In article <3C47A740.A76C59F7@sw-tech.com>, Deaken <dwy### [at] sw-techcom> 
wrote:

> <URL:http://www.perl.com/pub/a/language/misc/Artistic.html> is, as
> usual, my suggestion.

Looks interesting, I'll take a look at it. I assume I can change 
licenses with later releases if I want...the code is mine, right?
Hopefully I'll be uploading an alpha of CSDL later today...I'll probably 
just cook up a "do not redistribute or use this code" statement, at 
least until it gets out of alpha/beta stage.
The complete lack of response this got is surprising considering the 
past discussion POV-Ray licensing has received...maybe putting 
"Licensing" in the subject line will help. ;-)

-- 
 -- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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Christopher James Huff wrote:
> 
> Looks interesting, I'll take a look at it. I assume I can change
> licenses with later releases if I want...the code is mine, right?
> Hopefully I'll be uploading an alpha of CSDL later today...I'll probably
> just cook up a "do not redistribute or use this code" statement, at
> least until it gets out of alpha/beta stage.
> The complete lack of response this got is surprising considering the
> past discussion POV-Ray licensing has received...maybe putting
> "Licensing" in the subject line will help. ;-)
> 

I suppose the main reason for the lack of interest are the problems
understanding what this can be good for, if you release something
including samples for usage i think the interest will be larger (assuming
it's really something useful of course... ;-))

The Perl Artistic License has the advantage that it forces a distinction
of the original version and custom extensions, apart from that it's much
like GPL i think.

Christoph

-- 
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other 
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/

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In article <3C49A342.98185D79@gmx.de>,
 Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote:

> I suppose the main reason for the lack of interest are the problems
> understanding what this can be good for, if you release something
> including samples for usage i think the interest will be larger (assuming
> it's really something useful of course... ;-))

That's somewhat like wondering what C can be good for...
CSDL is a programming language. It is intended to be far easier to learn 
than C, and useful for doing any mathematics, simulations, etc. It has a 
library that can output POV-Script, manage scene options, and call 
POV-Ray, so CSDL can be used to describe scenes. It will also eventually 
be able to draw its own graphics with OpenGL, so you could get real-time 
visualizations of simulations or previews of scenes.

There are many things that are difficult to do in POV because of the 
limitations of its language, or which are just too slow to parse, such 
as particle systems, mesh bone animation, other animation methods, etc. 
CSDL is intended to make this a lot easier. In addition, it is a kind of 
"proof of concept" for some of my ideas for future modifications to the 
POV-Script language, to show that the ideas are actually useful.


> The Perl Artistic License has the advantage that it forces a distinction
> of the original version and custom extensions, apart from that it's much
> like GPL i think.

I really know virtually nothing about licensing. Do you know of any web 
sites with information for people new to this kind of thing?

-- 
 -- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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Christopher James Huff wrote:
> 
> That's somewhat like wondering what C can be good for...
> [...]

I know, you already gave quite a lot of description, but that's not the
same as actually seeing a sample simulation.  

> In addition, it is a kind of
> "proof of concept" for some of my ideas for future modifications to the
> POV-Script language, to show that the ideas are actually useful.

Having POV-Ray's internal functions available in such a simulation
language (like 'trace' and all the patterns for example) would be very
nice, but i guess this won't happen in the near future.

> 
> I really know virtually nothing about licensing. Do you know of any web
> sites with information for people new to this kind of thing?
> 

See for example:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

Christoph

-- 
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other 
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/

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In article <3C49B44C.57404C62@gmx.de>,
 Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote:

> Having POV-Ray's internal functions available in such a simulation
> language (like 'trace' and all the patterns for example) would be very
> nice, but i guess this won't happen in the near future.

Well, part of the math library will include functions for intersecting 
rays with shapes, but it won't be related to POV-Ray in any way. It is 
limited to generating a scene and telling POV to render it.
CSDL itself is completely separate from POV, it just has a "system()" 
function that lets other programs be started.


> See for example:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

It looks like a list of licenses, similar to:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html

What I'm currently looking for is information on licensing software, not 
on the licenses.

-- 
 -- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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Here it is, first alpha release. If anyone wants to do a Windows/Linux 
port, just say so.

