everyone was an enlightened and good person this weren't an issue, but, statistically, everyones a script-kiddie. So, please, give me a)private-by-default and b)clear indication when a network connection exists, including the ability to turn any such conectivity off, ok?
I hope some people will comment! This post is not intended as flamebait, you know...