Rune wrote:

> I've changed the terms a bit again.
> 
> Still not free for commercial use, but the requirement for credits is
> changed to a request. And the terms now say nothing about making
> modified versions of my files, as long as they are not distributed.
> http://runevision.com/welcome/terms/terms.asp
> 
> Hope it's a bit better, though I realize that many will still not be
> satisfied...

  It's fine for me. I can understand the "commercial" part, but the 
requirement for credits is something that I always find strange. People who 
are used to not give credits will not give them anyway, and honest people 
only needs a remainder as much. Such requirement, then, only takes away 
honest people... too bad. For the modifications permission (although I will 
never use it), it's also important: don't try to tell people what they 
can do when no one is looking. :)

  So, thanks: now I can make an image with it, and grant to everyone a free 
reproduction permission, without having to put the credits pasted onto the 
image (that's the only way I find to grant that every published copy of my 
image will have the required credits to you). I want to credit you, but I 
prefer to do it in a generic way trough my "techniques" section.

  Thanks again for the changes...  now it's time to try it! 

-- 
Jaime Vives Piqueres

La Persistencia de la Ignorancia
http://www.ignorancia.org

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Rune wrote:
> 
> I don't know what products have *successfully* used that concept, 

By successful i meant profitable on it's own - none of the things returned
on the first page of that google search seems to comply with that. But i
see this is probably no argument for you since you clearly stated the
motive for the restriction is not making profit for you but preventing
others to make profit by using it.

> And I don't see how it's so different from for example a poser mesh,
> that you pose and texture yourself and then put in your scene. In both
> cases, it is something that you can place in your scene, and there are
> some things given, and some things that can be customized by the user.

The difference is that if you use a poser mesh, the original work (the
poser mesh) is always part of the derived work (mostly in 2D of course,
but that does not matter).  When using your include file the original work
is not part of the result, it's only the data processed by your file
that's visible.  

It's a bit like selling a lawn mower but restricting it's use to backyards
and forbidding to mow frontyards... ;-)

But i don't want to overemphasize this argument, the more important thing
is the community aspect others have mentioned.  I find it commendable you
already changed your terms in many aspects because of the feedback you
got.  Concerning the remaining restrictions and maybe future tools you
publish i would suggest you think about how you profited from the work of
the other members of the POV-community (not necessarily financially but
also personally - for me this is no elementary difference) who publish
their work without such restrictions, answer questions on the newsserver,
develop new patches for POV-Ray you can use without paying anything and
comment on your work.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 13 Aug. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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Jaime Vives Piqueres wrote:
>   It's fine for me. I can understand the "commercial" part,
> but the requirement for credits is something that I always
> find strange.

>   Thanks again for the changes...  now it's time to try it!

Well that makes me happy. :)

The terms written in the documentation of the particle system itself are
not yet updated. They soon will be though, so you can just ignore the
old terms there.

Rune
--
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
rune|vision:  http://runevision.com (updated Oct 19)
POV-Ray Ring: http://webring.povray.co.uk

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(I don't know quite what to quote here; those following the thread will 
presumably know what I'm responding to, so hopefully I'll be forgiven.)

All I can do here is reiterate things that others have said, in the hope 
that one of us will be able to make you see or agree with something 
where the others fail. With that said, I'm going to take a different 
tack from the people protesting on moral grounds, and go straight to the 
practical argument.

Rune, who do you think is going to pay you for commercial use of your 
particle system (or indeed anything else that you add to POV-Ray's bag 
of tricks)? Professional CG artists are far more likely to use 3DSMAX or 
Maya or something; they're not going to pay you for some "useless" bit 
of POV script. People like Gilles Tran aren't going to pay you; they'll 
just not use your work. And then there are the people like me - 
unashamed software pirates - who would happily use your work and not 
give you a dime or a shred of credit, in the belief that information is 
inherently free and that artificial limitations on its freedom can and 
should be ignored.

When you get right down to it, do you *really* have any customers at 
all? And even if you had, say, four or five, would their small financial 
contributions really be worth the time you spent making your particle 
system? Would they justify the fact that almost no one else is using 
your code for anything? Would their contributions be more valuable than 
free third-party improvements to your code?

One other thing (and here I dip into the moral argument): if you feel 
that people are entitled to monetary compensation for their intellectual 
work if others use it for financial gain, then how have you compensated 
others for *their* intellectual work, which *you* are now using for 
commercial gain? Have you paid the members of the POV Team for their 
work in creating and maintaining POV-Ray? Have you donated money to keep 
this news server running, and did you pay for ad space to advertise your 
product? Have you sent off checks to the people whose work on particle 
systems you probably used in making your own, and the people who 
published that work? Did you pay posters here for any suggestions or 
help they might have given you?

If not, then you're a hypocrite, and you deserve to have your work 
stolen from you and used without compensation, just as you have used 
others' resources without compensation.

-Xplo

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I'm not taking sides here and don't want to become
part of the discussion (I'll put a TOS of my own on
my website soon enough, my own particle system
is also in the final run), simply because I'm just
a spectator on this matter. Don't have time to
check newsgroups often these days, and reading
everything is definitely not in my schedule...

But I think this last part about being a hypocrite was
a little too aggressive. I do agree that POV is a
utility hardly anyone uses to make profit with, so
actually I think that the scripts coded with POV-SDL
are part of a hobby. Anyone seriously using POV
could write a simple one himself, if there is need.

