“After some gyrations of its own, 3D browser and tools owner
Platinum Technologies has signed a letter of intent with the Web3D
Consortium to turn over the source code to those products for some
kind of development project.
Under open-source development, the underlying source code to a
piece of software is published, enabling any developer to work it.
Firms embracing open source must create or rely on organizations to
shepherd such development efforts; one famous example is Netscape
Communications’ Mozilla.org, which manages open-source development
of Netscape’s Communicator Web browsing software. “