Alessandro Coppo wrote:

> easily find one that suits you).... well, with new versions coming out at ~3
> years interval (glacial rate for OpenSource projects), and the current POV

What features are missing that you are waiting for?  I for one am against
releasing a program simply so you can say it was released recently;  if no
significant contribution has been made, why release another version?
And, if there _are_ features missing, can you easily obtain those features in an
unofficial version?  If so, then why are you complaining?

> license I am tempted not to find alternatives (can you spell Ray++ (LGPL) or
> Panorama (GPL) or Raja (GPL)?), but to write them. This is not an empty
> threat. I am currently working at a Java tool which completely (well, in the\

Sorry, but I almost laughed at the word "threat". :)  If you do not wish to use
POV-Ray, don't use it.  There are plenty of alternatives available, and each one
suits a different group of people.  If you are more fully satisfied with a
different piece of software, by all means use that software.


By the way, I just read the povlegal.doc, and I found it perfectly reasonable.
Basically, they say:  You can't make money off of POV-Ray.  Only the POV-Team
can publish official versions of POV-Ray (but you can publish unofficial ones).
You can't remove features from POV-Ray (making a 'crippled' distribution).  It
seems quite reasonable to me...  Which, exactly, are the portions you complain
of?

...Chambers

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In article <Xns902F9BC79418Fhookflashhotmailcom@204.213.191.228>, 
hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash) wrote:

> I love MegaPov, but we are being kept waiting in the dark as far as the 
> actual development schedule is concerned.  If someone on this newsgroup 
> asks when 3.5 will be released, they will get several "When it's ready" 
> responses, which are pretty much useless.

Well, that *is* the answer...there is no way to predict the final 
release date. All of the information has been given: it is not yet beta, 
not all of the additions have been completed, but it will have most of 
the new features of MegaPOV, the feature list has been frozen, the 
features just have to be implemented and tested, and nobody knows when 
it will reach beta, let alone final release.


> I, personally, have no desire to strip out the renderer and use the 
> parser or anything of the sort, but I don't really see what harm 
> there would be in doing so. 

Basically: it wouldn't be POV-Ray any more. The harm would be in someone 
pulling out the renderer to use in their own program or distributing 
crippled versions.


> That's the whole idea behind OpenSource: 
>  Sharing of source and ideas. 

POV-Ray is *not* Open Source. It is copyrighted freeware, and the source 
code is available, but that does not make it "Open Source". And there is 
nothing wrong with that...the authors wanted tighter control over 
*their* project. The idea behind releasing the source was to:
"1) promote the porting of POV-Ray to hardware and operating systems 
which the POV-Team cannot support. 2) promote experimentation and 
development of new features to the core code which might eventually be 
incorporated into the official version.  3) provide insight into the 
inner workings of the program for educational purposes."
(from povlegal.doc)

POV-Ray 4.0 may become Open Source, however...as mentioned in the latest 
status report.


> Peter Popov mentioned that some parts of PovRay were written by 
> people who can no longer be contacted, and therefore using their code 
> without restriction (and without their permission) could lead to 
> trouble. 
> Well, I don't think these people would've contributed their code with 
> that sort of attitude; and, even if they had, are they really going 
> to take the time/effort to cause trouble?

It doesn't matter whether it will cause trouble or not, their permission 
should be obtained first. Similarly, it doesn't matter if you think they 
wouldn't mind.


> >And a much more "open" development model is planned for POV 4.0. For 
> >more information, read the message "POV-Team Status Report - 
> >September 1, 2000" by Chris Cason in 
> >povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions.
> 
> This is a relief, but, at the current rate of PovRay development, I 
> don't know if I'll live that long;-P

I assure you, development *is* being done on it. POV-Ray hasn't been 
abandoned.
But also remember that the POV-Team is doing this as a hobby in their 
free time...they do not make money off of it, and in many cases spend 
money on it. If you want the latest, go get MegaPOV.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

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In article <3a69c38a@news.povray.org>, "Alessandro Coppo" 
<a.c### [at] iolit> wrote:

> Just an example: may I study the source and the algorithms and use 
> this knowledge indipendently? Some are documented in books like 
> Foley/VanDam etc. so in fact you can only quarrel about the actual 
> code (or we have to start talking about prior art instead of 
> raytraced art?)