But thats not the point of releasing include-files, is it?

Now that I've said that, I think I'll shut up again and
leave more competent people do the talking. I don't
feel like this is a bashing of Rune, more like some
fundamental discussion regarding TOS of POV and
of scripts used by POV, and it just "happened" that
Rune took a side others dont agree with.

So, no offense, anyone.

Regards,
Tim


--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

> (I don't know quite what to quote here; those following the thread will
> presumably know what I'm responding to, so hopefully I'll be forgiven.)
>
> All I can do here is reiterate things that others have said, in the hope
> that one of us will be able to make you see or agree with something
> where the others fail. With that said, I'm going to take a different
> tack from the people protesting on moral grounds, and go straight to the
> practical argument.
>
> Rune, who do you think is going to pay you for commercial use of your
> particle system (or indeed anything else that you add to POV-Ray's bag
> of tricks)? Professional CG artists are far more likely to use 3DSMAX or
> Maya or something; they're not going to pay you for some "useless" bit
> of POV script. People like Gilles Tran aren't going to pay you; they'll
> just not use your work. And then there are the people like me -
> unashamed software pirates - who would happily use your work and not
> give you a dime or a shred of credit, in the belief that information is
> inherently free and that artificial limitations on its freedom can and
> should be ignored.
>
> When you get right down to it, do you *really* have any customers at
> all? And even if you had, say, four or five, would their small financial
> contributions really be worth the time you spent making your particle
> system? Would they justify the fact that almost no one else is using
> your code for anything? Would their contributions be more valuable than
> free third-party improvements to your code?
>
> One other thing (and here I dip into the moral argument): if you feel
> that people are entitled to monetary compensation for their intellectual
> work if others use it for financial gain, then how have you compensated
> others for *their* intellectual work, which *you* are now using for
> commercial gain? Have you paid the members of the POV Team for their
> work in creating and maintaining POV-Ray? Have you donated money to keep
> this news server running, and did you pay for ad space to advertise your
> product? Have you sent off checks to the people whose work on particle
> systems you probably used in making your own, and the people who
> published that work? Did you pay posters here for any suggestions or
> help they might have given you?
>
> If not, then you're a hypocrite, and you deserve to have your work
> stolen from you and used without compensation, just as you have used
> others' resources without compensation.
>
> -Xplo
>

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Xplo Eristotle wrote:
> 
> 
> If not, then you're a hypocrite, and you deserve to have your work
> stolen from you and used without compensation, just as you have used
> others' resources without compensation.
> 
> -Xplo

That's a bit over the top, especially from someone who admits to
pirating.

I think your practical remarks made some sense, but still it's
up to the creator of a package to decide what to do with it and
your last few lines don't really help much here.
It's unreasonable to expect from someone that he has to shower
cash around before he's entitled to make a buck.
But then again, piracy and reason seldom go together...

Remco

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3db48cf7@news.povray.org...
> of POV script. People like Gilles Tran aren't going to pay you; they'll
> just not use your work.

No. I don't mind paying people for their work when it's valuable. After all,
like many hobbyists, I already pay (too much!) for my hobby. In this light,
paying for Rune's work doesn't seem unreasonable. To be frank, if I were
considering Rune's macros for a big animation project for a client, I
wouldn't object to pay him because it would save me time and money. It would
be a business decision. It's extremely theoretical though : not only POV-Ray
hobbyists are not very competitive marketwise, but there are dozens of
particle plug-ins in commercial software and thousands of starving graphic
3D artists who know how to use them.
But it doesn't make the idea of commercial POV-Ray script less unsettling,
considering how things had been working until now. Here's some Pandora's
box...

G.

--

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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Gilles Tran wrote:

> 3db48cf7@news.povray.org...
> 
>>of POV script. People like Gilles Tran aren't going to pay you; they'll
>>just not use your work.
> 
> 
> No. I don't mind paying people for their work when it's valuable.

I recall you saying that because of the licensing terms, you wouldn't be 
using Rune's particle system. My apologies if I have somehow 
misunderstood you and misrepresented your position; I was only trying to 
use you as an example.

-Xplo

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Remco de Korte wrote:
> Xplo Eristotle wrote:
> 
>>
>>If not, then you're a hypocrite, and you deserve to have your work
>>stolen from you and used without compensation, just as you have used
>>others' resources without compensation.
> 
> That's a bit over the top, especially from someone who admits to
> pirating.

I don't see why. I'm not the one trying to sell software here. How am I 
acting against my stated position? And I was trying to make a point.

As far as my usage of the word "hypocrite" to describe Rune being 
excessive, I don't think so. All he has to do to not be a hypocrite in 
my opinion is to either free his code or compensate anyone who helped 
him develop it (directly or otherwise) as that would be only fair. If he 
wishes to do neither of these, then I say: if the shoe fits, wear it.

-Xplo

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3db5399e@news.povray.org...
> Gilles Tran wrote:
> I recall you saying that because of the licensing terms, you wouldn't be
> using Rune's particle system.

In the first version of the TOS it was non-commercial only (or to that
effect) so I couldn't use the macros but the new version of the TOS is
clearer, if not really satisfying ;-)

G.
--

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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