Hey, folks.  I'm the guy who released an unofficial POV-Ray 3.1 for
Linux last November, the one whose URL gets mentioned whenever (e.g.
yesterday) someone asks when the official POV-Ray 3.1 for Linux is
coming out.

The bad news is that I will soon no longer be distributing an unofficial
POV-Ray 3.1 for Linux.

The good news is that I have accepted the position of Unix coordinator
for the POV-Ray team.

I would like to thank publicly all those who have contributed bug
reports and bug fixes to my unofficial versions.  I have emailed those
of you who have contributed code to my versions asking your permission
to include these changes in the official version.

I am currently testing what will become the official POV-Ray 3.1e for
Unix/Linux.  It should be released soon. The long wait is nearly over.

Until we release the official version, my latest unofficial version will
remain available from my personal web site.  Once we release the
official version, I will be taking the unofficial version off my
personal web site, and I will then no longer be supporting my unofficial
version.  I will be supporting the official version, though.

-- 
Mark Gordon
mtg### [at] mailbagcom
http://www.mailbag.com/users/mtgordon/index.html

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS/S d-- s-:+> a- C++ UA+$ UH+$ UO+ $US+ $UL++++ P+++ L++(+++) E W++ N+
o-- 
K++ w---$ O- M V--$ PS++ PE- Y+ PGP->+ t+ 5++ X R+ tv-- b++ DI++ D+ G
e++>++++ 
h- r*%--- y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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Hi Mark!

Thank you for your effort ... the very official unofficial ones and now
the official ones! :-)

I see that things will accelerate now!

Have announced this at c.g.r.r. ?

Marc
-- 
Marc Schimmler

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Great !

Your work and perseverance paid off at last .
One question : Will the 3.1e version fixes the bump_map bug found in the
3.1d version ?






> Hey, folks.  I'm the guy who released an unofficial POV-Ray 3.1 for
> Linux last November, the one whose URL gets mentioned whenever (e.g.
> yesterday) someone asks when the official POV-Ray 3.1 for Linux is
> coming out.
>
> The bad news is that I will soon no longer be distributing an unofficial
> POV-Ray 3.1 for Linux.
>
> The good news is that I have accepted the position of Unix coordinator
> for the POV-Ray team.
>
> I would like to thank publicly all those who have contributed bug
> reports and bug fixes to my unofficial versions.  I have emailed those
> of you who have contributed code to my versions asking your permission
> to include these changes in the official version.
>
> I am currently testing what will become the official POV-Ray 3.1e for
> Unix/Linux.  It should be released soon. The long wait is nearly over.
>
> Until we release the official version, my latest unofficial version will
> remain available from my personal web site.  Once we release the
> official version, I will be taking the unofficial version off my
> personal web site, and I will then no longer be supporting my unofficial
> version.  I will be supporting the official version, though.
>
> --
> Mark Gordon
> mtg### [at] mailbagcom
> http://www.mailbag.com/users/mtgordon/index.html
>
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> Version: 3.12
> GCS/S d-- s-:+> a- C++ UA+$ UH+$ UO+ $US+ $UL++++ P+++ L++(+++) E W++ N+
> o--
> K++ w---$ O- M V--$ PS++ PE- Y+ PGP->+ t+ 5++ X R+ tv-- b++ DI++ D+ G
> e++>++++
> h- r*%--- y--
> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Post a reply to this message

<ffj### [at] club-internetfr@club-internet.fr>  wrote:

> One question : Will the 3.1e version fixes the bump_map bug found in the
> 3.1d version ?

In fact that is the one main reason for the 3.1e! :-)


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: Tho### [at] csicom

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://www.povray.org

Post a reply to this message

Don't suppose there's any chance of getting the executable alone is
there? I just had to see how the "d" version worked now. Seems
unnecessary to re-get the unchanging demo scenes and includes, etc. each
time an update is made. Or am I already overlooking a source for just
the pvengine.exe (doubting that, since the idea is to produce complete
official releases each time!).


Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> 

> <ffj### [at] club-internetfr@club-internet.fr>  wrote:
> 
> > One question : Will the 3.1e version fixes the bump_map bug found in the
> > 3.1d version ?
> 
> In fact that is the one main reason for the 3.1e! :-)
> 
>     Thorsten
> 
> ____________________________________________________
> Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
> e-mail: Tho### [at] csicom
> 
> I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
> Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://www.povray.org

-- 
 omniVERSE: beyond the universe
  http://members.aol.com/inversez/POVring.htm
 mailto:inv### [at] aolcom?PoV

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In article <36DF545E.4BFAB224@aol.com> , Bob Hughes <inv### [at] aolcom>  
wrote:

> Don't suppose there's any chance of getting the executable alone is
> there? I just had to see how the "d" version worked now. Seems
> unnecessary to re-get the unchanging demo scenes and includes, etc. each
> time an update is made. Or am I already overlooking a source for just
> the pvengine.exe (doubting that, since the idea is to produce complete
> official releases each time!).
>
>
> Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>>

>> <ffj### [at] club-internetfr@club-internet.fr>  wrote:
>>
>> > One question : Will the 3.1e version fixes the bump_map bug found in the
>> > 3.1d version ?
>>
>> In fact that is the one main reason for the 3.1e! :-)
>>
>>     Thorsten

The problem is not on your side, the "problem" are the new users that might
potentially download the update and wonder what is going on - it would
create a support nightmare.  (If users would at least read a readme
file...well, ok, I never do either :-)


    Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

Bob Hughes <inv### [at] aolcom> wrote:

>Don't suppose there's any chance of getting the executable alone is
>there? I just had to see how the "d" version worked now. Seems
>unnecessary to re-get the unchanging demo scenes and includes, etc. each
>time an update is made. Or am I already overlooking a source for just
>the pvengine.exe (doubting that, since the idea is to produce complete
>official releases each time!).

