POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : POV-Ray Includes - Organisation : Re: POV-Ray Includes - Organisation Server Time
31 Jul 2024 22:19:45 EDT (-0400)
  Re: POV-Ray Includes - Organisation  
From: Sabrina Kilian
Date: 11 Dec 2006 16:41:13
Message: <457dd079@news.povray.org>
Two quick issues to pick apart. I just got done with exams so I haven't
had enough time to go through everything yet.

Chris B wrote:
> Organisation
> -------------
> The site would be split into two main parts with (1) an 'ad-hoc' area for 
> new submissions and (2) a 'standard' area where contributions adhere to 
> certain standards and to a common licensing structure. There would be no 
> visible hard-wired hierarchy of directories within these areas, but there 
> would be (potentially multiple) logical categorisations available alongside 
> indexing information (Keywords) supplied by the contributor. One form of 
> categorisation could potentially cover topics like 'Space Hardware' and 
> 'Landscapes' whereas an alternative form of categorisation could cover 
> contribution types, such as 'Component', 'Finished Object', 'Texture', 
> 'Utility Macro' etc.
> 
> The povray.org server may use an internal directory structure to manage 
> versioning or other aspects of the collection, but this structure would not 
> be visible to users and would not be present on the user's local machine 
> once the files have been downloaded.
> 

Even the ad-hoc should have to be under a compatible license. If it is
not licensed for redistribution, then someone could complain that the
server was giving it away with permission. That may sound strange, but
it would be safer if we knew we had permission to redistribute the
files. Secondly, it allows others to patch a file to make it standards
compliant.

If we want to allow non-similar licensed files in the library, then the
traffic light indicator you mentioned could be useful. Stop for
privately licensed, read the files carefully. Slow/caution for standard
license but not prefixed or checked, and go for checked over and should
work with the current version of POV-Ray.

> Submitting Contributions
> ------------------------
> Contribution Name - To submit a contribution through the povray.org web 
> site, you would first enter a name or a unique ID for your contribution.
> Povray.org would search its index for that identifier.
> If it's a new submission and the name is already being used, you will need 
> to pick a different one.
> If you intend to supersede an existing contribution you will need confirm 
> that and will need to 'version' your contribution - See 'Provenance' below.
> 

Just for everyone to think about, who's name should go on a file that
was patched? If I fix a bug, or typo or what ever, in someone elses
library, the most I'm going to do is add a comment saying I fixed
something and why, and add one to the patch version level. If the server
is appending a prefix based on the uploader's name, then we could end up
with two files doing the exact same thing.

The solutions I could come up with follow:
1)Server allows uploading over established files. I could see this being
really bad, but it would solve this single issue.
2)Allow only the contributor to over write their file, and make sure
that all patches are sent to them. This could pose a problem if the
contributor doesn't want to update or just can't be found.
3)Only designated people can overwrite files. There could be many ways
of determining this. Only head folks in the Library Team, a specific
patch manager, everyone with a patch that has been downloaded 100 times.


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