3e2c1ca3@news.povray.org...

> "all flocking algorithms using constant acceleration."    Or suppose the
guy
> who made the TV commercial with my blobman then tries to exercise some
kind

Just a question: did someone actually make a TV commercial with your blobman
or is it a "what if" scenario?

IMHO, fussing about copyright issues on POV-Ray SDL code is overkill. Keep
it simple enough so that other users don't fret about doing something wrong
by using your code.
POV-Ray itself has a commercial value ; the images people do can have a
commercial value ; people can get hired or paid because of the sort of
wonders they can make with the SDL.
But since our favorite software *** cannot *** be part of the workflow of
production houses for well-known reasons, the commercial value of SDL code
itself is zero. A copyright notice is necessary (it's there to remind the
user that someone has a copyright on it) but I just don't think there's such
a shortage of CG researchers and developers that companies need to plunder
POV-Ray scenes for bits of code about flocking algorithms, particle systems,
blobby characters, trees or automatic plumbing systems when all of this
already exists in professional software and is already usable in production
environments. Companies may "borrow" ideas of course (I've had a few
questions from companies concerning my macros or the way I coded scenes for
instance) but reusing code doesn't make sense, and in the unlikely event
they'd borrow the algorithm I don't see that any copyright notice would
protect you anyway. If someone created some SDL code so valuable to get a
company interested, the real value here would be more the talent of the
coder than the code itself. After all, POV-Ray has been around for more than
10 years and if it had been possible to make a fortune out of it we'd
already know ;-)

G.


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