whoa!  thanks for commenting, Sabrina.  good to see women using povray as
well.  Specially as intelligent and skillful as you seem to be. :)

Sabrina Kilian <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote:
> For clarity, I think of includes as collections of single
> objects, textures, macros, lighting patterns, just about anything made
> mostly of #declares and meant to be reused. Scenes would be the
> individual artistic expression, possibly made up of items from the
> include. Clear as mud, and probably open to legal nit-picking.

That's a very good definition, i believe everyone will agree.

> I don't know where to look to see what the terms of donating a scene are.

I think that's what we're trying to accomplish here.

> Either the new includes would have to be added to the normal package in the
> proper folders, or the POV-Ray license would have to be changed /
> rewritten to account for the packaged includes being distributed outside
> of the normal package.

AFAIK, povray license is likely to change in coming versions, am i right?  I
heard they're seeking to put it into an OSI-compliant license.

Anyway, i don't think this reworked include collection would go into the
standard include folder as the legal terms stand today.

> Is hosting a jpg of a GPL scene distributing?

I think if users are able to download and save an image to their PCs, it's
like software they can download and use.  OTOH, has you ever seen a GPLed
web site or web service?  I mean, yes, we can see the *generated* html
content, but not the actual PHP sources or something like that...

> Is
> printing a hard copy of a scene, which is a derivative of a binary
> representation, distributing if it is given to someone else?

I realize it was better in the good ol' days.  Too much legal obfuscation
these days...  I wish povray scenes could be licensed under a poetic
license or artistic license, like perl... ;)

> I'd be more partial to an LGPL style license for any includes, over the
> normal GPL, for reasons like the following. If someone creates a scene
> using one of the proposed new includes, which could be anything from
> vector transforms to colors to anything else, when would they need to
> provide access to the source of the scene? If they hosted it online, or
> ran off a hard copy that they sold, or had Zazzle sell copies of it? If
> the scene is theirs, why would the include need to affect the license of
> the final scene?

Very good point, much more well reasoned than mine (i was busy at work and
didn't give too much thought to details).

Indeed, the LGPL is much more well suited for library components.  And it
still retains the GPL benefit of people changing the LGPLed work itself to
contribute back the changes.  Note this doesn't affect people merely using
such works in a scene, they can indeed hide the sources without problems.
And if their scene use a slightly modified LGPLed work, the only
requirement is to publish the modifications to the GPLed work, not to the
whole scene!

> For scenes I think I would prefer stricter terms. I know I would be
> annoyed to see my scenes turn up in someone else's Zazzle store unmodified.

fair enough.

> Having a defined set of rules and requirements might encourage people to
> reuse some code instead of reinventing it. As it stands right now, I
> hesitate to go through the posted scene files looking for things similer
> to anything I am working on. Since only a few that I've seen have
> licenses in them, I would believe that all the rest are not licensable
> and I wouldn't want to accidentally reuse some little trick or function
> I happened to read. While I don't think most people here would fuss over
> a simple texture on one rock in a scene, someone might and it's just
> easier to reinvent everything.

well, if you ever need a potato texture or detailed brick wall texture and
happens to find some of my old scenes, feel free to use them!  When such
collection area is up on povray.org, i'll republish with the chosen proper
license... :)

> And if the rules allow or require changes to get put back into the
> repository, then we might even end up with better results since things
> could be built up instead of reinvented.

Yes, but i've realized many people here are highly creative artistic minded
people who indeed enjoy creating things from scratch.  Still, might be
useful for other people interested in composition rather than creation.

Post a reply to this message

To summarise the discussions so far on defining a license for an area on 
povray.org to hold collections of objects etc.:

We seem to have 100% vote for adopting a single license for the whole 
collection (3 out of 3).
Similarly all seem keen on making the collection as open to re-use as 
possible.

It sounds like the POV-Ray license would not be able to cover this 
collection without modification.

I'm not sure that the GPL or LGPL licenses are all that appropriate because 
they contain a lot of terminology that is exclusively oriented towards 
software/programs rather than works of a creative or artistic nature (no 
offence to application developers intended). I think this was probably why 
the Creative Commons Licenses came into being. The reproduction and 
distribution of images and computerised descriptions of scenes can throw up 
unique issues, such as, when is an image a reproduction and when is it a 
representation of the original work? (i.e. is a thumbnail a copy or can it 
reasonably be used in an index or search engine).

