Free software developers on slashdot.org and elsewhere have called for Silicon Graphics Inc’s Cosmo Player VRML browser to be released to the open source community. Spokesperson John Thompson said he could neither confirm nor deny whether SGI was considering publishing any source code from its soon-to-be- defunct Cosmo Software division. We’re reviewing all our options, Thompson said, emphasizing the word all. SGI pulled the plug on Cosmo last week after a hoped-for sale of the division to Sony Corp fell through (CI No 3,446). A source code release isn’t the worst thing that could happen to Cosmo’s software. The open source developer community has given a new lease of life to many stagnating technologies, not least Unix itself. รก