Supports:
while loops, if-else conditionals
objects
functions with parameters
1D arrays
file output
mathematical expressions. No boolean operators, just +-*/. Parentheses 
should work, but are untested. Vectors and scalars work.

To-do for next release:
boolean operators
global variables
general code cleanup, especially the parser
function return values
better documentation/sample files


I just realized I forgot to document the syntax of the CSDL 
interpreter...though it is pretty obvious, "csdl INPUT_FILE". Make sure 
the executable is alongside the "library" directory or all the files are 
in the same directory, or CSDL won't be able to find the library files.
BTW, if you attempt to run the library files, they will print 
information about the file.

Source code (20KB):
homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl_source.tgz

Documentation, example files, library files (12KB):
homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl_dist.tgz

Mac OS X compile (208KB):
homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl_macosx.tgz

-- 
 -- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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Christopher James Huff wrote:
> 
> In article <3C47A740.A76C59F7@sw-tech.com>, Deaken <dwy### [at] sw-techcom>
> wrote:
> 
> > <URL:http://www.perl.com/pub/a/language/misc/Artistic.html> is, as
> > usual, my suggestion.
> 
> Looks interesting, I'll take a look at it. I assume I can change
> licenses with later releases if I want...the code is mine, right?

I don't know.  I've seen it done, but I've seen people argue that even the
creator is bound by the license.  My guess is that if you do change
licenses, nobody's going to bother to do anything about it.  If they have a
problem, they'll use an earlier version that has a license that they like. 
It is not something that I've been forced to deal with yet, as most of my
released projects have been very simple and have required neither
maintenance nor feature additions.

Deaken

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Christopher James Huff wrote:
> 
> Here it is, first alpha release. If anyone wants to do a Windows/Linux
> port, just say so.
> [...]
> 
> Source code (20KB):
> homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl_source.tgz
> 
> Documentation, example files, library files (12KB):
> homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl_dist.tgz
> 
> Mac OS X compile (208KB):
> homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl_macosx.tgz
> 

Those links don't seem to work, i can get 'homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/'
but none of the 3 files is accessible.

Christoph

-- 
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other 
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/

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Deaken <dwy### [at] sw-techcom> writes:
> > Looks interesting, I'll take a look at it. I assume I can change
> > licenses with later releases if I want...the code is mine, right?
> 
> I don't know.  I've seen it done, but I've seen people argue that even the
> creator is bound by the license.

IANAL, but if you are the only contributor to the code base, it's all
under your copyright. So when you do a new release, you're free to
choose another license.

What you can't do is to change the license of an old release, like
this:

  1. Release foobar-0.1 under GNU GPL (thus making it free for all).

  2. Develop foobar-0.2 and release it with some evil proprietary
     license which prohibits people from copying/modifying foobar.

  3. Demand that all use of foobar-0.1 comply with the new license.

As long as you're only doing 1 & 2 there's no problem (well, depending
on your point of view there might be some moral problems, and people
are likely to complain...), but you can't legally do 3.

> My guess is that if you do change licenses, nobody's going to bother
> to do anything about it. If they have a problem, they'll use an
> earlier version that has a license that they like.

I think so too. Though I also think that changing license to something
more prohibitive is going to make some people angry.


My suggestion for licensing is: don't make up a new one yourself,
since a) you would probably need lawyer help to ensure it is good
enough, b) the world already has enough licenses. :-)

Else, I would suggest GNU GPL because choosing that makes it possible to
share code with the rest of the GNU world and avoid license wars with
various parties (that's the pragmatic reason, anyway). And then you
don't have to worry that someone will steal your code and abuse it in
some future commercial product.

-- 
Ole Laursen
http://sunsite.dk/olau/

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In article <3C4AA1F5.298177D8@gmx.de>,
 Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote:

> Those links don't seem to work, i can get 'homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/'
> but none of the 3 files is accessible.

Oops...these should work:

Source code (20KB):
homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl/csdl_source.tgz

Documentation, example files, library files (12KB):
homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl/csdl_dist.tgz

Mac OS X compile (208KB):
homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/csdl/csdl_macosx.tgz

-- 
 -- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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