Peter Popov wrote in message ...
>On 19 Jan 2001 21:37:22 -0500, hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash)
>wrote:
>
>>I agree that the PovRay license is currently inadequate.
>
>No it is not.

Just an example: may I study the source and the algorithms and use this
knowledge indipendently? Some are documented in books like Foley/VanDam etc.
so in fact you can only quarrel about the actual code (or we have to start
talking about prior art instead of raytraced art?)

If the license is not going to switch to an OSI (Open Source Initiative)
approved one (there are 20+ if I remember well, so you (PovTeam members) can
easily find one that suits you).... well, with new versions coming out at ~3
years interval (glacial rate for OpenSource projects), and the current POV
license I am tempted not to find alternatives (can you spell Ray++ (LGPL) or
Panorama (GPL) or Raja (GPL)?), but to write them. This is not an empty
threat. I am currently working at a Java tool which completely (well, in the
future ;-)) maps POV language and can emit it, becoming the core for a
super-macro engine (describe your scene in Java + all libraries you need
plus all the power of Java and then just tell it to emit #macro-less pov
code to be rendered by POV or MegaPOV, may be even driving the command line
version of the engine). In a few days work I have created a working
prototype which I want to refine before releasing. Given the knowledge about
raytracing I have gathered from references, I think I might even have a
partial POV-clone on air before Christmas... which is something which tempts
me much if the license is so adequate... (and if you say Java is slow, well
I have experience of very fast ports from Java to C++ at the rate of several
classes per day).

I really (and I am sure there are many other people like me) would like to
cooperate DIRECTLY to POVRay and not creat YACRC (yet another clean room
clone), but NOT at the current conditions.

Well, it was said a few months ago on this newsserver that this was a
post-3.5 subject and this is just a preview of my thoughts. I hope that this
is not the start of a war because it is done with the most constructive
frame of mind (I am a developer, not a lawyer or a troll).

Alessandro Coppo
a.c### [at] iolit

P.S.: I have an idea: if you received POV-only contributions which tie you
to the current license, what stops you (I would like to say us!) to create a
clean-room pov-clone without these contributions? For example, MegaPOV
simple dropped GIFs when licensing become unbearable.

Bye bye!!!!

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