Sun Microsystems is striving to bring something radically new to the open source desktop in the form of Project Looking Glass. First shown last month at LinuxWorld, Project Looking Glass offers a 3-D windowing capability to users that does not stack their windows one upon another and represent them with icons or buttons. Rather, this JavaTM technology solution, which works with both Linux and the SolarisTM Operating System (Solaris OS), can display windows in a 3-D environment that can be manipulated as 3-D objects.

Prem Domingo, regional technology manager at Sun Microsystems of Canada, said Project Looking Glass will allow users to interact with applications in an area that is more like real space. For example, users can push things off to the side, push them behind, place things further away from themselves and have multiple layers on their desktops, Domingo said.

The core technology is mostly written in Java programming language, according to Domingo, with some other interfaces written to deal with the X Window System -- a graphical infrastructure used in UNIXR and Linux. "It's Java technology that is built on top of the standard windowing system," Domingo said.

Although Project Looking Glass is still only a concept, Sun plans to migrate some functionality from the project into its Sun JavaTM Desktop System, possibly as early as a year from now, according to Domingo.

The completed Project Looking Glass will work alongside applications designed for a 2-D window system without application modifications. Users would need a 3-D graphics accelerator, a 850 MHz Pentium 3 processor or better, and a minimum of 256 MB of memory, plus an approved graphics card to run the solution.

According to Gordon Haff, senior analyst at Illuminata, Project Looking Glass is not the typical emulation of Microsoft Windows that has been the case in most of the alternatives so far developed for the Linux desktop. According to Haff, Sun is attempting something different with Project Looking Glass as Sun takes advantage of the faster graphics accelerating hardware that is now available.

Project Looking Glass does have its critics, however. Among them is Warren Shiau, manager of software research at IDC Canada, who doubts that the solution will ever put a dent in Microsoft's desktop marketshare.

Shiau says that, as Microsoft has made its desktop more intuitive and linked it with back-office applications, it has become ever more firmly entrenched in the marketplace. He recommends that the open source community address this development. Shiau does concede that developers are doing a good job of addressing ease-of-use issues in their attack on Microsoft.

To stay abreast of developments in Project Looking Glass, join the mailing list:

http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/mailinglist.html [...read more...]

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