Folks,

With the release of v3.7 nearing the team is looking at the content of
the standard distribution, in particular the sample scene files.

So far the standard scenes are pretty much unchanged (in terms of
content) from past releases. Some of the scene files are in fact over
20 years old; this doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them of
course, however it seems that it may be prudent to sort through them
and determine, for each, if it's suitable as a standard scene for
today's POV-Ray.

Mostly this applies, I think, to samples in the advanced folder,
rather than the demos of various features.

One thing we have decided to do is to add the template scenes included

also helping us with creating a HTML-based index and preview of all
the scene files.

In addition to considering what we might want to remove, we need to
consider what we might add. I don't think it's as critical to keep the
install as small as it can be (as was the case years ago when modems
were the common means of getting POV). So I think we have some scope
to add extra megabytes if required.

The additions can be in the form of macros, include files, demo files,
and sample scenes (either stand-alone or templates). Any additions we
do make need to be licensed under the CC or AGPL3, or more openly
(such as BSD or public domain).

I've been in contact with Gilles Tran and he's happy for us to include
anything he has posted on his site; he uses the Creative Commons
license already, so that's a great start. However there's lots of
other work out there that may be suitable if the author is willing to
allow it.

So, we're asking for user feedback and recommendations for things to
remove and things to add. Please followup to this thread ... thanks!

-- Chris

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