Unless we can enlist the help of a licensing Guru then rolling our own is 
probably out of the question.

I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of available 
Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or 
disagree with that?

To move on into some of the detail:

On the subject of scene files, I didn't necessarily see this as being a 
place where finished scenes would go, although samples and example scene 
files could accompany objects, textures, macros and include files to 
illustrate their use. I would argue that there are other forums where fully 
finished and refined scenes can be maintained including the IRTC and various 
Internet galleries, POV-Ray rings etc.

If an image is rendered from a sample scene file and sold on Zazzle or to 
the Tate Gallery, then I would propose that we have no more access to the 
cash than the guys who made the pile of bricks that the Tate Gallery bought 
for a wheelbarrow full of money a few years back. The money goes to the 
artist who makes the sale. In any case, if very minor changes could get the 
artist/charlatan out of trouble, then, would the addition of a corporate 
logo to your pride and joy really make you feel any better?

The other issue raised by Sabrina and Nemesis is around whether users of the 
collection should be required to contribute their work back to the 
collection. My vote is that we don't impose such a restriction. Personally 
I'd like to see a license that's about as close to public domain as we think 
we can get. I'd prefer one that allows re-use for both commercial and 
non-commercial purposes without needing to give credit to the original 
authors. I'd also like people to be able to redistribute the files in 
original or modified form. I think we should maybe suggest that giving 
credit is polite, but not make it a licensing condition.

Am I out on my own now, or is anyone else thinking along the same lines?

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> To summarise the discussions so far on defining a license for an area on 
> povray.org to hold collections of objects etc.:
> 
> We seem to have 100% vote for adopting a single license for the whole 
> collection (3 out of 3).
> Similarly all seem keen on making the collection as open to re-use as 
> possible.
> 
> It sounds like the POV-Ray license would not be able to cover this 
> collection without modification.
> 
> I'm not sure that the GPL or LGPL licenses are all that appropriate because 
> they contain a lot of terminology that is exclusively oriented towards 
> software/programs rather than works of a creative or artistic nature (no 
> offence to application developers intended). I think this was probably why 
> the Creative Commons Licenses came into being. The reproduction and 
> distribution of images and computerised descriptions of scenes can throw up 
> unique issues, such as, when is an image a reproduction and when is it a 
> representation of the original work? (i.e. is a thumbnail a copy or can it 
> reasonably be used in an index or search engine).
> 
> Unless we can enlist the help of a licensing Guru then rolling our own is 
> probably out of the question.
> 
> I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of available 
> Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or 
> disagree with that?

BSD and MIT licenses might also be an option, since they refer to source
code, which SDL is, and binary form, which the final images would be. I
didn't read them in their entirety, but I didn't see any references to
'program' or 'executable' in there.

www.opensource.org/licenses has several others that might work,
depending on their wording. The Academic Free License looks wordy but
seemed general enough to be used for everything.

> 
> To move on into some of the detail:
> 
> On the subject of scene files, I didn't necessarily see this as being a 
> place where finished scenes would go, although samples and example scene 
> files could accompany objects, textures, macros and include files to 
> illustrate their use. I would argue that there are other forums where fully 
> finished and refined scenes can be maintained including the IRTC and various 
> Internet galleries, POV-Ray rings etc.

I separated my opinions since the POV-Ray license did the same, and
because I got lost trying to follow the discussion before this thread.
If we want to just avoid finished scenes for this discussion and focus
on a library of reusable items and demo scenes, great.

> 
> If an image is rendered from a sample scene file and sold on Zazzle or to 
> the Tate Gallery, then I would propose that we have no more access to the 
> cash than the guys who made the pile of bricks that the Tate Gallery bought 
> for a wheelbarrow full of money a few years back. The money goes to the 
> artist who makes the sale. In any case, if very minor changes could get the 
> artist/charlatan out of trouble, then, would the addition of a corporate 
> logo to your pride and joy really make you feel any better?

