For those who are interested, I've been able to extract from my Amiga
the original e-mail I sent to CompuServe that started off the POV-Ray
project.  In this e-mail, I proposed the name STAR Light.  The team
(including myself) later changed it to POV-Ray.  I thought I'd post it
here so you could see it and to give permission for the POV-Ray team
members to include it in the documentation if they wish.  I've corrected
a few small typos, but the message is otherwise unchanged.

Enjoy
David (Kirk) Buck
===========================

11906 S16/Raytraced Images
   07-Mar-91 18:56:37
Sb: DKB Development
Fm: David Buck 70521,1371
To: All

Greetings all.  This is my first posting to this group, so you'll have
to excuse me if I make any mistakes in this post.

Finally, after several weeks of waiting, I've received my CompuServe
account.  It's nice to see that people are enjoying my raytracer (DKB,
of course). I have noticed, however, that you are less than satisfied at
the support I've been able to provide <grin>.  True, I'm the first to
admit that the support is poor.  I have little time these days to work
on graphics - it takes long enough to answer all the questions I get
asked on a daily basis from all across the world.

My motivation for releasing the raytracer as Freely Distributable
software in the first place was to allow people to have some fun with a
program I'd developed for just that purpose.  I don't consider it to be
a professional package - I know it's nowhere near that good.  I didn't
make it shareware, however, because I knew I wouldn't have much time for
support.  I didn't want the hassles of maintaining user lists, sending
updates and notices, etc.

There has recently been a proposal in this forum that you write your own
raytracer to use instead of DKB.  Perhaps I can make that prospect a
little bit easier.  Suppose we take DKB and use it as a base for a
completely new system (the name "Renderdog" has been tossed around, but
I'm not fond of that one <g>).  I would like to propose the name
"Software Taskforce on Animation and Rendering" or STAR.  I would
imagine that there would be several packages developed such as:

 STAR Light  - the raytracer
 STAR Guider - an animation system
 STAR Maker - a user interface for StarLight

If you decide to do this, I would like to place a few rules on the
packages (or at least those developed from DKB):

  - they will remain freely distributable
  - support and maintenance of this new product will be undertaken by
the STAR team (including but not limited to myself)
  - the programs will remain as portable as possible

What do you think of this proposal?

David Buck

Post a reply to this message