On Wed, 8 Apr 1998 20:44:13 -0600, "Charles Krause"
<osi### [at] cheerfulcom> wrote:

>The problem with these various 'superpatch' compilations is that they all
>have unique features :) I have THREE versions of PovRay now :)
>
>1) The 'Official' Version
>2) TMPov ( for the array and height field functions )
>3) The Isosurface patch version.
>
>Time for a new version absorbing all known patches?

That's the goal of the "superpatch."  My superpatch doesn't have the
array functionality, because I haven't downloaded the source to TMPov
nor gotten the go-ahead from Twyst/Jamis on incorporating their
changes into my code, but it will have an alternative to the
height-field functions that is actually more versatile and could be
used to write a rudimentary collision-detection .INC file.  My goal in
this project was to consolidate all known patches into one big patch,
then encourage others to patch it, rather than the official version.

I wrote my opinion on this matter on December 4, in povray.general.
If your newsreader allows you to, you should be able to go read that
posting, but the gist of it is that I think there should be some
central depository for the "official unofficial version" of POV, with
all current patches applied.  Aspiring patch-writers should work with
that version, so as to keep the namespace clean and make getting all
the patches easier.  

Eventually, maybe even the POV-Team would work with that version and
we could get closer to the model espoused by Linux, Mozilla, and other
free-software projects.  A good model for the POV-Team to follow would
be Netscape's role in the Mozilla project: anyone can do anything they
want with Mozilla, the patches are kept at a central location on a
voluntary basis (you don't have to submit your patch, but you're
encouraged to) and Netscape then takes the whole body of work and
makes the official "Netscape" product using just the parts they feel
are worthy.  

None of this is outside the scope of the current POVLEGAL, so perhaps
it would be sufficient for us peons to organize to create one big
patch, then humbly submit it to the POV-Team for inclusion in the next
version.

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