Bricks do make a good analogy for the items in an include library. I
would be flattered to see my texture used in a nice picture on Zazzle,
but I would be annoyed to see my whole scene with someone else's name on
it. I was focusing that argument on finished scenes.

> 
> The other issue raised by Sabrina and Nemesis is around whether users of the 
> collection should be required to contribute their work back to the 
> collection. My vote is that we don't impose such a restriction. Personally 
> I'd like to see a license that's about as close to public domain as we think 
> we can get. I'd prefer one that allows re-use for both commercial and 
> non-commercial purposes without needing to give credit to the original 
> authors. I'd also like people to be able to redistribute the files in 
> original or modified form. I think we should maybe suggest that giving 
> credit is polite, but not make it a licensing condition.
> 
> Am I out on my own now, or is anyone else thinking along the same lines?
> 
> Regards,
> Chris B. 
> 
> 



It seems like we are working backwards, going from established and known
licenses and taking out the parts we don't need. Let's start from the
ground and work up.

So, the issues I can think of are copyright, re-distribution of the
include, giving credit, commercial use, and re-distributing it under
another license.

I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
what ever they want with their piece of code. I also think that the
license should enforce the copyright notice in any re-packaged forms of
the include. It's a license for use, not a contract for sale of the items.

I also think the library as a whole should encourage giving credit to
the include and the author of the piece that is used, but I don't think
it needs to be a term in the license. It might be easier to use an
established license, but most of them enforce some display of copyright
being kept with the include file.

Now, re-distributing the entire include seems the easy part. Anyone who
downloads a copy should at least be able to pass it on under the same
terms they license they received it. I think they should also be able to
redistribute part of the include as well, since that would make
publishing scene code. I don't think it is necessary for this include to
force people using it to put any scene using it under the same license,
like the GPL would.

Stuff like the BSD and Creative Commons Attribution licenses would allow
them to then re-license it under any other license as well. That would
solve any problem with commercial use, since all someone would have to
do is re-license the library to them self under terms that would allow
it. If Pixar thinks we can make a better glass of water then they can, I
say we let them use it.

What I don't like about the very open licenses is that ability to take
the entire library and bury it in another program without even a mention
of it being used. This gets back into the problem of distributing the
code vs distributing the final work, but I would prefer to see this
license keep the include free. I like the terms of the LGPL for this,
but I'm not sure it could be tuned to non-executable use.

Finally, I did some more digging into GNU licenses and found the GFDL,
Free Document License. It would take more reading but it might be
possible to use something like that, similar to published computer
books. "The text (and whole library) is licensed under GFDL, and code
snippets (individual items or functions) are free to use in other
programs without attribution."  I haven't had time to really read it
yet, so that might not be possible, but now I'm going to check some
O'Reilly books to see how they word code licenses.

Post a reply to this message

Sabrina Kilian <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote:
> Chris B wrote:
> > We seem to have 100% vote for adopting a single license for the whole
> > collection (3 out of 3).

ah!  the destiny of many in the hands of so few!  come on, povvers!  vote
now! :)

> > I'm not sure that the GPL or LGPL licenses are all that appropriate because
> > they contain a lot of terminology that is exclusively oriented towards
> > software/programs rather than works of a creative or artistic nature (no
> > offence to application developers intended).

yes, indeed.

> > I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of available
> > Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or
> > disagree with that?

I agree.  In the previous thread, Gilles Tran also seemed to hint at CC, but
i won't put words into the mouths of others...

> > On the subject of scene files, I didn't necessarily see this as being a
> > place where finished scenes would go, although samples and example scene
> > files could accompany objects, textures, macros and include files to
> > illustrate their use.

Indeed.  I started a thread to update povray standard include files, not
demo scenes or the like.

> > The other issue raised by Sabrina and Nemesis is around whether users of the
> > collection should be required to contribute their work back to the
> > collection. My vote is that we don't impose such a restriction.

point taken.  I'm an admirer of the GPL way of doing collaborative work, but
can certainly see the benefits of more liberal schemes.  If CC is to be it,
let's get ahead with it! :)

> I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
> snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
> what ever they want with their piece of code.

