<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Thank you Doug, Yves, and Joe. They
have been having an important conversation on the process of
making changes to the X3D specification. This is a very important
conversation to have; however, it is not the one on topic. I would
like to steer the conversation of the essential characteristics of
X3D. If people wish to continue the conversation on making
changes, please change the email subject. [original post:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/2016-November/005554.html">http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/2016-November/005554.html</a>]<br>
<br>
I wish to summarize the positions that have been stated. I
attempted to best understand and summarize, but I may have gotten
it wrong -- please correct.<br>
<br>
Doug Sanden's position is that if the Web3D Consortium calls it
X3D, then it is X3D. To him it is mark of authenticity that is
essential.<br>
<br>
Yves Piguet is primarily concerned with the process of getting
changes (new nodes, new profiles, corrections, etc.) into the
standard and what that may force him to do. If he stated what is
an essential characteristic of X3D, I did not catch it.<br>
<br>
Joe did not state a position on the essential characteristics of
X3D.<br>
<br>
<br>
So to Doug's point. If Web3D Consortium labels something X3D, then
that is pretty much all that matters. Pushing things a bit, if
some reason (and I'm not implying this is or might going to
happen) the Consortium calls an imperative library written in
FORTRAN that only deals with volumes (no surfaces) X3D, then that
would be X3D and the existing features and syntax that we all know
would not. <br>
<br>
For me, the minimal essential characteristics are:<br>
1) Extensible<br>
2) Support old content (this can be through an automatic
conversion for most content)<br>
3) Declarative<br>
4) Displays same/similar on all capable displays<br>
<br>
The above could easily define A-Frame or other declarative
languages, so there must be something more. It's not the encoding
because there are 3 ISO standards plus 2 in development. It's not
just interaction, because there is the Interchange profile that is
X3D that does not have interaction. I know there must be more in
the essential characteristics list, but at this time I am not sure
what that might be.<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<font class="tahoma,arial,helvetica san serif" color="#333366">
<font size="+1"><b>Leonard Daly</b></font><br>
3D Systems & Cloud Consultant<br>
LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair<br>
President, Daly Realism - <i>Creating the Future</i>
</font></div>
</body>
</html>