I believe that is well covered in the license. Specifically, "3) 
provide insight into the inner workings of the program for educational 
purposes."
The fact that the code is copyrighted doesn't mean you can't use the 
algorithms...the POV Team doesn't have a patent on raytracing. ;-)


...snip...
What *exactly* is wrong with the current license? Aside from the fact 
that it isn't Open Source? What do you want to do with it but can't 
because the license prohibits it?
If you find another piece of software that does what you want and has a 
license, why not just use that instead? POV can't do everything for 
everyone...and it's license can't satisfy everyone either. But in order 
to get good feedback or any kind of possible improvement, you need to 
say more than "it is inadequate", because it does what it was intended 
to do.


> P.S.: I have an idea: if you received POV-only contributions which 
> tie you to the current license, what stops you (I would like to say 
> us!) to create a clean-room pov-clone without these contributions? 
> For example, MegaPOV simple dropped GIFs when licensing become 
> unbearable.

Are you talking about rewriting the program? This is already planned, 
read the latest status report about the plans for POV 4.0. It is in the 
povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions group.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

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Chris Huff <chr### [at] maccom> wrote in <chrishuff-
2A3607.20410720012001@news.povray.org>:

>In article <Xns902F9BC79418Fhookflashhotmailcom@204.213.191.228>, 
>hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash) wrote:
>
>> I love MegaPov, but we are being kept waiting in the dark as far as the 
>> actual development schedule is concerned.  If someone on this newsgroup 
>> asks when 3.5 will be released, they will get several "When it's ready" 
>> responses, which are pretty much useless.
>
>Well, that *is* the answer...there is no way to predict the final 
>release date. All of the information has been given: it is not yet beta, 
>not all of the additions have been completed, but it will have most of 
>the new features of MegaPOV, the feature list has been frozen, the 
>features just have to be implemented and tested, and nobody knows when 
>it will reach beta, let alone final release.

That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information 
we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I 
would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource, 
basically).  But maybe that's just my preference.

>> I, personally, have no desire to strip out the renderer and use the 
>> parser or anything of the sort, but I don't really see what harm 
>> there would be in doing so. 
>
>Basically: it wouldn't be POV-Ray any more. The harm would be in someone 
>pulling out the renderer to use in their own program or distributing 
>crippled versions.

And what harm would there be in that?  If someone wants to use the renderer 
in their own program or distribute a crippled version, who cares?  If it's 
not PovRay anymore, they can use a different name and logo.

>It doesn't matter whether it will cause trouble or not, their permission 
>should be obtained first. Similarly, it doesn't matter if you think they 
>wouldn't mind.

How can we obtain their permission when we can't contact them?

>I assure you, development *is* being done on it. POV-Ray hasn't been 
>abandoned.
>But also remember that the POV-Team is doing this as a hobby in their 
>free time...they do not make money off of it, and in many cases spend 
>money on it. If you want the latest, go get MegaPOV.

I appreciate the work the PovTeam is doing, but I think it would be easier 
on them *and* the community if we had a more open development model.  Of 
coarse, I could be wrong (it's happened once or twice before... j/k;-)

Hookflash

Post a reply to this message

> And what harm would there be in that?  If someone wants to use the
renderer
> in their own program or distribute a crippled version, who cares?  If it's
> not PovRay anymore, they can use a different name and logo.

LOL, yeah I'll just take the object source code that's supplied with 3D
Studio MAX Commercial, and I'll call it something different and change it
slightly, and I'll sell it, there's no harm in that, after all, it won't be
the 3D Studio MAX object source anymore.

--
Lance.

http://come.to/the.zone

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Hookflash wrote:
> 
> >Well, that *is* the answer...there is no way to predict the final
> >release date. All of the information has been given: it is not yet beta,
> >not all of the additions have been completed, but it will have most of
> >the new features of MegaPOV, the feature list has been frozen, the
> >features just have to be implemented and tested, and nobody knows when
> >it will reach beta, let alone final release.
> 
> That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information
> we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I
> would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource,
> basically).

OpenSource does not mean that the development stages are done in the
open.  It means that once released, the code is available to everyone to
tinker with and reuse.

