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In article <3A29C104.C8B37565@mac.com> , Dawn McKnight <McK### [at] mac com>
wrote:
>> I didn't want to spend much time on
>> this, so I kept it short originally, just gave him the solution and pointed
>> out that he could have found the answer in the documentation,
>
> First of all, just for the record, I'm a woman. Dawn is not typically a male
> name
Ups, I am sorry, I did not know!
> However, I did not feel that you 'just' gave me the solution and..., but that
> you gave me the solution
I have to admit I am usually very direct, and this might occasionally come
through as being unfriendly. I am always that way, and it is never personal
or meant to be offensive.
> and a ration of attitude.
Well, yes...
> I don't apreciate being told that if I had just thought about it a little
> more, I could have come up with the solution... mainly because I think quite
> thoughoughly about /everything/ before I post here.
Unfortunately, few users do so - at least it appears that way.
If you are not sure if something is just something simple you are missing,
post it there and you don't need to be afraid to be asking the wrong
question. If it is too advanced, don't worry there, you will still get a
good answer all the time. There is nothing wrong with being inexperienced
with POV-Ray and a simple informal agreement in the POV-Ray newsgroups is to
never say RTFM to users in the povray.newusers groups :-)
However, I should also say that the question you had is not a typical new
users question - to create a scene that exhausts the default memory
assignment of about 8 MB requires at least some time with POV-Ray, so I also
assumed you already ran in memory problems long before based on other users'
reports during the past few years...
> I am a woman in a male dominated field; I am paranoid about asking stupid
> questions, largely because of responses such as yours.
Hmm, you could not have known that I did not know you are a woman prior to
my last post, so given how you had to interpret my initial reply I can fully
understand your reply and that you were offended. I agree with you that a
reply like mine if made only because you are a woman would be complete
inappropriate.
As you now know, I did not know you are a woman and I can assure you no
offence was intended! -- I have to apologise for not noticing this earlier,
as it would have avoided the whole problem :-(
Thorsten
____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg
I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org
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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>
> He has also been in these groups for a month, and is
> aware of the Mac group, so a straight forward suggestion to post Mac issues
> there is reasonable, I think.
Without the benefit(?) of cross-platform testing, though, it can be
difficult at best to tell if a problem is platform-specific or not, and
given the (apparently) high portability of the code, it seems reasonable
to me to assume that any given problem of unknown cause is probably XP.
Or should we automatically be assuming that any problem we have is
platform-specific, and post our questions and complaints in the
appropriate group, only moving the discussion to .general after someone
who reads that group, but has alternate platform(s) to test for the
problem, confirms that it is, in fact, XP? Seems a little impractical,
if you ask me.
> The problem is that making a Mac-like alert box to show an error or warning
> out of the POV-Ray text output is not exactly feasible because of the
> console centered design of POV-Ray.
I don't think an alert box is necessary; after all, she did *see* the
error message. I question whether the error message was clear enough for
an ordinary user to understand its meaning, though. I'd be lying if I
said that POV never stumped me with any of its error messages (though
mine tend to be syntax problems).
> > I guess being a developer gives you the right to be as big an asshole as
> > you want.
>
> No, it does not. Nor does me being a developer give you as user the right
> to insult me as you want. And, have I insulted anybody personally so far?
Perhaps not; nevertheless, I feel that you were unnecessarily rude in
your second reply. I don't know what you were trying to accomplish,
other than making the poster look and/or feel like a complete idiot.
> What I do not like is the attitude by some people that they do not even want
> to try to solve the problem by themselves.
Granted. I used to get this all the time, and I know how frustrating it
is. Still, I think your way of handling it was inappropriate. If nothing
else, she obviously took the time to learn the app well enough to create
a complex scene (unless she was using a modeller, but there aren't any
good ones for the Mac IMHO), and it has been acknowledged that POV has a
pretty steep learning curve at first; I think that's enough reason to
cut some slack.
> But no, his attitude of "there is a problem, I don't care if POV-Ray is
> free, just fix it now, I am your customer" is the problem I have with him.
I wasn't aware that being a POV team member required you to answer any
and all technical questions posed by users, let alone immediately;
rather, I'd assumed that, like POV itself, tech support was something
that would be done in your free time, as circumstances allow. Feel free
to correct me if I'm wrong here.
-Xplo
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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>
<..>
>
> However, all he did was at most try to render again (if at all), and then,
> because it is more convinient than looking at the documentation for five
> minutes or less, to simply post it here. How little consideration he gave
> this? Well, he did not even bother go give any information about the
> platform he is running on.
>
I can understand you find it annoying that a person having a problem would ask a
question here, when you know the solution is obvious from the documentation.
Personally, I think that is what this forum is for, even though the docs would
solve the problem, not everyone knows his (or her) ways around those well enough
all the time. Especially with a server flooded by the most weird messages on the
most outrageous topics (luckily mostly (re-)directed to the off topic group) I
think a message/question like this doesn't really deserve such a reaction.
Just my 2 ec.
Remco
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On Sat, 02 Dec 2000 18:26:32 -0700, Xplo Eristotle wrote:
>I guess being a developer gives you the right to be as big an asshole
>as you want.
Oh, cut it off. Thorsten's first reply was a bit gruff, but it
identified the problem ("out of memory"), gave a workaround ("shut off
preview"), and referred to relevant parts of the documentation and a
newsgroup better suited for this topic. Only when Dawn seemingly ignored
all the advice he had given and only made scathing remarks about his
lack of helpfulness, he retaliated in kind (and he was in fact still
helpful by quoting the docs - thanks, I learned again something I never
wanted to know :-).