That's right.  But i hope there's some provision in the license under which
he (the contributor) published his work that restricts if he suddenly
changes his mind and begin requesting the contribution to be dropped from
povray or something.  I mean, he has to abide by the terms under which he
originally licensed it.  If later he begin to develop other version of the
file and publishes under another license, that's his right, but the
original should still be under the original license so as to be used by
povray.

> I also think the library as a whole should encourage giving credit to
> the include and the author of the piece that is used, but I don't think
> it needs to be a term in the license. It might be easier to use an
> established license, but most of them enforce some display of copyright
> being kept with the include file.

This sounds like BSD.

> I don't think it is necessary for this include to
> force people using it to put any scene using it under the same license,
> like the GPL would.

not at all!  The LGPL scheme would work much better.  But i believe CC is
the way to go if not anyone more pronunciates about the subject...

Post a reply to this message

"Sabrina Kilian" <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
news:456b36c3@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>> I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of 
>> available
>> Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or
>> disagree with that?
>
> BSD and MIT licenses might also be an option, since they refer to source
> code, which SDL is, and binary form, which the final images would be. I
> didn't read them in their entirety, but I didn't see any references to
> 'program' or 'executable' in there.
>

These both seem good and short and I like the disclaimer, but they do seem 
to me still to be oriented towards application code. They both speak of 
software and although we could potentially draw parallels between software 
and SDL and between binaries and generated images, it does seem a bit like 
shoving a round peg in a square hole.
To me the Creative Commons vocabulary, such as 'work' and 'derivative work' 
seem to better fit what we create.

> www.opensource.org/licenses has several others that might work,
> depending on their wording. The Academic Free License looks wordy but
> seemed general enough to be used for everything.

There do seem to be quite a few  different licenses there to choose from. 
Would anyone like to do some homework on those?

>
> It seems like we are working backwards, going from established and known
> licenses and taking out the parts we don't need. Let's start from the
> ground and work up.
>

Good point. I think this list gives us an excellent way to compare the 
credentials of different licenses. I've tried to map the Creative Commons 
licenses against this list and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 
license seems to me to map pretty closely to what you've proposed.

>
> So, the issues I can think of are copyright, re-distribution of the
> include, giving credit, commercial use, and re-distributing it under
> another license.
>
> I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
> snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
> what ever they want with their piece of code.

Agreed. The original author would still have considerable rights, though 
they could not subsequently sell it under any 'exclusive' distribution 
agreement.
I think this leads into an issue that Nemesis has eluded to, that the 
release that we get the author to 'sign' when contributing the work under 
the terms of this license would have to be in perpetuity, otherwise they 
could change their minds later and cause no end of grief for people who had 
developed derivative works.

>
> I also think that the
> license should enforce the copyright notice in any re-packaged forms of
> the include. It's a license for use, not a contract for sale of the items.
>

This seems mostly consistent with the clause in the CC Attribution 
Share-Alike license that "lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work 
even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their 
new creations under the identical terms."
I assume this would mean they could modify your include with the same 
license on that include, but potentially a different license on other pieces 
of their own work that they distribute it with. I don't think this would 
stop them selling their work, which could include your work.

>
> I also think the library as a whole should encourage giving credit to
> the include and the author of the piece that is used, but I don't think
> it needs to be a term in the license. It might be easier to use an
> established license, but most of them enforce some display of copyright
> being kept with the include file.
>

The CC Attribution Share-Alike seems to cover that where they say they 
should 'credit you'

> Now, re-distributing the entire include seems the easy part. Anyone who
> downloads a copy should at least be able to pass it on under the same
> terms they license they received it. I think they should also be able to
> redistribute part of the include as well, since that would make
> publishing scene code. I don't think it is necessary for this include to
> force people using it to put any scene using it under the same license,
> like the GPL would.
>

From reading the CC Attribution Share-Alike, this seems to me to be covered 
by the clause for Collective Works. I think that cutting and pasting into 
another file would mean that the new file would have to come under the same 
license (being a derivative work), but the original include or the 
derivative work could be distributed as part of a group of files where the 
other files come under different licensing terms.

