FSOSS 2011- Free Software and Open Source Symposium
Introduction
FSOSS is an event which offers presentations and workshops about the latest trends in open source used in schools, labs and industries. The goal of the symposium is to explore how open source, open standards, and open content are changing technology, the web, the media and arts, education, and business.
Being a volunteer at FSOSS I got the chance to watch four presentations. But the two main presentations I was interested in were “Building a Commercial Game Using Processing.js for Cross-platform Delivery” and “XB PointStream: Rendering Point Clouds with WebGL”. I will be writing my research paper on these two topics as I know the presenters Daniel Hodgin and Andor Salga, and it will better to analyze my report on their thoughts about open source. The other two presentations I watched were “Unity and GNOME 3” and “Popcorn.js & Popcorn-Maker”.
Building a Commercial Game Using Processing.js for Cross-platform Delivery
This presentation was about using the Processing.js libraries and how this project created a cross platform, plugin free HTML 5 game that requires no install time. Processing.js is a programmer and artist friendly language that enables the creation of graphically complex interactive applications which can be instantly ported to the web and any mobile devices.
Daniel Hodgin, the project manager and developer of this team gave the background of the project. He talked about Processing and Processing.js that both projects are Open Source and free to use and contribute to. Processing was originally developed at the MIT Media Lab by Ben Fry and Casey Reas. Processing.js is a port of the Processing language to JavaScript using the HTML canvas. Processing works on Windows and Mac, where as Processing.js works on Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and mobile browsers that support the HTML5 canvas element. Processing.js does not require a plugin to be installed. This allows it to run in environments where plugins cannot be installed like mobile, business and public. As it is open source it has the ability to change things to work the way you want. There is full control and access to the development community to contribute and there is no licensing costs.
XB PointStream: Rendering Point Clouds with WebGL
The second presentation was to introduce WebGL which allows hardware-accelerated graphics on the web and the XB PoinStream’s capabilities. Also the Seneca’s Centre for Develpment of Open Technology has partnered with Arius3D to develop XB PointStream, an open source JavaScript framework for streaming and rendering point clouds (3D images) on a web page. Andor Salga, the presenter also showed us interesting assortment of demos.
Analysis of each speaker's views on open source
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My views on open source
Everyone.
Conclusion
Overall