3db57a70@news.povray.org...

> Well, how would you like it if people made modified versions of your
> images and distributed them beyond your control?

(Unless there would be some actual damage done to my reputation, it wouldn't
be such a problem. I just take care to not put commercially viable (i.e.
printable) images on-line. The one half-plagiary problem I got was settled
quite peacefully. There was also the case where someone re-rendered Jaime's
"Old Door" image with some minor changes, posted it and took way too much
credit for it. And there's an IRTC picture which is a unashamed copy of a
better pic (non-credited) and still won an award. But I guess we can live
with that.)

The trouble with POV-Ray include files is that, until now, the untold
assumption was that they were not supposed to have a non-symbolic commercial
value, just like POV-Ray (which has a symbolic retail value of 30$).
"Untold" because all the people who had created great include files before
you didn't bother, AFAIK. So it's like waking up and finding that something
that everyone was taking was granted was gone, and it explains why a few
people expressed their sadness. OK, so POV-Ray script files can be sold and
traded now, so please let the lawyers in, and the I Am Not A Lawyer But
threads, and endless EULA discussions like this one... (just overdoing it a
little bit, just for the fun of it).

> So if POV-Ray was only free for non-commercial usage, there would be
> suddenly no user-base at all? I'm not sure about the correctness of this
> assumption.

Because when things go commercial, the stakes suddenlenly get higher,
vendors get greedy and pushy, users get demanding and angry etc. It can
settle eventually but a lot is gone. Every time I frequent other 3D forums
concerning commercial software, I'm always surprised at the amount of
bitterness and resentement there. There are always people bitching at each
other, reciprocal accusations of piracy, of who stole what from whom, when
they don't rat each other out. Want an example : lately, some disgruntled
vendors of Poser models started sending anonymous hate mail to freebie
providers, accusing them of unfair competition. Here's a sample (I bleeped
the naughty words) that was posted recently in a Poser forum :

"Hows about you [bleep] right off out of the community. We don't need you or
your free [bleep] . The Renderosity store is there to give people the stuff
they need for Poser not [bleep]  who try to kill vendors by giving [bleep]
away."

See what we're missing ? I do believe that the POV-Ray community became what
it is now because of the absence of commercial competition between its
members. It's a nice place. We have this 100% free resource, we make nice
images and if someone sells a pic for 10$ once in a blue moon everybody's
happy and nobody's hurt. Why change that ?

> Somehow I doubt that greater exposure of my include files would make
> anyone hire me, send me free things, or anything like that.

POV-Ray is not a get-rich-quick scheme. No real money in that, period. Those
here who will make a career in 3D will have it once they'll get to use the
pro tools, after they will have been introduced to art/3D/programming
through POV-Ray. Think of Marco Fajardo, once a POV-Ray patcher, now the
Arnold/Messaiah guru. Or HE Day, who's busy learning Max. Or Debra Ross,
who's started with POV-Ray and is now making models for Curious Labs.
If you plan this sort of career, a nice resume showing the sort of thing you
did with POV-Ray, how successful you were doing them, and what popularity
you got will certainly help you landing jobs. Exposure of your work is
obviously instrumental in that. You need your name to come up in Google
searches to prove it and for that you need a maximum of people using your
stuff and happy with it, and if they post it without your consent, it's
still advertising for you.
But of course it really depends on what you plan to do with your life, lol.


G.


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