Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> From my
> point of view, for an include to become part of the 'standard' repository,
> the use of the include must be free of restrictions, in much the same way as
> the current official includes are.

you mean, like as in "no attribution required" and "no viral source code
disclose required"?

You know, i'm kinda having this feeling that people will not be submitting
overly complex models or textures by fear of someone using it barely
modified and selling a poster at Zazzle.  But you know what?  That's ok.

That's ok because the purpose of the collection isn't to have the best of
the best of what povray is capable of.  Its purpose, as i see it, is to
have a minimally decent *and* useful include file library for povray from
the get-go.

Right now, povray include files have abstract things like math.inc or
functions.inc for the mathematically inclined who love fractals or just
want to quickly render a shape-perfect witch hat or pillow.  There's also
rune's make_grass and... oh, that's about it.  Pretty slim if you ask me.
Then, there are a few sample scenes which, while perhaps impressive some 10
years ago, do not show what povray can do very well.

Really, i hope this effort don't get people overstressed into trying to put
everything into the collection or wary of contributing anything.  Let's not
rely much on code donation -- which would help a lot i admit -- but instead
focus on collaborativelly thinking about what useful objects, textures and
macros would please most povray users and put them there!  It doesn't need
to be an overly detailed fridge, chairs from the 19th century Victorian era
or an incredibly detailed and greebled Star Wars Battleship.  Let's instead
focus on covering the basics and get it truly useful.

Besides, i don't know how some poor fellow will make any money off ripping
povray standard objects if anyone can render it and have the same idea...
it's much like photocopying the Mona Lisa and wanting to sell at
Sotheby's...

> NB I'd also suggest that, as a standard, all includes from the repository
> have a test in them like the following:
>
>   #ifndef (Attributed_Includes_OK)
>     #error "This include file requires attribution"
>   #end

This is a simple and effective idea to deal with it! :)

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