Out of Cheese

A side note on java-dev mentioned that IBM, SGI, and HP have licensed Java 3D. In fact, they all did so a few years ago. That’s quite interesting, since it makes it tougher for Apple to make its argument that it can’t ship Java 3D due to licensing issues. Presumably none of those three Java licensees paid much for their license, since Java 3D isn’t likely to bring much revenue to any of those platforms except perhaps IRIX. And maybe Sun has tougher licensing terms for Apple than for the others because Apple’s market is much larger. That’s not clear.

Of course, the entire idea of licensing Java API extensions is an awful precedent for the Java platform in the first place. That’s a topic worthy of a full rant, though, and one which I won’t write now. Suffice to say that if the precedent set by requiring a license for extensions is Apple’s reason for not licensing Java 3D, I have to support Apple’s decision.