> dependant format), it would mean longer downloads for everybody and more 
> bandwidth consumption for the server, and would only be of slight 
> benefit to very few people.

	Have you seen the filesizes of the povray sources ? Currently it's:
- windows source code: 4.5 MB
- mac source code: 3.4 MB
- unix source code: 6.5 MB

	Wow, so UNIX is quite a looser here.
	Now let's detail two of the packages, windows source code and unix
source code. Both can be unpacked _correctly_ on my linux box, and it would
be the same if I unpacked the unix .tgz file under Windows.


- windows source code (uncompressed):
source:  14308 kB (including supporting libs: 10208 kB)
windows:  4184 kB
for a total of 18556 kB


- unix source code (uncompressed):
doc:      9388 kB
scenes:   6384 kB
src:      7364 kB
for a total of 25056 kB

recompressing everything without doc and scenes (keeping include, script,
tests and ini, while at least the first two should also be distributed
seperately since they are not required for compiling the software):

povray-3.50c-src.tar.gz = 2.3 MB
povray-3.50c-src.tar.bz2 = 2.0 MB

	Just for the sources there's already more than 4 MB wasted in the
unix distribution. I do not download docs and scenes as often as I download
sources because they don't change as frequently, and those changes do not
impact the software capabilities itself.

	What should be done, IMHO:
1) Give only source code in the source file (!), and required docs such as
    povlegal and installation instructions.
2) Source code should contain supporting libraries in all platforms
3) Provide docs in as many formats as possible (HTML, XML, PDF, HLP, DOC...)
    on a seperate download.
4) Scenes, includes are not _required_ for povray to work: give them as
    seperate downloads.
5) Unify all that stuff and you've got a common source file for everybody,
    common help files (in different formats) for everybody, common scenes/include
    files for everybody.

	I don't see where's the problem here. So many projects are basically
doing so, I don't think it's only by chance or because people are lambs.

	Please note that it's _still_ only suggestions. I'm not (and won't
probably be) a POV-Team member, so I don't impose my will to the community.

	- NC

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