[gl4java-usergroup] Magician discontinued [from will-be-revived-again-or-finally-die-this-time dept.]

[Max G. <gi...@li...>]

Hello!

www.opengl.org says:

'Magician OpenGL for Java only available until May 1, 2001 
<http://www.arcana.co.uk>
/04/04/01 / Due to a change in Arcane Technologies' direction, as of 1st 
May 2001, Magician will no longer be offered for download or purchase.  
So now is your last chance to check it out!   Magician lets programmers  
write portable Java code that seamlessly uses existing native OpenGL 
libraries to provide high-performance rendering over a variety of 
platforms. Magician currently supports Java-2 on Windows 
95/98/NT/ME/2000, Linux/x86, Linux/PPC, Irix, SPARC/Solaris, 
Intel/Solaris, AIX, OS/2, MacOS and MacOS X.'

It's a perfect example of how closed-source software can be trusted. A 
company may just decide to discontinue the product and users are left 
out in the dark. Of course you can buy source code if you 'Require 
security in case Arcane discontinues *Magician*' or 'Wish to tightly 
integrate *Magician* with their applications' for a mere '5000 GBP 
(approximately US $7000)'. Are thay saying that Magician couldn't be 
ever 'tightly integrated' with an application or always was an insecure 
solution? :-)

Long live GL4J!
Max


-- 
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-- Max Gilead --- gi...@li...                       --
--        XMage library --- http://xmage.sourceforge.net --
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-- Any system that depends on reliability is unreliable. --
--                         --- Nogg's postulate          --