Yes, especially coming from a library built on top of three.js [1], which is a gigantic and awesome piece of work licensed under MIT, using Twitter Bootstrap (Apache License), and a logo free for non commercial use only [2]. But everyone can do what he wants with his work, as long as licenses are respected.
A question for the author: this is a really cool demo, but I can’t see where is the innovation which needs protection here? A parallax effect when the user scrolls? 3D on a Web page? The “Next Generation Internet” concept?
The patent thing, the licensing uncertainty, the use of public libraries and the somewhat overly enthusiastic comments here on HN (most from <300 accounts) give me a very weird taste in my mouth.
I'm sorry to hear that. Point taken. My focus for Voodoo has always been about creating a great framework to fix a problem and make the web better. Legally, I am edging on the conservative side for now because I want to make sure the correct steps are taken for it to succeed. So I'm listening to everything everyone is saying and I plan to seek advice/mentoring as well. It's still early.
bpierre, good questions. I'll come back to answer them in a bit. Have to catch up on a little work.
Basically yes, I believe there are some novel ideas here worth patenting. Specifically, the unified coordinate system between 2D and 3D, and the methods of implementing it (here by using a virtual camera to align 3D coordinates with pixels and sandwiching the 2D page with fullscreen canvases). To date, I don't believe this idea has been suggested anywhere else, and while it might seem obvious in hindsight, it took many late nights of experimenting developing it. There was no promise that the research would pay off or the end result would even work. You should see the early prototypes.
Also, you're right. Voodoo needs a different logo.
> Basically yes, I believe there are some novel ideas here worth patenting.
Analogous to what Stallman once coined, you are now literally talking about patenting ideas[0].
> To date, I don't believe this idea has been suggested anywhere else, and while it might seem obvious in hindsight, it took many late nights of experimenting developing it.
> There was no promise that the research would pay off or the end result would even work.
Aka every single software that is a little more daring than standard CRUD. Are you seriously suggesting that a patent is the only way to be properly compensated for your work?
Might I suggest a different route? How about you release what you have there the same way all those libraries you base your work on were released. Trust me, they are full of research that nobody knew would pay off, with things that seem obvious in hindsight, but took many, MANY late nights of experimenting.
If what you're saying is true and your "novel ideas" and the solutions you've found really are that valuable, then there is an incredible trove of respect and admiration waiting for you. (And if you're smart, you will find ways to convert that into "making a living".) You'd be robbing yourself of a huge community (again, the same community that you are currently using - bootstrap, jquery, threejs, modernizer etc.) cheering you on, respecting you in the same way that you might have felt using those other public libraries.
The only thing you see at the moment is that you have something and you imagine that the thing you have should be the thing that pays your bills, directly. So you have decided to close it down as much as you possibly can (and, judging from the use of public, floss libraries, it's debatable how much you actually can). I'm telling you there is another way. You could be "the library" for people mixing 2D and 3D.
The path you're on right now only leads to one of two things: First, you're going to go closed-source. Then somebody else will write a floss "the library". Then you get angry and lawyer up. Then you realize that only the US and a handful of other countries is idiotic enough to allow for patents on software. Then you realize that trying to "go legal" is probably pointless. Here, you are at a crossroads: On one side is the path I'm telling you to go now, you're then just five years behind on where you could be now and somebody else has earned all the admiration and respect. On the other side is an old and bitter man, clutching his wallet.
This is very compelling. I've echoed many of these same thoughts.
Growing a community has always been the goal, and that's true --- it would be the same community as ThreeJs, Modernizr, etc. That's a very good argument to make it OSS.
And the positive acknowledgement the past 48 hours has been wonderful and incredibly motivating. Far more than I expected.
Hmm... let me let this sink in for a day. Thank you.
The main page eats all my GPU to the point it's almost impossible to scroll (macbook air 2013). Shouldn't take so much resources for such a simple page.
It really does look cool. I could really imagine that this would catch on. It's gimmickry, but unlike almost any other 3D effect on a webpage, it's not annoying.
Very impressive and inspiring to think about new possibilities: games, interfaces, data visualizations ... And works fine on my netbook.
Now there's hope that we won't be dominated by flat design ;)
This is great work. An earlier demo page from the same author is at http://www.threedeeify.com/ (VoodooJS is a much better name)
Looks like the 3d layers are running in full-page canvas overlays and the Three.js camera is positioned according to the page scroll. Clever work! Must have some kind of positioning logic to match up the models to DOM elements (like the ring around the quote)
Wish it was not closed-source, so we could learn from it a bit, or contribute. But author is free to do with it what he wishes...
Essentially yes. There's also some tweaking the CSS pointer-events property on those canvases to allow mouse events to fall through when you're not hovered over 3D content.
I envision most people will want to position their 3D objects relative to some 2D element like a div.
