Ron Parker wrote:

> Thanks!  I'm doing Windows-y stuff, mainly.  I shouldn't talk about the other
> stuff.  That's how rumors get started. :)

A beg you patience in this question but what is "windows-y stuff" ?

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 850+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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On Fri, 03 Sep 1999 09:45:59 -0700, Ken wrote:
>
>
>Ron Parker wrote:
>
>> Thanks!  I'm doing Windows-y stuff, mainly.  I shouldn't talk about the other
>> stuff.  That's how rumors get started. :)
>
>A beg you patience in this question but what is "windows-y stuff" ?

Stuff having to do with Windows, mainly. You pronounce that word "windozee".

Basically, I'm helping Chris Cason with the Windows port and, at the moment
anyway, trying to help with the integration of superpatch stuff into 3.5.

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Ron Parker wrote:
 
> Stuff having to do with Windows, mainly. You pronounce that word "windozee".

I've been slanged !
      - ghost busters
 
> Basically, I'm helping Chris Cason with the Windows port and, at the moment
> anyway, trying to help with the integration of superpatch stuff into 3.5.

Thank you for the clarification.

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 850+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

Post a reply to this message

Ron Parker wrote:

> 
> Actually, there's another reason the team can't just get someone to build
> a SunOS version and send it to them: it might not be just a straightforward
> compile.  There might be problems with the port that would need to be
> resolved by someone who understands the OS it's running on.

I can agree with that point.  You must be speaking about future versions because
the current versions that I have ( 3.1e & 3.1g ) are no problem.  I imagine, I
hope, that future versions will take advantage of multi-processor systems and
thus there may be some interesting problems with a build.  Perhaps.

> I seem to
> recall that the team was looking for a member who could do SunOS work
> about a year ago, long before I was asked to join.  The lack of a current
> SunOS version is not for lack of _wanting_ one, it's for lack of someone
> who was willing to commit to the amount of very real work that's required
> to build a working version and stand behind it.

Well, the current versions of 3.1e and 3.1g work fine.  At least they seem to. 
I don't have any benchmark test to compare against.  I assume that if a bench
mark image was produced with no AA and no jitter then it would be possible to
test for a standard output for a given input.  With the absence of a calibration
reference, I can assume that my versions work well.  Would I stand behind them? 
No.  I have a fully booked life and my health will not allow another task.  Even
if it would be one that would be a passion. 

> 
> >Again, ask the question.  What difference does it make if you support the build on
Solaris
> >at all.  It is NOT supported now.  There has not been an official release of
POV-Ray for
> >Sun Solaris in how long?  A year?  Two?  The current version for SunOS or UNIX on
the
> >"Official" POV-Ray web site is so out of date that I am surprised that it is there
at all.
> 
> There are still 3.0 and earlier versions for other operating systems too.  Just
> because they're obsolete doesn't mean they're any less official.

I don't know if official matters anyway.  If a user could get a ready to go
tar-ball that unpacked into /usr/local and was ready to run, they would be
happy. 

> 
> >This is lip-service.  There is no need to buy a HP9000 system to build POV-Ray for
HPUX.
> >There is no need to buy a Sun Ultra 2300 for UltraSparc and Solaris 8.  (The
pre-release
> >for Solaris 8 is out)  Look at the size and number of the POV-Ray user community. 
I would
> >hazard to guess that most POV-Ray users are serious computer professionals.  How do
you
> >think that Linux bacame what it is today?  By allowing many people to participate
in the
> >open source concept and by using the talents of your vast user community.
> 
> True, to a point.  If you want to build the current source and contribute any
> source patches back to the team, there's nothing keeping you from doing that.
> There's also nothing keeping you from compiling a custom version and
> distributing it.  But I hope you understand how someone wouldn't want to stand
> behind and support a distribution that they couldn't even run, let alone test.
> 

I have had the thought.  I have read through some of the source and I'm not
clear on how all the modules work yet.  I don't know if I'd ever be.  I'd love
to make a project out of a complete rewrite that was multi-threaded and network
based but I have to pay for the house first.  :)

> 
> >If anyone wants my build, they can send an email and ask for it.  No problem.
> 
> If it's not too big, I'd be happy to host a binary on my website, such as it
> is.

