par### [at] fwicom (Ron Parker) wrote:
>
> I note that you require unaltered distribution.  Is there a reason for 
> this?

If someone wants to alter them, they're more than welcome to do so for
their own use.  If they think their improvements are worthy of
distributing, it would be nice if they would let *me* know about them,
so that I can include their ideas, give them credit, and not have a
bunch of possibly incompatible "unofficial" versions floating around.

Furthermore, since the concepts used within the macros are neither
unique nor novel, I have no problem if people want to write and
distribute their own macros based on the same algorithms, if mine do not
suffice for their purposes and they do not wish to make their
improvements known to me.

Besides, if the idea of distributing them unaltered is so unacceptable
that it outweighs any potential usefulness they might have, then nobody
has to use them in the first place.  No skin off *my* nose.


> That's far more restrictive than even POVLegal, and a fair number
> of people already chafe at its constraints.

POV-Ray is the POV Team's intellectual property, and they've put a LOT
of work into it.  They have a right to ask that people abide by their
wishes concerning distribution, incorporation of their code into other
packages, and so forth.  I certainly don't think they're being
unreasonable, but then again, I'm a computer programmer who has had code
used without permission -- or credit -- by others who didn't have the
decency to *ask*.

I also hope that this "fair number of people" doesn't include the ones
who are incensed that GeoCities seems to have decided to help itself to
its members' intellectual property...  That would certainly be ironic.


> I haven't succeeded in downloading your file,

Is the FTP server acting up again?  If so, I'll move it to my Web
directories and change the link to HTTP access.


> but you also note that 
> there is a limit of 128 rows of bricks due to the internal 256-element 
> limit on pigment maps.  Have you considered nesting pigment maps like so:

I have tried, based on your response to my question about that very
problem, but was unable to get it working.  The macros are... somewhat
ugly, unfortunately, and will require a complete rewrite in order to
make this method implementable.

Perhaps for version 2...


-- 
Jeff Lee         shi### [at] gatenet         http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/

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