>
> Stuff like the BSD and Creative Commons Attribution licenses would allow
> them to then re-license it under any other license as well. That would
> solve any problem with commercial use, since all someone would have to
> do is re-license the library to them self under terms that would allow
> it. If Pixar thinks we can make a better glass of water then they can, I
> say we let them use it.
>
> What I don't like about the very open licenses is that ability to take
> the entire library and bury it in another program without even a mention
> of it being used. This gets back into the problem of distributing the
> code vs distributing the final work, but I would prefer to see this
> license keep the include free. I like the terms of the LGPL for this,
> but I'm not sure it could be tuned to non-executable use.
>

I think that the CC Attribution Share-Alike Clause 4c covers this quite well 
by requiring derivative works, which presumably includes graphics generated 
using your objects,  to include 'a credit identifying the use of the Work in 
the Derivative Work (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original 
Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author")' that 
appears "where any other comparable authorship credit appears and in a 
manner at least as prominent as such other comparable authorship credit".

>
> Finally, I did some more digging into GNU licenses and found the GFDL,
> Free Document License. It would take more reading but it might be
> possible to use something like that, similar to published computer
> books. "The text (and whole library) is licensed under GFDL, and code
> snippets (individual items or functions) are free to use in other
> programs without attribution."  I haven't had time to really read it
> yet, so that might not be possible, but now I'm going to check some
> O'Reilly books to see how they word code licenses.

The next closest is the Creative Commons Attribution License which is a more 
liberal license that just requires credit to be given for the work (and 
derivative works where reasonable), but allows subsequent redistribution 
under stricter licensing conditions. I don't think that the stricter license 
could subsequently stop people using the copy from povray.org, but could 
potentially prevent people from reusing some of the works derived from it.

Would anyone like to summarise how an alternative license maps to these 
proposed requirements.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:web.456b65696ea74aa99d738cb0@news.povray.org...
>
>
>> I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
>> snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
>> what ever they want with their piece of code.
>
> That's right.  But i hope there's some provision in the license under 
> which
> he (the contributor) published his work that restricts if he suddenly
> changes his mind and begin requesting the contribution to be dropped from
> povray or something.  I mean, he has to abide by the terms under which he
> originally licensed it.  If later he begin to develop other version of the
> file and publishes under another license, that's his right, but the
> original should still be under the original license so as to be used by
> povray.
>

If I understand you correctly, this would mean that the contributor would 
need to agree to the license in perpetuity. ie. They would need to give away 
the right to change their mind. Otherwise there could be consequences 
affecting all derivative works covered by the original license. I think we'd 
need to cover that in the release that the contributor 'signs' up to when 
contributing the work.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> If I understand you correctly, this would mean that the contributor would 
> need to agree to the license in perpetuity.

The expression I see used in contracts in the USA is "grants to the 
Client a non-exclusive, non-transferable, perpetual and royalty free 

whether you want it transferable, and the fact it isn't business use 
we're talking about.  Potentially adding "unlimited" or something, to 
indicate the author is giving up all the extra "rights" that europe 
gives to authors that the USA doesn't, like moral rights etc.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Scruffitarianism - Where T-shirt, jeans,
     and a three-day beard are "Sunday Best."

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> "Sabrina Kilian" <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
> news:456b36c3@news.povray.org...
>> Chris B wrote:
>>> I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of 
>>> available
>>> Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or
>>> disagree with that?
>> BSD and MIT licenses might also be an option, since they refer to source
>> code, which SDL is, and binary form, which the final images would be. I
>> didn't read them in their entirety, but I didn't see any references to
>> 'program' or 'executable' in there.
>>
> 
> These both seem good and short and I like the disclaimer, but they do seem 
> to me still to be oriented towards application code. They both speak of 
> software and although we could potentially draw parallels between software 
> and SDL and between binaries and generated images, it does seem a bit like 
> shoving a round peg in a square hole.
> To me the Creative Commons vocabulary, such as 'work' and 'derivative work' 
> seem to better fit what we create.
> 
>> www.opensource.org/licenses has several others that might work,
>> depending on their wording. The Academic Free License looks wordy but
>> seemed general enough to be used for everything.
> 
> There do seem to be quite a few  different licenses there to choose from. 
> Would anyone like to do some homework on those?

