On Tue, 6 Apr 1999 17:27:56 -0700, "Ray Gardener"
<ray### [at] daylongraphicscom> wrote:

>Good programs never stagnate; they either get better
>or get eclipsed by something else. POV-Ray is maturing
>into what will (hopefully) be true production class,
>and that's a different environment than a bunch of
>people writing raytracing code for fun. You don't
>see Linus Torvalds getting upset when some commercial
>enterprise makes money off Linux, because he's
>happy just to have created it, regardless of
>what happens after. He'd be upset if someone were to
>wind up owning Linux, but the protections have
>already been put into place to prevent that, I think.

There's nothing wrong with using POV for production work. The thing
they're trying to prevent is someone taking the POV renderer and using
it as the core of a commercial program.  It's sorta the same idea that
lies behind the GPL: this code was developed by lots of people over a
very long time, and many of the people involved donated their work for
the good of the community.  For that work to instead be used to line
the pockets of some unscrupulous person of corporation is anathema.

Now, I happen to think the GPL would do just as good a job of
protecting that investment as would the current license, except for
the clauses that prohibit specific parties from distributing POV.  But
it's not my program, so I don't get to decide that.

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