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Alessio Sangalli wrote:
| Now, you just said POV-4 will be GPLv3. Jerome said he thinks it
won't.
| Any better place to ask or *read*? Is the code for POV-4 available
| somewhere to review and help with the effort?
|
	Well, I thought I remembered a discussion in which it was said that
POV would not move to GPL, although the precise license wasn't
determined yet and things may have changed since. However Thorsten
is supposed to be the official spokesperson for the POV-team so I
guess his words carry more weight than mine here :)

		Jerome
- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
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Warp wrote:
| "J�r�me M. Berger" <jeb### [at] freefr> wrote:
|> |   "Free", in common parlance, means "you don't have to pay
anything to
|> | use it". Period. POV-Ray *is* free. You don't have to pay anything.
|> |
|>         That is actually the twelfth (!) definition in my dictionary
|> (Collins Cobuild). The first eleven definitions deal with free as in
|> "freedom" (i.e not a prisoner or not restricted)
|
|   Which doesn't make sense with software, because a program is not
a person.
|
|   Can you say, for example, that a book is "free", according to those
| definitions? What would that even mean? That it's not imprisoned?
|
|   No, if you say that a book is free, it means you don't have to
pay for it.
|
|> or free as in
|> "available" (i.e "Is this seat free?").
|
|   Again, it doesn't make too much sense in relation to software.
What would
| it mean for a software to be "available"? With physical objects it
makes
| more sense because there's only one of it, and someone may have
reserved
| it for himself, so it's not available to others.
|
|   The only stretched meaning for "available" with respect to software
| would be as a synonym for "in distribution". In other words, the
| software in question is being distributed, and not kept closed
somewhere
| where people don't have any access to it. Again, "free" doesn't
describe
| that situation at all.
|
|   Even if you say "freely available", that usually means, in
common parlance,
| that you don't have to pay for it.
|
	You would think that in the eleven dictionary definitions that come
before "you don't have to pay" there would be one that fit, and lo!
There is! The first definition states:

1. Someone or something that is free is not restricted, controlled
or limited, for example by rules, customs, or other people.

	This is perfectly applicable to software and has nothing to do with
how much you pay. Of course, by this definition GPL software isn't
any more free than POV, but that was my point...

		Jerome
- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
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Alessio Sangalli <ale### [at] manowebcom> wrote:
> Warp, are you a POV-ray developer?

  I have contributed some code and documentation to POV-Ray, although
I couldn't call myself a "POV-Ray developer" per se.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 13-Jul-08 0:39, Alessio Sangalli wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> 
>>   Will people PLEASE stop using the term "free software" to mean what
>> the FSF has distorted it to mean? Pretty please?
> 
> 
> Those are terms with a very well know meaning in the software scene.
> 
No, it is used in various subscenes differently. You are currently not 
in a environment that agrees with FSF on this one.* Perhaps you are in 
your normal job/study in a group that does, in which case you need a 
context switch when coming here. ;)

*) the reasons why some people may overreact a little here to your 
question are that 1) it has been asked over and over again yet the 
license file is very clear and 2) people have moved POV out the list of 
free software in some packages because it does not comply to some 
arbitrary definition, thereby suggesting that POV costs money to use.

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andrel  wrote in message <487### [at] hotmailcom>:
> No, it is used in various subscenes differently.

That is true, but most uses differ only on details, and agree on the major
points, and in particular the right to re-distribute modified versions for a
fee.

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On 14-Jul-08 9:54, Nicolas George wrote:
> andrel  wrote in message <487### [at] hotmailcom>:
>> No, it is used in various subscenes differently.
> 
> That is true, but most uses differ only on details, and agree on the major
> points, and in particular the right to re-distribute modified versions for a
> fee.

I wasn't aware of that, i.e. I have apparently not been a member of a 
major subscene of computer users. So, for these people POV-Ray is not a 
free program because there is no way you can sell it? Reminds me of that 
story that Obama is not black because his parents are born in Africa. 
Absolutely counterintuitive but true for a particular definition of 
'free' resp. 'black'. Well, you live and learn.

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andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I wasn't aware of that, i.e. I have apparently not been a member of a 
> major subscene of computer users. So, for these people POV-Ray is not a 
> free program because there is no way you can sell it?

  To them "free" means "you can sell it for a price". And they don't see
any contradiction in that.

  Anyways, another issue they have is that you can't take portions of
the POV-Ray source code and use them in a different program.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp  wrote in message <487bb1d8@news.povray.org>:
>   To them "free" means "you can sell it for a price". And they don't see
> any contradiction in that.

If you say it that way "You are not forbidden to do it", that makes more
sense.

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On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:06:48 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   To them "free" means "you can sell it for a price". And they don't see
> any contradiction in that.

There isn't an inherent contradiction in that unless you insist that 
"free" means "at no cost".  Words do have more than a single definition, 
typically. ;-)

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Words do have more than a single definition, typically. ;-)

  Tell that to the FSF.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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