I've been trying to read one every few days, just to see what they read
like. So far, not much of a plot and no memorable characters.
> 
>> It seems like we are working backwards, going from established and known
>> licenses and taking out the parts we don't need. Let's start from the
>> ground and work up.
>>
> 
> Good point. I think this list gives us an excellent way to compare the 
> credentials of different licenses. I've tried to map the Creative Commons 
> licenses against this list and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 
> license seems to me to map pretty closely to what you've proposed.
> 
>> So, the issues I can think of are copyright, re-distribution of the
>> include, giving credit, commercial use, and re-distributing it under
>> another license.
>>
>> I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
>> snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
>> what ever they want with their piece of code.
> 
> Agreed. The original author would still have considerable rights, though 
> they could not subsequently sell it under any 'exclusive' distribution 
> agreement.
> I think this leads into an issue that Nemesis has eluded to, that the 
> release that we get the author to 'sign' when contributing the work under 
> the terms of this license would have to be in perpetuity, otherwise they 
> could change their minds later and cause no end of grief for people who had 
> developed derivative works.
> 

Define exclusive[1]. If it is exclusive from this point on, as in the
original author can not release the item again, then yes they could.

I also think there is a way around 'signing' anything. Look at the GPL
for example. If you modify a piece of code and release it back, it too
is GPL. Same works for CC- attribution and share-alike if it is a
derived work. The other way is to just ask them to put the text of the
license in the file they submit, or something like "This file is
licensed under SuchAndSuch, text found www.somewhere.com" No complicated
signing.

>> I also think that the
>> license should enforce the copyright notice in any re-packaged forms of
>> the include. It's a license for use, not a contract for sale of the items.
>>
> 
> This seems mostly consistent with the clause in the CC Attribution 
> Share-Alike license that "lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work 
> even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their 
> new creations under the identical terms."
> I assume this would mean they could modify your include with the same 
> license on that include, but potentially a different license on other pieces 
> of their own work that they distribute it with. I don't think this would 
> stop them selling their work, which could include your work.

"license their new creations under the identical terms." I'd say that is
pretty clear that derivative works have to be under the same CC
Attribution Share-Alike. It can be released commercially, but the way I
read it all of it would have to be under the same license.

I don't think that the Collective Works clause would fit cleanly with
this. Collective Works "means a work, such as a periodical issue,
anthology or encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in
unmodified form, along with a number of other contributions,
constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled
into a collective whole." If a scene is made, and any piece of it relies
on something in the include, this license would force the entire scene
into the same license.

This is the same thing that would come up if we could use GPL for this.



> 
>> I also think the library as a whole should encourage giving credit to
>> the include and the author of the piece that is used, but I don't think
>> it needs to be a term in the license. It might be easier to use an
>> established license, but most of them enforce some display of copyright
>> being kept with the include file.
>>
> 
> The CC Attribution Share-Alike seems to cover that where they say they 
> should 'credit you'
> 
>> Now, re-distributing the entire include seems the easy part. Anyone who
>> downloads a copy should at least be able to pass it on under the same
>> terms they license they received it. I think they should also be able to
>> redistribute part of the include as well, since that would make
>> publishing scene code. I don't think it is necessary for this include to
>> force people using it to put any scene using it under the same license,
>> like the GPL would.
>>
> 
> From reading the CC Attribution Share-Alike, this seems to me to be covered 
> by the clause for Collective Works. I think that cutting and pasting into 
> another file would mean that the new file would have to come under the same 
> license (being a derivative work), but the original include or the 
> derivative work could be distributed as part of a group of files where the 
> other files come under different licensing terms.
> 

I disagree. It would take a lawyer to decide if making a function call
would fall into Collective or Derivative Works. The difference might
come down to how much of the scene it takes up. We could also just
re-define Collective Works to make using the library less tricky.

