povray.org admin team wrote:
> 
> "POV-Ray is free... the internet isn't!"
> 
> An open letter from POV-Team coordinator
> Chris Young
> 
>         One of my greatest pleasures as POV-Team coordinator is the
> joyful emails I get from people who are surprised and grateful that
> such a great program is free.  Even in an impersonal medium like
> email, you can feel the joy and amazement when they see what a free
> program can do.  Its like Santa just brought them a wonderful free toy
> for grown-ups!
> 
>         It reminds me of my early years growing up in the late '50s in
> middle-class, midwest, suburban America where my life as a 5 year old
> was so carefree.  We weren't rich but there was always food, clothes,
> and toys in abundance.  Relatives were generous on birthdays, Santa
> delivered free stuff each year and when you wanted a gum ball at the
> store, Mom always had an extra penny to put in the machine.
> 
>         It really shocked me one day when I saw Mom give money to the
> milk man.  I asked why and Mom said "You gotta pay for it silly!".  I
> though milk delivery was a free service from the government!  Further
> investigation revealed that we don't pay the mail man but that stamps
> cost money.  You don't pay the garbage man but there was something
> called taxes involved there too.  How horrible!
> 
>         Somehow the internet community has adopted that same innocent
> idea that I had at age 5 that everything is free or at least very
> inexpensive.  Its true that for $15-$20 a month I can get unlimited
> access, email and even my own home page.  However once you create
> something people want to see, the costs can skyrocket.
> 
>         Team member Chris Cason has managed to negotiate various deals
> to maintain our sites ftp.povray.org and www.povray.org for the past
> several years.  Proceeds from CD-ROM sales and the small income from
> our CompuServe GO POVRAY forum have helped to subsidize the expense
> but recently things have gone way beyond the Team's ability to
> support.
> 
>         In a recent month, we used over 100 gigabytes of bandwidth at
> a cost of over $1,200 per month!  Clearly we aren't going to sell that
> many CDs on a continual basis.  We've tried to minimize our site to
> improve things but that's just a temporary fix.  We hope to do later
> round beta testing and eventually full public release of POV-Ray 3.1
> at povray.org which will make matters even worse.
>         It is painful for me to be so blunt but I must remind everyone
> that POV-Ray existed before povray.org and POV-Ray can continue
> without povray.org if need be.  We are close to folding up the whole
> operation unless we can get corporate sponsorship for the site.
>         We do not want individual donations from users.  It would be
> too hard to handle hundreds of $5-$10 donations.  Also the POV-Team is
> not officially incorporated either as profit or non-profit.  Donations
> can create tax problems for us.  Here are a few suggestions on how you
> can help -
> 
>   o if you work in the industry (or any industry that could benefit
>      from sponsoring some of the www.povray.org costs) you should
>      talk to your employers about sponsorship.
> 
>   o ditto for advertising. if you have a product, talk to your
>     employers about possibly advertising on the site.
> 
>   o if you work in the retail industry, you could lobby their buyers
>      to consider making a purchase of some IRTC CD's for resale.
> 
>         Our hope is that if a large bunch of users start lobbying
> their bosses, we might see some things happen.  Please contact us at
> w10### [at] povrayorg if you can help.
> 
>         The important thing to remember during this crisis is that the
> 5-year-old kid in me and in the other POV-Team members is still fully
> committed to keeping POV-Ray itself fully free for the 5-year-old kids
> in you.  We will not sell POV-Ray itself, but it is beginning to cost
> us quite a bit of money just to offer it to you for free.  If we hope
> to be able to deliver it for free, we're going to need some help.
>         cy
> 
> p.s. feel ree to re-post this to other newsgroups or online services.


I'm dumb as wood and poor as dirt ,but I'm very grateful for the povray
freeware because otherwise I do'nt think I'd be able to learn 3d
graphics without the availability of this fine piece of freeware.

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