We generally don't do this (at least for Windows) because of prior experience
with people who would download just the EXE, and no matter HOW CLEARLY we
marked it and told them 'this is only if you've already got the full version',
there was still some who tried it, found it didn't work (since they didn't
already have POV), then wrote to us and bitched about it.

Post a reply to this message

povray.org admin team wrote:
> 
> We generally don't do this (at least for Windows) because of prior experience
> with people who would download just the EXE, and no matter HOW CLEARLY we
> marked it and told them 'this is only if you've already got the full version',
> there was still some who tried it, found it didn't work (since they didn't
> already have POV), then wrote to us and bitched about it.

I would argue that the majority of people already have 3.1 installed and
don't need the full download. I certainly wouldn't want to get the whole
3.1e just to fix the bump_map problem. Perhaps you could make the
executable-only version a more difficult to access, so people would get
to it only when they really want it.
BTW, were there many who bitched you about it? Just interested as to how
commonplace stupidity is within our species...

Margus

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Sad, sad, sad... tsk! tsk!
Too bad there isn't a foolproof filter for such nonsense.
Got to admit though, and nice to see someone agrees, that a pvengine.exe
(or any other partial fix) would be great none-the-less through such
"difficult" channels.
Most any program allows for this kind of patching.
Maybe the "stupidity" factor goes with the territory when distributing a
program to the worlds public. Ashame that could get in the way. But for
the sake of the already tasked POV-Team I'm not going to demand such ;}


Margus Ramst wrote:
> 
> povray.org admin team wrote:
> >
> > 'this is only if you've already got the full version',
> > there was still some who tried it, found it didn't work (since they didn't
> > already have POV), then wrote to us and bitched about it.
> 
> I would argue that the majority of people already have 3.1 installed and
> don't need the full download. I certainly wouldn't want to get the whole
> 3.1e just to fix the bump_map problem. Perhaps you could make the
> executable-only version a more difficult to access, so people would get
> to it only when they really want it.
> BTW, were there many who bitched you about it? Just interested as to how
> commonplace stupidity is within our species...
> 
> Margus

-- 
 omniVERSE: beyond the universe
  http://members.aol.com/inversez/POVring.htm
 mailto:inv### [at] aolcom?PoV

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In article <36DFD201.F3B90098@peak.edu.ee> , Margus Ramst 
<mar### [at] peakeduee>  wrote:

> I would argue that the majority of people already have 3.1 installed and
> don't need the full download. I certainly wouldn't want to get the whole
> 3.1e just to fix the bump_map problem. Perhaps you could make the
> executable-only version a more difficult to access, so people would get
> to it only when they really want it.
> BTW, were there many who bitched you about it? Just interested as to how
> commonplace stupidity is within our species...

I can't tell you about the other platform experiences, but for example on
the Mac we included a questionnaire application within the documentation
folder. We did not want the application to automatically e-mail the answers
(so users can be sure we don't access and infomration they don't want), so
we offer saving it to disk or putting it into the clipboard to paste it into
an e-mail. At the end of the questionnaire application this is explained in
detail:

"You can e-mail your answers to us at "pov### [at] compuservecom".
Press the Copy button to copy your answers to the clipboard. Then simply
paste them into your e-mail and put "Questionnaire" in the subject line.
If you do not want to send the e-mail now, press the Save button and your
answers will be written to a text file. Please copy the content of the text
file in the body of the e-mail when sending the e-mail.
Please remember to put "Questionnaire" in the subject line and please do not
send the text file as an attachment. We use automatic processing and
attachments cannot be processed."

And in the file the user will paste into the e-mail again the following
text:

"Please e-mail this file to "pov### [at] compuservecom"
and specify "Questionnaire" in the subject line.
Send it in the body of the e-mail. Please do not send
the text file as an attachment. We use automatic
processing and attachments cannot be processed.
Don't edit information in this file. Some numbers may
look strange but they contain the right information."


So we have clear and redundant information. We got about two per month who
somehow manage to ignore this. We got it as attachements, as compressed
attachments, we got the whole answers in the subject line (its about 2 KB of
text...) and some people manges to cut off parts etc, etc...

And now remember that there are many more Windows users out there, even if
there are only ten times as many I would guess that there would be at least
one of the complaints per day, maybe even more...

However, maybe giving it a try for a week or two and see how many there
really are might be possible (also I personally would not do that)   :-)


     Thorsten

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