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Michalis:<br>
<br>
Thanks for all of the outstanding comments.<br>
<br>
Thanks also for recommending possible solutions!<br>
<br>
And thanks for making great applications with X3D!!!<br>
<br>
I think the only issue to consider is intellectual property. As I
see it, we are not trying to keep a <b><i>secret</i></b> version of
the developing spec from the public; it is really to protect the
spec from getting code that has <b><i>secret</i></b> intellectual
property in it!!!<br>
<br>
As far as I know, Khronos does have a similar intellectual property
agreement, so we should talk to them about how they feel they can
protect their standards from hidden IP encumbrance. <br>
<br>
In regards to the membership fee, I wish we could just have free
membership, but we don't have regular sponsors who can support the
website, travel to conferences for marketing, legal fees, spec
writing for ISO, marketing collateral, etc. <br>
<br>
Thanks again,<br>
<br>
Mike<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/24/16 7:34 PM, Michalis Kamburelis
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAKzBGZOjhQupHo2K1PEzkemMxoPKzxd_t2WvT4opy3cOjucS1g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<div style="" class="markdown-here-wrapper">
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important">Thanks everyone for
answering. Nice ideas (I still use classic encoding daily!),
good news about spec comments being in Mantis. Leonard’s
documents are great, reading them right now:)</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important">I thought about the
“open GitHub” thing for a while. I want to emphasize that
I’m extremely grateful to all the people that helped make
X3D the standard it is today. Despite some issues, it’s
still the <em>best</em> format for 3D data we have today,
and it is open —- this is a great achievement. And I benefit
from this fact on a daily basis, when developing my engine
and games around X3D.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important">At the same time, I
want X3D to be more used by other people/software. The fact
that ugly unspecified proprietary formats like FBX gain
ground, and have sometimes better support in 3D
authoring/rendering software than X3D… well, it’s troubling.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important">With this
introduction done, let me try to make some constructive
comments:)</p>
<ol style="margin:1.2em 0px;padding-left:2em">
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">I understand that the need to keep some
things closed is necessary for some members, for some
issues.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">At the same time, this is some barrier
for the public contributions.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">Compare this with open-source software
development —- if you <em>really</em> want to welcome
the community input, you need to make your development
public. This means making a <em>current</em>,
bleeding-edge, version of your software available for
testing. And this means opening a reliable channel to
submit bugs/changes to your stuff.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">That’s why GitHub is so popular. Because
it’s technology (GIT, pull requests) promotes community
contributions. (It’s not only GitHub/GIT, of course. You
can more-or-less say this about any open-source software
hub and version control system.)</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">Opening the membership to individual
professionals, for a moderate price, is a great thing…
but it’s not the perfect world. Again compare it with
open-source software development —- if every potential
contributor would have to go through a “member” process
before even <em>seeing</em> the development version of
the software… well, you would just have a lot less
contributors.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">So, one idea how you could “have a cake
and eat it too”:)</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">GIT and GitHub allow you to reliably
merge changes, 2-ways, between your repositories. So
maybe:</p>
<ul style="margin:1.2em
0px;padding-left:2em;margin:0px;padding-left:1em">
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">Make a public repo “X3D spec in
progress (without any potentially-secret stuff)” on
GitHub.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">And keep secret (member-only) the
“X3D spec in progress (<em>with</em> potentially
secret stuff)”. When something “secret” is ready to
be made public (after all, it’s a necessary step
toward being part of the final X3D spec), then merge
it from “secret” to “public” repo.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">And the big advantage: the public
contributions could be applied directly to the
public repo. The public would have a “current spec
version, as much as we can show”, to comment on and
improve, in an open-source fashion (real issue
tracker, pull requests and so on).</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">I know that many standards have been
developed like X3D, or in much more restricted fashion.
As I said, welcoming input from individual
professionals, and offering them membership for a
moderate price (it’s 100 USD per year, as far as I see)
is a visible and very appreciated gesture.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">But, maybe we can make it better? I found
two examples of standards (close to my heart and open
3D) that have specifications openly available in GitHub,
by Khronos:</p>
<ul style="margin:1.2em
0px;padding-left:2em;margin:0px;padding-left:1em">
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">Vulkan : <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs">https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs</a></a></li>
<li style="margin:0.5em 0px">glTF : <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF">https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF</a></a></li>
</ul>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">I don’t know are these the “latest” spec
versions of Vulkan/glTF, possibly development on new
spec features happens partially elsewhere. But I know I
can fork these specs on GitHub, submit issues (bugs)
there, submit pull requests (correction that can be
easily applied).</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important;margin:0.5em
0px!important">This is a great feeling, and I would love
X3D to be such open.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 1.2em!important">Thanks for reading:)
Best regards,<br>
Michalis</p>
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</blockquote>
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