It is not uncommon for those who answer a lot of questions to sometimes
answer them in a very short manner. And it is in fact very demotivating,
if you try to help people in your free time and instead of thanking you,
they only complain that you aren't friendly enough, don't present them
the complete solution on a silver platter, etc.
Dawn, please try to develop a thicker hide. When you get an answer to a
question, focus on the content, not on the tone. The person who wrote
this may just have written it in a hurry, he (or she) may have had a bad
day, English may not be his native language, etc. There are a lot of
reasons why a posting may seem a lot more unfriendly than it was meant,
so try to stay calm even if the other person doesn't seem to be.
hp
--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | Es war nicht Gegenstand der Abstimmung zu
| | | hjp### [at] wsracat | Zahlen neu festzulegen.
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | -- Johannes Schwenke <jby### [at] ginkode>
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On Sat, 02 Dec 2000 20:41:56 -0700, Dawn McKnight wrote:
>it. In general, POV-Ray has the finest official documentation I am aware of in
>any open-source program.
For the record, POV-Ray is not Open Source.
--
Ron Parker http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html
My opinions. Mine. Not anyone else's.
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On Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:37:24 +0100, hjp### [at] SiKituwsracat (Peter
J. Holzer) wrote:
>Dawn, please try to develop a thicker hide. When you get an answer to a
>question, focus on the content, not on the tone. The person who wrote
>this may just have written it in a hurry, he (or she) may have had a bad
>day, English may not be his native language, etc. There are a lot of
>reasons why a posting may seem a lot more unfriendly than it was meant,
>so try to stay calm even if the other person doesn't seem to be.
Also, the person responding may be a developer who is also writing the
docs for whatever he is developing. Thorsten is the POV Team's Mac guy
and I think he also wrote the Mac specific docs. There's nothing more
easily irritated that a developer who has to RTFM users about his own
docs. And it happens to everyone once in a while. I hope I won't get
dealt with in any physically uncomfortable ways by letting it slip
that Chris Cason himself recently RTFMed the TAG! Dawn, if you're
reading this, please know -- you're not alone :)
Oh, and this is not a male-only zone. We even have another Dawn :))
Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg
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On 4 Dec 2000 14:50:30 -0500, Ron Parker wrote:
>On Sat, 02 Dec 2000 20:41:56 -0700, Dawn McKnight wrote:
>>it. In general, POV-Ray has the finest official documentation I am aware of in
>>any open-source program.
>
>For the record, POV-Ray is not Open Source.
The definition of open source lists 9 criteria for Open Source software
(see http://www.opensource.org/osd.html for details):
1. Free Redistribution
Povray meets this point only partially. The maximum price clause in
the POV license may be seen as a violation of OSD. (But I think it
is in the same spirit).
2. Source Code
Ok.
3. Derived Works
Povray puts severe limitations on derived works. A partial match at
best, although again it fits the rationale for the criterium.
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
Ok.
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups.
Ok
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor.
Ok
7. Distribution of License.
Ok
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product.
Ok
9. License Must Not Contaminate Other Software.
Ok.
So Povray matches 7 of 9 criteria for open source software fully, and
two partially.
I will continue to think of Povray as Open Source Software.
hp
--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | Es war nicht Gegenstand der Abstimmung zu
| | | hjp### [at] wsracat | Zahlen neu festzulegen.
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | -- Johannes Schwenke <jby### [at] ginkode>
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Peter J. Holzer <hjp### [at] sikituwsracat> wrote:
: I will continue to think of Povray as Open Source Software.
I thought that you could use the source code (or parts of it) of this
kind of Open Source Software in your own programs.
You can't do it with povray.
--
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):_;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/
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On 7 Dec 2000 06:40:16 -0500, Warp wrote:
>Peter J. Holzer <hjp### [at] sikituwsracat> wrote:
>: I will continue to think of Povray as Open Source Software.
>
> I thought that you could use the source code (or parts of it) of this
>kind of Open Source Software in your own programs.
> You can't do it with povray.
From the OSD:
The Povray license clearly allows modifications and derived works, and
it allows them to be redistributed under the same license.
It even gives the same reason "2) promote experimentation and
development of new features to the core code which might eventually be
incorporated into the official version" as the rationale of the OSD.
BUT: While most Open Source Licenses have a wide definition of "derived
works" (The GPL sees anything as a derived work which contains a tiny
bit of the original code or is even only linked with it), the Povray
license has a very narrow definition: "a fully functional version of
POV-Ray with all existing features intact." So, Megapov or Povman are
ok, but a modeller which uses only the parser code from povray is not
ok.
Because of this narrow definition, I listed this point as "A partial
match at best".
hp
--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | Es war nicht Gegenstand der Abstimmung zu
| | | hjp### [at] wsracat | Zahlen neu festzulegen.
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | -- Johannes Schwenke <jby### [at] ginkode>
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On Fri, 8 Dec 2000 12:20:58 +0100, Peter J. Holzer wrote:
>Because of this narrow definition, I listed this point as "A partial
>match at best".
Right. Because of this and the distribution clause, the POV-Ray license
is not an Open Source license. It's close, but close doesn't count as we
all know from watching Sun and Netscape and Apple and others stumble
repeatedly over the OSD. Rather than invoke the wrath of Perens, I prefer
to note whenever possible that we don't use that term to describe our
license.
--
Ron Parker http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html
My opinions. Mine. Not anyone else's.
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