On Mon, 06 Jul 1998 04:06:47 GMT, new### [at] DESPAMpovrayorg
(povray.org admin team) wrote:

>>I guess it's time to start working on that raytracer of my own.  It's
>>been nice working with all you POV guys, but working under the
>>ever-tightening constraints of povlegal is getting to be too much of a
>>pain in the ass.
>
>We don't tighten POVLEGAL for fun. Every time we (reluctantly) add something
>like this to POVLEGAL it's as a result of someone doing something. I guess you
>could say that it's a classic example of the irresposible few ruining it for
>the rest.
>
>As POV gets more and more popular we will come across more and more instances
>of people trying to leverage it for their own personal financial gain. POVLEGAL
>is a response to that.

I understand that, and I can even sympathize, having been on your side
of it.  I think I've worked out my problem anyway, while finding a
hole in POVLEGAL that y'all might want to patch: it forbids changes to
the existing interfaces, but doesn't say anything about adding new
interfaces, except for the other paragraphs that specifically mention
dynamic-linking interfaces like DLL and OLE.

Just in case it wasn't obvious in my previous diatribe, I'd like to
write a plugin system for POV to help keep the number of autonomous
patches lower, and to make custom objects and textures more portable
between versions of POV, but it's not obvious that I can anymore.  For
more details on what I'm talking about, see the recent conversation in
CGRR.

If this is within the spirit, if not exactly the letter, of POVLEGAL,
can I get a clarification by email from the POV-Team that it's
allowed?  I'd be happy to put any licensing provisions on the plugin
SDK that the Team feels are reasonable, including a prohibition on
commercial plugins, if they feel that's appropriate.

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