To continue the discussion earlier re: pov's server filling up and
needing to trim binaries occasionally.
p.b.i   Subject:         What happened       Date:             Fri, 18
Feb 2000 08:16:08 -0800

Many thought that the current copyright disclaimer on this server does
not fully protect the pov team should they ever decide to sell a CD of
this work.  Fair enough.

1)  Could the team set up a new newsgroup, and call it
povray.binaries.povrayteamownscopyright ?
      Then the team could sell a CD of this work!

2)  Would this invite lower quality work, portfolio dumps, and everyone
acting like a little kid at the pool who says, "Mommy, watch me do this!
Watch me do this! Watch me do this!" ?
        Currently, many contributors probably feel a great deal of
self-restraint.     I know that I ought only upload some of my best work
(believe it or not!), given that I will eventually fill up a server
maintained for free by volunteers, and cause other's works to be
dumped.  If I knew a CD were to be sold with everything I uploaded, I
might not have the same degree of restraint.

Hmm. perhaps it could be like an IRTC contest, where everyone votes,
and, say only the top 600 entries get kept!  The Pov-Team could also put
banner ads on the voting pages to help defray costs!

Post a reply to this message

"Greg M. Johnson" wrote:

> 1)  Could the team set up a new newsgroup, and call it
> povray.binaries.povrayteamownscopyright ?
>       Then the team could sell a CD of this work!

  The biggest question is if there would be adequate interest in such
a CD. Chris Cason already spends considerable time and effort organizing
the IRTC CD-ROM plus incurs the initial manufacturing costs before
distribution. If he spends all of the time necessary to put a CD like
this together he will need to know if it will sell well or he will end
up with boxes full of worthless table coasters.

Would everyone here buy one ?

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

Post a reply to this message

"Ken" <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
news:38B62291.1DF8C355@pacbell.net...
|
| "Greg M. Johnson" wrote:
|
| > 1)  Could the team set up a new newsgroup, and call it
| > povray.binaries.povrayteamownscopyright ?
| >       Then the team could sell a CD of this work!
|
|   The biggest question is if there would be adequate interest in such
| a CD. Chris Cason already spends considerable time and effort organizing
| the IRTC CD-ROM plus incurs the initial manufacturing costs before
| distribution. If he spends all of the time necessary to put a CD like
| this together he will need to know if it will sell well or he will end
| up with boxes full of worthless table coasters.
|
| Would everyone here buy one ?

I probably would not.
Only a small number of the total number of messages and attachments are relevant
enough to me personally.  Even though there are many that would have been nice
to have permanently archived which I didn't gather the first time I came across
them it wouldn't be enough to justify buying, and even moreso not justify the
creation of the CD in my case anyhow.
That's what makes me think that on average most of the content here wouldn't be
termed consumable enough for the masses.  That's considering the relatively
small number of constant message posters and larger number of readers which all
might still see only a portion of the entire content at news.povray.org as
relevant material as well.  The major problem I think is that if there is
something a person likes then that person more often than not probably already
has collected up the message and/or attachment anyway and whatever else they
might miss wouldn't amount to a whole lot perhaps.  It would be different for a
person who has seen the newsgroups here for the first time (future visitors too)
and would have to sift through the thousands of posts.
I think I just long-windedly said "not me" again.
This brings up the question of how suitable such a thing would be a year or more
from now when the eventual content becomes much greater than currently is, and
that would mean to be thinking of the future when dealing with the maintenance
of these groups as to what happens to the past articles (which brought about
this whole topic I guess).

Bob

Post a reply to this message

What if a volunteer organized the submissions and came up with a XOOM.COM web page
for the entries and voting, then the pov team could review it and see if they
thought people would be interested in buying CD's?

Bob Hughes wrote:

> "Ken" <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
> news:38B62291.1DF8C355@pacbell.net...
> |
> | "Greg M. Johnson" wrote:
> |
> | > 1)  Could the team set up a new newsgroup, and call it
> | > povray.binaries.povrayteamownscopyright ?
> | >       Then the team could sell a CD of this work!
> |
> |   The biggest question is if there would be adequate interest in such
> | a CD. Chris Cason already spends considerable time and effort organizing
> | the IRTC CD-ROM plus incurs the initial manufacturing costs before
> | distribution. If he spends all of the time necessary to put a CD like
> | this together he will need to know if it will sell well or he will end
> | up with boxes full of worthless table coasters.
> |
> | Would everyone here buy one ?
>
> I probably would not.
> Only a small number of the total number of messages and attachments are relevant
> enough to me personally.  Even though there are many that would have been nice
> to have permanently archived which I didn't gather the first time I came across
> them it wouldn't be enough to justify buying, and even moreso not justify the
> creation of the CD in my case anyhow.
> That's what makes me think that on average most of the content here wouldn't be
> termed consumable enough for the masses.  That's considering the relatively
> small number of constant message posters and larger number of readers which all
> might still see only a portion of the entire content at news.povray.org as
> relevant material as well.  The major problem I think is that if there is
> something a person likes then that person more often than not probably already
> has collected up the message and/or attachment anyway and whatever else they
> might miss wouldn't amount to a whole lot perhaps.  It would be different for a
> person who has seen the newsgroups here for the first time (future visitors too)
> and would have to sift through the thousands of posts.
> I think I just long-windedly said "not me" again.
> This brings up the question of how suitable such a thing would be a year or more
> from now when the eventual content becomes much greater than currently is, and
> that would mean to be thinking of the future when dealing with the maintenance
> of these groups as to what happens to the past articles (which brought about
> this whole topic I guess).
>
> Bob

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