> >> I, personally, have no desire to strip out the renderer and use the
> >> parser or anything of the sort, but I don't really see what harm
> >> there would be in doing so.
> >
> >Basically: it wouldn't be POV-Ray any more. The harm would be in someone
> >pulling out the renderer to use in their own program or distributing
> >crippled versions.
> 
> And what harm would there be in that?

You are using someone's work without their permission.

> If someone wants to use the renderer
> in their own program or distribute a crippled version, who cares?

The people who wrote the renderer seem to care enough to ask you in
POVLEGAL.DOC not to do it.

>  If it's
> not PovRay anymore, they can use a different name and logo.
> 
> >It doesn't matter whether it will cause trouble or not, their permission
> >should be obtained first. Similarly, it doesn't matter if you think they
> >wouldn't mind.
> 
> How can we obtain their permission when we can't contact them?
> 

Hence the reason why you can't reuse their code.

> >I assure you, development *is* being done on it. POV-Ray hasn't been
> >abandoned.
> >But also remember that the POV-Team is doing this as a hobby in their
> >free time...they do not make money off of it, and in many cases spend
> >money on it. If you want the latest, go get MegaPOV.
> 
> I appreciate the work the PovTeam is doing, but I think it would be easier
> on them *and* the community if we had a more open development model.  Of
> coarse, I could be wrong (it's happened once or twice before... j/k;-)

What do you mean by "a more open development model" exactly?

-- 
Francois Labreque | In the future, performance will be measured
    flabreque     | by the size of your pipe.
        @         |             - Dogbert, on networking
   videotron.ca

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On 20 Jan 2001 23:23:03 -0500 Hookflash wrote:

>That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information 
>we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I 
>would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource, 
>basically).  But maybe that's just my preference.

  We prefer not to get into discussions on the progress of an upcoming
release. It's time *not* spent on development. Sorry if this is not to
everyone's liking but there are a lot of real world issues that warrant
more concern than what day POV-Ray will be released. Guarantee one
thing, though - you'll hear it first on this news server <s>.

-- 
Alan - ako### [at] povrayorg - a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer

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Hookflash wrote:

> That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information
> we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I
> would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource,
> basically).  But maybe that's just my preference.

As a user, I would not like POV-Ray to become as clumsy as most
open source projects, where you have things like :
 latest build : 3.1.1.5b
 latest stable build : 3.0.1a

Users of POV-Ray needs compatibility of scenes, and needs to count
on stable, reliable, coherent versions of their software. I would
not like to have to choose between "RedHat POV-Ray", "POV-Ray Suse",
"Corel POV", etc..  Before MegaPOV, there were several patches
availiable, and it was sometimes a headache for advanced users,
to choose between availiable features frome one or another.

The current situation, with an official, officially supported,
version (3.1g), and a semi-official, full of new features version
(MP), is fine, from a user point of view.

Fabien.

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On 20 Jan 2001 18:20:25 -0500, hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash)
wrote:

>Peter Popov mentioned that some parts of PovRay were written by 
>people who can no longer be contacted, and therefore using their code 
>without restriction (and without their permission) could lead to trouble.  

I don't recall mentioning trouble. And I don't think anyone would
start causing trouble. There are moral issues involved, though.

>Well, I don't think these people would've contributed their code with that 
>sort of attitude; and, even if they had, are they really going to take the 
>time/effort to cause trouble?

I doubt they would but still it doesn't give anyone full rights over
these contributors' code.

>>And a much more "open" development model is planned for POV 4.0. For 
>>more information, read the message "POV-Team Status Report - September 
>>1, 2000" by Chris Cason in povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions.

>This is a relief, but, at the current rate of PovRay development, I don't 
>know if I'll live that long;-P

The POV Team members work on POV in whatever free time they can steal
from making a living and having a real life. They are doing it for
free. How would you feel if you were in their position and people keep
asking why development is slow? Think about it.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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All right, let's stop it here as it is basically boiling down to an "Open
Source is good / Open Source is bad" flame war. As I wrote before, I like
coding and not quarreling.

Now I know for sure that I have to embark in a loooong project... I hope to
post news (and code) in a couple of months ;-)

Alessandro Coppo
a.c### [at] iolit

P.S.: Open Source is different from Richard Stallman's Free Software: if you
don't think so, goto http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/ . Other interesting
references are http://www.opensource.org/ and http://www.opencontent.org/
for an example that all this does not apply only to code.

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