Hi, The dev-bang mailinglist is now online. bang is an open source cyberspace platform written in Java, with a lot of functionality and extension capabilities. We are now 3-4 people active in the development of bang. It would be great to get more people/you on board even if you don't have a lot of time/hours to spare into the project. -developers needed Java hackers 3D programing/protocols experts Swing&GUI programmers/designers 3D modelers MOO programmers/hackers -multi protocol support Our mission is to support *all* significant cyberspace protocols/standards/file formats around, we now support fe. MOO, VRML97, Java3D, VNet/VIP, DeepMatrix/Living Worlds, RTP, Jini, JavaSpaces and IP Multicasting. Trough the J3D LoadInterface3D support, users can now build .class content that supports more file formats/protocols, fe. 3D Studio, Viascape's VRT, .OBJ and Lightwave. We would like to support the Active Worlds, Blaxxun's and Community Place protocols soon. Also we are looking into support for some of the new streaming 3D protocols fe. Metastreams and OZ's Fluid 3D. We want to look at bang in the future with the same functionality for browsing cyberspace as photoshop/psp/gimp are for all those 2D picture file formats today. -two main development branches 1. bang, the 3D cyberspace client. 2. bangDesktop, Desktop framework for deploying' 2D apps that work with and around bang. This will in the future be a full working desktop environment/platform (w/3D filemanagers and stuff like that) that will only need JavaOS to run. -you can make money on bang too ;) If you choose to adapt bang as your cyberspace platform, there are and will be closed-source/not-for-free applications that some users will need to perform certain tasks with bang. Fe. you can not use the voice recognition features without IBM's ViaVoice98 that costs money. And to be clear on that, IBM is making money *now* on bang. There have been number of occasions where people interested in the JavaSpeech features of bang have asked me about where to get ViaVoice and I think some of them ended up buying it, other are still waiting for an open source JavaSpeech implementation. So, if you have an idea that could work in the bang framework the decision is yours, if to make it open-source, shareware or payware. -example of a project in productions using the bang platform The Icelandic Kids Parliament This is an virtual reality applications that will be thought to 10-15 years old in schools in Iceland starting the year 2000. This will enable classes of students to log on all around the country and join in a kids parliament and learn to understand the basics of democracy. They will put forward bills and learn the concepts of working groups and parties. There will also be a role playing game involved where students can be transform into the positions of some high government minister to deal with fe. make believe disasters/fun (incoming asteroids/aliens landing). -Java is a great open source programming language bang w/rich set of features is only 317k with source code. Trackin' down bugs and making improvements can be made in a short amount of time. As most people work on open source projects in their spare time this is very important. You can actually do something and incorporate into the project in something like one evening (4-5 hours), and then come back 1 week/month/year later and do something different. And because of the object oriented nature of Java, work/classes is reusable not only in bang but 100'/1000' of other open source applications around the web. -active democrazy ;) After you've implemented something that would be considered significant work, you will be offered to join the bang wizardry and will get a full voting rights on what features and protocols should be incorporated into the official releases of bang. Here all wizards are equal and no golden votes around. -how to join Sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "subscribe dev-bang" in the body of the message. There is a searchable dev-bang archive at http://this.is/bang/cgi-bin/wilma/dev-bang With warm regards, R�bert Vi�ar Bjarnason [EMAIL PROTECTED] ����������������������� To subscribe/unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Java 3D Home Page: http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/3D/
