> My particle system is finally released!
Great stuff !

Like Christoph, I have some concerns about your terms of use (TOS),
particularly because this seems to be a growing trend for freebie makers,
and one I don't like much. There have been some heated discussion in the
Poser forums about this and this imitation by individuals of certain habits
of software vendors leaves a lot of folks uneasy.
In a nutshell, while one must respect your decision to make strict demands
on how you want your work to be used, one can wonders if there would be a
community like this if everyone who provides free material had done the same
since the beginning. I expect people who make a living out of their graphic
work to make such restrictions, but I fail to see what benefit these
restrictions bring in the case of free material. IMHO, they're more likely
to alienate potential users. In the case of Poser freebies, I certainly
prefer now to buy material than risking offending someone. Quite a silly
situation.

Here are some precise comments:

>My files are for your enjoyment and education but may not be the basis of
>any derivative works. Also, you may not alter, correct, or improve any of
my
>files in any way.

People have been using my tree, grass, pipe etc. macros a lot in the last
years. They have modified them and improved them. I'm glad of this and I
think that it makes my work even more valuable, since it allows innovation
and circulation of ideas. Allowing people to do this is also a way for me to
thank all those who have done the same before. What is the global benefit in
not allowing this ?

>You may create images, animations, and other material where my include
files have
>been used in the process of creation, and use this material for
non-commercial purposes.

Granted, a few people (including me) sell images or do commissioned work
that include free material.
In my case, the restritcion will prevent me from using your macros
altogether, since I rarely know beforehand if I will make an image available
for sale or not. Even if I don't sell it, it may happen one day that someone
wants it for a book.

I understand that people who provide free material can think that this is
not fair that others benefit from it. Personally, I don't care whether my
free stuff is used commercially or not : I do it to help and please people,
and this includes people making a few bucks on the side. The possibility of
people abusing this seems extremely remote in the case of POV-Ray. There are
possible problems, but I don't think that a strict TOS will solve them,
particularly when you wouldn't be able to enforce it.

> For commercial usage, please contact me for receiving the current price
list and further information.

Well, if you think that your material has a market value, making it clearly
commercial (instead of limiting its use) is the way to go. However, having
been there myself, I'd say that it's your skills that you need to sell, not
the product itself, whose uses are targeted at a largely penniless hobbyist
crowd.

Ken Tyler is trying to demonstrate it to you in this thread, but I feel that
it's some can of worms I never thought that someone would open in the case
of POV-Ray... OK, what if Chris Colefax, or Jaime or I start doing the
same... Or the POV-Team itself ? Anyone here want to see that ?

>You must give me credits where due including both my name (Rune S.
Johansen) and a link to my web site (and the credits should not be hidden
away on a place where nobody sees it).

In my experience, people are more than willing to give credit when credit is
due. They do it without being asked to do so and sometimes they send "thank
you" emails. If what you do is really good and useful, be sure that people
will be thankful. I've never seen people take full credit for things I had
done. People who would do this certainly wouldn't care for a TOS anyway. I
think that NOT asking for credits is much nicer to users than asking.

Also, *** requiring *** people to give you credit is too much to ask. I
certainly do my best to credit people and in a few cases it meant spending
hours searching the net for some obscure, long-dead web pages. Still there
are many circumstances where it's not possible to credit everyone and
provide links to everything (like posting images in forums). There are also
priorities in what one can consider worth of credit or not and for me this
decision only belongs to the artist. So again, by using your macros the user
could risk violating the TOS some day.

OK, that's all :-) Just ideas, I won't make a big fuss about it !

G.

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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