"Chris Cason" <new### [at] deletethispovrayorg> wrote in message
news:3cf30844@news.povray.org...
>
> "Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:3cf2eee1@news.povray.org...
> >   Well, in that case the team could just as well leave that feature out.
> >   What good does it do to get information from about 0.1% of users?
>
> I have to agree with this. Almost no-one would turn it on. If it defaults
to
> 'off' we might as well not do it.

I'm not fond of these type of things either but I still allow for it when I
can. Even used the Microsoft Error Reporting feature of Windows XP and
Internet Explorer until I could take no more of the usual program crashes
always wanting to send them info which may or may not have ever been useful
(I'd never know). Really a very different thing, and those are just plain
aggravating when it comes at a time of computer trouble.

Other than that I still use some auto update stuff, for that very reason
that it simply doesn't seem to get in my way like an error report does. To
recap, only thing that was said to be added to POV-Ray:

  1) Periodically checks for a new version of POV-Ray for Windows, and

  2) Periodically checks for important news items (not regular news).

Not sure what interval was planned but only number 2 seems likely to be of
any true potential for annoyance. If and when any of it seemed to get in the
way then maybe I'd turn it off. Just something I'd have to experience first
though. Would make for a great additional beta test were there the
opportunity, at least to learn how it could be.

Of course, probably the biggest reason for concern is that POV-Ray, "the
program", could become like a nagging web page showing banner ads and such.
It's easy to exaggerate things like this mentally without any actual proof
of what it might be like. You know, rendering while going online and seeing
without warning a popup of whatever. If a part of the toolbar (WinPOV
anyway) blinked a button on then that's altogether a different story and
much less intrusive.

The bit about sending pertinent info seems all out okay to me; after all, it
was said that it would only be the usual specs. Not very important for the
end-user to be worried over. Only that it is obvious it must be made known.

All in all, the ability to turn it off is key. So in my opinion I can't see
this as much of an issue. Or just call me commercialized already.  ;-)

P.S. one thing Warp said:
"may I suggest that when POV-Ray is about to send the
mentioned information about your hardware, it would say something like
"The following information is about to be sent to <wherever it's sent to>"
and then the information in question is listed in textual form (and of
course
there should be "Ok" and "Cancel" buttons)."

I can't agree. That's extra effort I'd rather not do. Again, it supposedly
isn't going to be personal info, but only basic computer specs. Right? So
why worry? No one's going to want to be answering dialog boxes from POV-Ray
simply because they happen to be online while the program is running. Hence
the reason I hope for simple toolbar graphics/text to show during activation
of those things.

bob h

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