On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 11:10:16 +1100, Nigel Stewart wrote:
>
>> *boggle*  You're saying it would be good to be able to make POV scenes that
>> don't render on every platform for a given version of POV?  Can we just send
>> all the support questions to you?  What color is the sky in your world?
>
>	Ron, there is no difference between supporting an
>	extension mechanism explicitly, and having scenes
>	that are specific to SuperPatch, MegaPatch, or
>	ImpPov.  The difference with an official mechanism
>	is that POV can handle it more gracefully than
>	a general parse error message.

We've already handled the unofficial patch problem gracefully, as everyone's
seen in MegaPOV.  Starting with 3.5, there will likely be more guidelines for
unofficial versions; one is to prevent the kinds of problems we've seen with
people trying to user superpatch or MegaPOV scenes with the official version.

But multiple incompatible official versions would still be a support nightmare.

>	I'm well aware of this "sacred cow" of portability,
>	but I do think that there are enough people asking
>	for a plug-in architecture that it is worth finding
>	a compromise.  

We're aware of the number of people asking for a plugin architecture.  As
for adding an API a'la Renderman, it's unlikely that we'll do such a thing 
in the forseeable future due to the reasons that are stated in POVLEGAL.
Other plugin-type things are still being actively discussed.

Besides, I don't think you've thought through the consequences of what you're
asking for here.  Essentially, you're saying you want to take this nice little
sharing, giving community we have here and balkanize it into language-based
camps.

As usual, please note the note in my signature.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

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