>> Stuff like the BSD and Creative Commons Attribution licenses would allow
>> them to then re-license it under any other license as well. That would
>> solve any problem with commercial use, since all someone would have to
>> do is re-license the library to them self under terms that would allow
>> it. If Pixar thinks we can make a better glass of water then they can, I
>> say we let them use it.
>>
>> What I don't like about the very open licenses is that ability to take
>> the entire library and bury it in another program without even a mention
>> of it being used. This gets back into the problem of distributing the
>> code vs distributing the final work, but I would prefer to see this
>> license keep the include free. I like the terms of the LGPL for this,
>> but I'm not sure it could be tuned to non-executable use.
>>
> 
> I think that the CC Attribution Share-Alike Clause 4c covers this quite well 
> by requiring derivative works, which presumably includes graphics generated 
> using your objects,  to include 'a credit identifying the use of the Work in 
> the Derivative Work (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original 
> Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author")' that 
> appears "where any other comparable authorship credit appears and in a 
> manner at least as prominent as such other comparable authorship credit".
> 
>> Finally, I did some more digging into GNU licenses and found the GFDL,
>> Free Document License. It would take more reading but it might be
>> possible to use something like that, similar to published computer
>> books. "The text (and whole library) is licensed under GFDL, and code
>> snippets (individual items or functions) are free to use in other
>> programs without attribution."  I haven't had time to really read it
>> yet, so that might not be possible, but now I'm going to check some
>> O'Reilly books to see how they word code licenses.
> 
> The next closest is the Creative Commons Attribution License which is a more 
> liberal license that just requires credit to be given for the work (and 
> derivative works where reasonable), but allows subsequent redistribution 
> under stricter licensing conditions. I don't think that the stricter license 
> could subsequently stop people using the copy from povray.org, but could 
> potentially prevent people from reusing some of the works derived from it.
> 
> Would anyone like to summarise how an alternative license maps to these 
> proposed requirements.
> 
> Regards,
> Chris B.
> 
> 

And we could end up with a lot of copies of the library under many
different licenses. Someone later could submit a piece of GPL code to
another archive of it, and anything added to the second one could not
move back into the main archive.

So, what do we want to see it licensed as? Ignore the legal terms for a
while, and let's figure out what we want it to be. Then we can figure
out which license will work.

[1]Legalese seems to have to define every word, I work under the
assumption that even something like 'a' could be defined to be an
elephant if the contract is drawn correctly.

Post a reply to this message

Hello again,

"Sabrina Kilian" <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
news:456dfd09$1@news.povray.org...
>
> So, what do we want to see it licensed as? Ignore the legal terms for a
> while, and let's figure out what we want it to be. Then we can figure
> out which license will work.
>

Well I'm in favour of a very liberal license, so personally I'd be ok with 
the terms in the CC Attribution license or even the CC Public Domain 
Dedication (though, with the latter, as I understand it, each work would 
then need dedicating, which could be tedious for contributors). If we agreed 
to a more stringent license that afforded more protection to authors then I 
can always apply the more liberal terms to copies on my own web sites, so 
I'm not strongly opposed to a slightly more strict license either.

I think it's really picking a level that we feel won't deter potential 
contributors but that also won't stop the community from modifying and 
redistributing contributions, particularly back through this collection. 
Personally I'd prefer that they could modify and redistribute in other ways 
too (e.g. for profit), simply because I feel that people are more likely to 
invest their time in something where there's a prospect that they'll be free 
to use it in more or less any way they like in the future (but I can't prove 
that).

Regards,
Chris B.

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I'm really not particularly knowledgeable at the Creative Commons licenses,
being much more into open-source software licenses, particularly the GPL
and LGPL.  But from what i heard about CC they don't really seem to base
their licenses in copyright laws, instead trying to replace those with
something new.  While GPLed and LGPLed works are very much protected by
copyright law -- using it to effectively give the same rights to other
people -- it seems CC licenses are intended to replace copyright licenses.
I don't know how much protection authors take from their works under CC.
I'll have to take a look on it further... as of now, i'd go for a LGPL
license.

Sabrina, i don't think it'd be much of a problem if items from the
collection are licensed differently elsewhere, as long as we stick to what
we create here and other includes in the library only rely on stuff already
in there.  I mean, it doesn't matter that there is IronPython, Jython and
the likes:  the standard is CPython by the original author...

Chris B, you got me right.  If an author contributes work to the collection,
the license should provide a mechanism to ensure the contributed work is
there perpetually for use by anyone under the same rights it was originally
licensed.  Should the author change his mind, he can license further
modifications under other licenses and stop contributing it to povray if he
will, but can't deny others from using and modifying the original work in
the povray library.  He has to abide by the terms of the license and that's
why it should have such provision.

GPL licenses are famous for this fierce "freedom insurance"... :)

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