On Tue, 15 Sep 1998 21:38:01 -0500, Dan Connelly <djc### [at] flashnet> wrote:
>From POVLEGAL.doc :
>
>  A "custom version" is defined as a fully functional version of POV-
>  Ray with all existing features intact. ANY OTHER USE OF ANY POV-
>  Ray SOURCE CODE IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED. The POV-Team does not
>  license source code for any use outside POV-Ray. No portion of the
>  POV-Ray source code may be incorporated into another program
>  unless it is clearly a custom version of POV-Ray that includes all
>  of the basic functions of POV-Ray.
>
>"all the basic functions of POV-Ray"?  What does that mean?
>Functionality is difficult to analyze.  In a strict sense,
>it represents the set of outputs from a set of inputs.
>Yet if this isn't changed, the patch does nothing.  In a legal
>sense, error function generation could be considered "functionality",
>for example, so any new keywords could be violations, as they replace
>these error messages with some other behavior.  Or, changing the
>function of any current keywords would almost certainly violate
>this.

This has been there since the beginning.  "The basic functions of POV-Ray"
has always been interpreted to mean "everything the official version does"
in the sense of what language features it supports.  So, it's okay to add
features, and it's okay to extend features, but it's not okay to remove 
features.  The goal of this paragraph is to prevent people from using the 
POV code in other applications.  For example, you can't yank out the parser
and use it in a conversion app, a modeling app, or a competing non-free 
raytracer.

>  You must provide all POV-Ray support for all users who use your
>  custom version. You must provide information so that user may
>  contact you for support for your custom version. The POV-Ray Team
>  is not obligated to provide you or your users any technical
>  support.

This has been there forever, too.  The intent is to make it clear to you
that you need to make it clear to your consumers that the POV-Team doesn't
know anything about your patch or what bugs it might have introduced into
the base POV functionality, so contacting them for support is both futile
and irritating.

>I would prefer legal clarification of what "all POV-Ray support"
>means.  If it means that all support which will be provided is
>provided by me, and thus if none is provided at some point that
>is okay (100% of zero is zero), then I have no problem.  But this
>is too vague for my comfort level if I had any fear this would be
>pursued.

I suspect this is okay, so long as you make an attempt to provide support
to those who need it while you're still around.  If at some point you 
experience net-death and the custom version becomes unsupported, it probably 
isn't a big deal so long as your documentation and your custom build itself 
have made it sufficiently clear that the POV-Team is not responsible for 
support.  There are a lot of custom patches for POV 2.2 that are no longer 
supported.

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