The newly-formed VRML Consortium is currently embroiled in its first major dispute and Microsoft Corp just happens to be in the middle of it. Microsoft recently offered up its VRML 2.0 viewers as reference implementations of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language specification, but some consortium members, like Silicon Graphics Inc, wish it hadn’t. Silicon Graphics VRML product line manager, David Freichs, says his company would prefer the reference implementation of VRML 2.0 not to be a viewer, but rather a lower-level interface that 2.0 compliant viewers would all see in the same way. Silicon Graphics, which has its own Cosmo VRML viewer, clearly does not want to see Microsoft running off and defining the specification with competing technology. Microsoft Corp’s VRML 2.0 viewer is based on technology licensed from Intervista Software Inc and Dimension X Inc.
