On 21-5-2017 15:29, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Le_Forgeron <jgr### [at] freefr> wrote:

>
>> I would rather like to call for a way to bring all those
>>> goodies produced over the years to the easy access of everybody
>>> interested, like the Objects Collection. I think it is a pity that so
>>> much has gone into oblivion.
>
> Indeed.   I have wondered if there were an "advanced civilization", would we
> have any [recognizable] record of/from them - everything could be on a chip the
> size, shape, and color of a grain of sand, and it could be protected / encrypted
> or otherwise obfucscated.
>
> I have seen a LOT of great ideas developed in the POV-Ray world, and it would be
> a wonderful thing to have as much of a record of that as we could.
>
>> there would be a need for some classification/keyword to help the
>> exploration, and I'm afraid that legal issue might block a bit.
>
>
https://www.ip-watch.org/2008/07/07/intellectual-property-regime-stifles-science-and-innovation-nobel-laureates-say/
>
https://www.fastcodesign.com/1669150/watch-how-ip-laws-destroy-creativity-instead-of-encouraging-it
>
>> Obviously, the Object Collection, due to licensing, is not suitable for
>> such second-hand utilities.
>> Moreover, it's outdated and hand-written.
>
>
>> I would think about something like wikimedia might be a possible
>> solution: one page per contributions, using [[category:Name]] in text to
>> put keyword.
>> And the page should provides the credit as well as much information as
>> possible.
>>
>> Protection against spamming is another problem to keep in mind.
>
> Along the same lines that I was thinking about the "monthly contest" - I might
> suggest that something along the lines of "document / rewrite and old concept"
> would be interesting.
> In a way, the fact that some things are lost / outdated / no longer work with
> 3.7.1-greek.number may be a benefit.
>
> A completely lost scene or include file could be reconstructed from scratch, by
> new authors, and give things a fresh start.
>
> Older scenes, include files, and code can be cleaned up, "adequately" commented,
> and written to work well with the newest stable version.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
>
> Certainly it would be kind and "proper" to acknowledge work done by others,
> include historical notes about who made such a scene first, and other
> attributions.
>
> But, having thought about IP for a long time, it seems that there ought to be
> some sort of threshold that needs to be crossed before it may be invoked, and
> there certainly needs to be some limit to how long one may claim such a
> protection.
>
> IP is supposed to be a courtesy - not trammels and a straightjacket.
> Do we want people to USE POV-Ray, make new scenes, and contribute to community,
> inspiration, learning, and posting new renders?
> People can make whatever they want, and it can be "theirs", but one guy can't
> make a mirrored sphere on a blue checkered plane, and then say that the guy who
> makes a sphere on a RED checkered plane has in some way "injured" him.  Or
> worse, because he plugged in a certain arrangement of coefficients into the
> polynomial{} directive, that he may now lay claim to every subsequent instance
> of that - done by anyone, forever after.
>
> Imagine: "I own the exclusive RIGHT to ANY x^2+Y^2+z^2 = r^2 on an alternating
> <r,g,b, f, t> Ax+By+Cz+D !"
>
>
> I do think that a way of collecting and indexing such things ought to be found -
> it seems that something like GitHub would be a good way to do that.
> Only those registered could post code or commentary.
>
> Having some form of header that included robust version control would be an
> excellent thing, considering how much continuing work goes into such tools as
> the isosurface approximator, screen.inc, bordered characters, and many many
> others.
>
>

In calling this to the general attention, I was indeed fully aware of 
the different problems involved. They are not easy to solve I guess. 
Licensing is tricky. Many goodies were just brought to us out of 
courtesy without - I suppose - any idea of restricting their use within 
the limits of what is fair and proper like mentioning original author 
and subsequent changes, and/or a known use history, and some form of 
self-imposed use restriction. Still, there is an immense variety of 
things going from snippets of code to complete scenes and that is 
difficult to manage properly.

I am no expert on this but if knowledgeable people could assess the 
potentialities of wikimedia or github, I and many here would certainly 
be most grateful indeed.


-- 
Thomas

Post a reply to this message