We already spoke about Croquet in this blog ; but until a few days ago, only a prerelease, “alpha” version, named Jasmine was available on the net. Last week, the first beta version of croquet (full of bugs, but existing) can be downloaded at www.opencroquet.org. Among the creators of Croquet, one may find Alan Kay, one of the greatest pioneers of computer science, former member of the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research center) where the modern computer was invented in the 70’s.

What is croquet ? it might be the future of computing. As its creators say: “…a new open source software platform for creating deeply collaborative multi-user online applications. It features a network architecture that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation among multiple users. Using Croquet, software developers can create powerful and highly collaborative multi-user 2D and 3D applications and simulations.”

And, in the documentation they add:

“There are no boundaries in the system. We are creating an environment where anything can be created; everything can be modified, all in the 3D world. There is no separate development environment, no user environment. It is all the same thing. We can even change and author the worlds in collaboration with others inside them while they are operating.”

“The existing operating systems are like the castles that were owned by their respective Lords in the Middle Ages. They were the centers of power, a way tocontrol the population and threaten the competition. Sometimes, a particular Lord would become overpowering, and he would declare himself as King. Thiswas great for the King. And not too bad for the rest of the nobles, but in the end – technology progressed and people started blowing holes in the sides ofthe castles. The castles were abandoned. Technology enables this.”

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