Question says it all. Await reply with arched eyebrow and straight face.
Cas 
Sun APIs ? ;D ;D ;D
I noticed this line in section 4 of the terms:
That would seem to disqualify LWJGL, JOGL, and Gage. That canāt be right, can it?
Paul
depend if you can say JNI Cish is java ;D
hmmm, i guess that means ode is out too?
I didnāt mean to start any kind of rumors, but the language there does seem to indicate that anything using JNI is out. I was hoping to elicit a confirmation or refutal of that from someone official.
Paul
[quote]That would seem to disqualify LWJGL, JOGL, and Gage.
[/quote]
From the looks of it, kinda. Section 4 of the rules says that all APIs avalible from java.com java.sun.com and java.net are allowed. And it may or may not allow other āapprovedā APIs (if Iām reading it right).
But as it stands, that does rule out LWJGL and Gage as far as I can tell. ODE is on java.net (isnāt it?) so that should be ok. Likewise for Jogl, Joal, JInput and Xith.
Hmmā¦ there arenāt many games written in āpureā Java.
Gage should be fine. The only native part is the timer wich isnāt needed if you use 1.5.
Butā¦ Jogl is ok and lwjgl isnt? Damn obscure if you ask me.
I await official confirmation of the farce.
Cas
The spirit of the announcement seems to be āNo thinly-disguised C++ games; no attempts to make java a ācontributoryā technology - these must be REAL java games that show off java-as-platformā. (EDIT: which seems an excellent idea)
Given that, Iād have thought you could get things like LWJGL, Xith, etc approved with a nod. Butā¦the GTG do have a history of ignoring the spirit of their own rules in favour of making life simpler for themselves, soā¦ +1 for clarification, please!
I hope itās not a farce, Iām not going to use JOGL ā¦ :-[
[quote]The spirit of the announcement seems to be āNo thinly-disguised C++ games; no attempts to make java a ācontributoryā technology - these must be REAL java games that show off java-as-platformā. (EDIT: which seems an excellent idea)
[/quote]
Of course. Otherwise people could use their HWJGL (Heavy weight Jogl) which meant a game in C++ just being called by a Java wrapper. 
Whatās on java.net is known to SUN however and so no cheating.
[quote]Given that, Iād have thought you could get things like LWJGL, Xith, etc approved with a nod. Butā¦the GTG do have a history of ignoring the spirit of their own rules in favour of making life simpler for themselves, soā¦ +1 for clarification, please!
[/quote]
When they quote: [quote]4. Eligibility of Submissions. General: All games submitted to the Contest (the ?Game?) must be 100% Java technologies as available from Java.Com, Java.Sun.Com and Java.Net and may include any additional Java APIs found on those web properties.
[/quote]
it looks like all the core APIs (JOGL, JOAL, Jinput, etc) plus the other java.net projects like Odejava, Xith3d, etc. are allowed?
Anyway, the contest ist a good idea from SUN and helpers! Very nice. A pity they didnāt announce it one year ago, so I would have had enough spare time to enter the contest, hehe.
If Sun end up saying that JOGL is allowed, and LWJGL isnāt then I am going to explode - that would be so infinately lame. For better or worse, I think they should restrict the competition to Java 1.4.2 , no extensions at all.
[quote]For better or worse, I think they should restrict the competition to Java 1.4.2 , no extensions at all.
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No way. We all know that to do a really impressive game we need to bind to better graphics APIs (and sound)ā¦ Sun knows it too, or JOGL wouldnāt exist.
It makes NO sense to cripple the competition into a lame applet contest in a 320 by 200 window.
LWJGL should likely be included, but if it isnāt it shouldnāt cause much grief - they had to draw a clear line, and it is SO much easier for them to say the āCOREā APIs and java.net stuff are that line.
OpenGL is OpenGL after allā¦ so choosing LWJGL or JOGL for the purposes of this contest shouldnāt be a big deal. The contest isnāt about compiling with Jet, nor is it about download size or not touching AWTā¦ There are plenty of good reason to use LWJGL, but very few of them should prevent you from using JOGL and other core APIs for this contest and switching over to LWJGL for deployment with the āfullā version of your game at a later date.
- Just to be clear though, yes I think LWJGL should be allowedā¦ but it isnāt the end of the world if it isnāt.
[quote]The contest isnāt about compiling with Jet, nor is it about download size or not touching AWTā¦ There are plenty of good reason to use LWJGLā¦
[/quote]
True, but as a LWJGL dev I feel that JOGL is getting a free ride, which I think is a bit āunfairā (for lack of better words) just because they choose to be hosted on java.net whereas LWJGL is hosted on Sourceforge. What would happen if we suddenly used java.net as our host, would LWJGL then be allowed? The definition of allowed āextensionsā is vague and contradictive, which is why I said 1.4.2 - annoying as that may be.
And what about all the other technologies not hosted at java.net? Surely being hosted by A or B shouldnāt determine whether or not a technology is suitable for being used to build java games in a contest.
Even if you ignore the fact that they allow libraries from āJava.Netā, their testersā system requirements specify an OpenGL 1.3 compatible graphics card. Thereās no reason to mention that unless at least one OpenGL binding is allowed - I reckon JOGL at least must be in there. So thankfully itās not only restricted to Java2D on 1.4.2!
(Not that Java2D is bad at all - itās just not some peopleās API of choice)
IMHO (not that its worth much), if JOGL (and other ācoreā libraries) are allowed then it was be really non-community spirited of SUN to disallow LWJGL, JXInput, GAGE and any other binding.
Infact, it would be down right counter-community.
Kev
Itād be a major political mistake is what itād beā¦ but I donāt care any more Just being the Bestest is good enough for me!
Cas
[quote]Infact, it would be down right counter-community.
[/quote]
Well, I think the ācommunityā status of this competition is still under discussion! But thatās fine - the main purpose of a competition such as this is to provide publicity for the host and the sponsors and to demonstrate what their technology can do - and judging by the amount of interest itās already garnered, I think theyāre all set to do very nicely out of this.
But maybe this isnāt what people here were expecting, or not what they wanted to see? Fine. Letās keep discussing this compo and see where it takes us, and if thereās room for a Ludum Dare-style Java competition (and if people want it) thatās another discussion.
I sincerely hope the community APIās such as LWJGL, JOGL, JOAL, Odejava and GAGE are allowed. Since most people wouldnāt write a game without using at least one of those, itās pretty foolish to ban them IMHO.
Will.