Java 3D Open Sourced!
2008-03-05 18:16:00
The Java 3D team has announced the open source release of the j3d-core and vecmath subprojects on java.net under the GPLv2 license with the CLASSPATH exception. This applies to all source code in the javax.media.j3d and javax.vecmath packages. Read the LICENSE.txt and README-FIRST.txt files in the top directory of each project's source code repository for details on what the license allows you to do.

You may notice that the web page and various README files now refer to the "3D Graphics API for the Java Platform" in many places. This is the official name for the open source version of the Java 3D API. Other than the name, there are no differences (and, in fact, we will build the binary version of Java 3D 1.5.2 from the same sources).

The name change was done for the same reason that OpenJDK chose a different name than "Java" for their release: namely, Java 3D is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, and we want to make it clear that: A) we are not giving away rights to use that name, and B) the binaries built from these (possibly modified) sources are not "Java 3D" from Sun.

Subject to the terms of the GPLv2 license, you may modify the j3d-core or vecmath sources, but you may not call it "Java 3D".