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From: mpesce@netcom.com (Mark D. Pesce)
Message-Id:
Subject: ADMIN: VRML List Goals
To: www-vrml@wired.com (vrml)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 21:40:26 -0700 (PDT)
Goals of the VRML Mailing List
This list has been established for a single purpose; to develop an
open, platform-independent specification for a Virtual Reality Markup
Language (VRML). This language will be used in conjunction with
WorldWideWeb to provide an standard to which viewer and editor
applications and tools must be written.
We are extremely pragmatic; although it is often expedient to develop
standards away from public view, and then announce them, fully formed,
by fiat, this is not the way that the Web or HTML have developed.
Given their success, it seems reasonable to want to emulate them.
We are starting out with some prejudices.
First, we don't have any language prejudices; we are open to all
proposals. We consider ourselves as starting from a position of
ignorance, so we won't arbitrarily dismiss any proposal because we
think we know better. The wider the net we can cast, the more
successful our search for knowledge is likely to be.
We feel, very strongly, that a solution which is proprietary, which is
"owned" in any sense by a commercial organization, is unacceptable,
and introduces complications greater than the task at hand. Therefore,
as proposals are made and reviewed, remember that private solutions
have a very poor history of success on Internet. Nevertheless, the
strength of a commercial proposal might rely on what it can contribute
to our own specification; we needn't steal from anyone's work in order
to benefit from it.
Finally, we feel it is important to establish a baseline specification
in front of and with the support of the people most likely to be using
it. To benefit from the thousands of years of experience within the
subscriber base is one of the most compelling reasons for having a
list at all.
We wish to propose a process which we feel will result in the
development of an effective, if bare-bones specification, by the first
of August. The process has the following parts:
1) Request For Information
Within the next day, a post will be made the list outlining the
requirements for information on _existing_ languages which can fulfill
the needs of VRML. We ask that you DO NOT MAIL TO THE LIST, but,
rather, send mail directly to Brian Behlendorf (brian@wired.com), who
will take the RFI traffic, compile it into a daily (or twice daily)
digest, and post it to the list.
We will give this process two weeks, from beginning to end. By then,
all interested parties will have made their contributions to our
search for information. This is just a request for information on
existing languages; if we, as a group, decide to write our own, that
process would occur after evaluating existing alternatives. We would
prefer to avoid re-inventing wheels.
2) Languages Review
We will be implementing HyperMail and WIT technologies on
www.wired.com as quickly as we can. The responses from the Request for
Information will be integrated with these browsing tools, and we will
then enter a process of evaluation, as the relative merits of the
various proposals are considered. We expect that only a few
subscribers will contribute to this portion of the discussion, and
that most will simply review it from the daily digest postings on
www-vrml-digest.
This is the time when the list traffic will be heaviest; very little
can be done about this. If you wish to be actively involved in the
formation of the specification, you have to expect to spend at least a
few hours a week, during the review process, reading documentation and
email.
3) Specification Drafting
Finally, the review period complete, it should be possible to begin
drafting a very basic specification. The first pass of the
specification will not need to describe every possible condition
within a virtual environment; it is enough to provide a static
interface between the Web and three dimensional geometry. The first
specification should concern itself only with the description of
objects (including lights), and the scenes into which they are placed.
An object has no other behavior than that it can serve as an anchor to
another data source in the Web. The existing VRML specification, at
the VRML Forum WWW page, covers most of this territory. It is not
necessary to extend the scope of VRML functionality significantly from
what has already been defined.
A specification document will be drawn up and submitted for review.
4) Testing
List members will begin to write VRML compilers, parsers,
interpreters, and so forth, and will, from that, begin to have an
understanding of the shortcomings of the initial design pass. This
information will be used in the draft of a subsequent VRML 2.0
specification, which will also handle "active" environments, where
objects can be both dynamic _and_ communicative.
This process can be completed in the 7 weeks until the beginning of
August, and there is good reason to be quick about it; we want to
finish our our VRML viewer so that we can release it into the public
domain, and actually have people begin benefiting from the fruits of
our labors.
We understand that this is possibly a more restrictive methodology
than some of you may have expected. While an absolutely free
discussion of ideas and techniques is a good thing, it is beyond the
capacity of the more than 500 subscribers to this list. Our goal is to
establish common ground quickly, and use that as a basis for future
work, without becoming bogged down in procedural or prejudicial
environments. Nonetheless, we actively invite you to organize
yourselves, if there are specific areas of interest which you have a
desire to focus upon.
Thank you for your cooperation and support.
Mark Pesce (mpesce@netcom.com)
Brian Behlendorf (brian@wired.com)
--
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