On Thu, 22 Apr 1999 14:47:57 -0400, TonyB <ben### [at] panamaphoenixnet> wrote:
>So what you're saying is that this can be added to POV if we forget about the DOS
>platform? So be it! (Unless the DOS users who post to their newsgroup so often
>complain about it).

First, keep in mind that those DOS users have only had a newsgroup for a few 
days now.  Many of them probably don't even know the newsgroup exists yet.

Second, there are still a lot of issues with portability of shared library 
implementations.  They aren't all implemented the same way, and of course
there's no standard way of using them.  This could be shuffled off to the
platform-specific code for each platform like the display code is, but 
unlike display code, plugins would quickly become an essential element of
POV.  It's not good to have essential parts of the code be platform-dependent.

Third, there's no way you're going to be able to get the people who write 
plugins to compile a version for every platform out there, so if I write
a plugin to do, say, a hexagon tile pattern, and compile it for Windows 
only, it will be unavailable to those who use MacOS or Linux, whereas if
I write a patch to POV, I am required to release the source so anyone 
else can compile it for their platform of choice.

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