I think I should just post my kit on a web page somewhere.  I was worried about
the transfer rate but since I have no idea what the demand will be, I should
just post it and see.  I was taking an inventory here and I find that I can
probaby build a single tar-ball that would have binaries for Solaris 2.5.1 (
x86, Sparc, UltraSparc ) and Solaris 7 ( Sparc & UltraSparc ).  At the moment I
am running on a Sun Ultra 10 and I have both the 3.1e and 3.1g binaries in
/usr/local/povray31.  I don't know why I keep both.  I was concerned that 3.1g
may have problems so I move slowly from version to version.  In any case, I'll
figure out how big an UltraSparc, Sparc, and x86 install kit would be.

> I'm sure someone dedicated could sort out the resulting minor legal
> mess and carry on the work.  But there's a kernel of truth to what you say: as
> I understand it, the reason there's not a 3.1 SunOS build is that the person on
> the team who was doing SunOS left to pursue other interests.  Last I heard, the
> position was still open.

Hmmmm.  I am wondering just how much work is involved.  As for dedication, well,
how many people do you know that have bought Sun hardware ( Sparc & UltraSparc )
for home use?  Very few because its damn expensive and you have to climb up that
UNIX learning curve.  Its just so much easier to click and point mindlessly with
Windows.  But then again, RedHat Linux and Caldera are looking really nice
lately.  And what about the recent purchase of StarDivision by Sun
MicroSystems?  Must be a trend here.  There may be a valid reason to support the
new 64bit UNIX hardware that will be usable by everyone.  But I wonder how much
work is involved.

> 
> Also, I get the impression that you think I'm speaking for the team here.  While
> I'm a member of the team, I don't presume to speak for them.  That's Chris
> Young's job.  I'm just stating my opinions, which would be roughly the same even
> if I weren't a member of the team.

That sounded like a disclaimer.  In all matters, we only speak for ourselves. 
We sometimes have the illusion of a group behind us, but they are usually behind
us, not beside us.

Dennis Clarke
dcl### [at] interlogcom

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Dennis Clarke wrote:

> > There are still 3.0 and earlier versions for other operating systems too.  Just
> > because they're obsolete doesn't mean they're any less official.
> 
> I don't know if official matters anyway.

> Dennis Clarke
> dcl### [at] interlogcom

The official status means the Pov team is dedicated to resolving bugs and
it becomes a customer service issue. If they don't build it they offer no
gaurantee that a platform specific bug will not be present and if they don't
have the resources for that platform they can't fix it anyway. It could
become a bug reporting nightmare for them. They will however make an honest
attempt to resolve bugs for the platforms they do "officialy" support. Seems
a reasonable policy if you stop to think about it.


-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 850+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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Ken wrote:

> The official status means the Pov team is dedicated to resolving bugs and
> it becomes a customer service issue. 

I didn't realize that there were customers.  If so, is there a public stock
offering? 

I've never paid a cent for POV-Ray but I've spent a lot of my valuable hours
with it.  I am certainly considering buying the two IRTC cdroms just for the
sake of paying for the joy of using POV-Ray.  I'd rather that there was a price
of $29.95 on the POV-Ray product itself as well as an activation key or license
number.  There would be no problem with the POV-Ray team buying the hardware
that they need and you would have a viable company.

Dennis Clarke
dcl### [at] interlogcom

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Make sure you've tried 'sturm' in the blob statement too. That way
you'd be sure to know somthings wrong.

Bob

Dennis Clarke <dcl### [at] interlogcom> wrote in message
news:37CF6BFB.7F10A043@interlog.com...
> Mark Wagner wrote:
> >
> >
> > Think of it this way:  Pass a ray of white light through a red
filter.  The
> > light that will come out will be red.  Then pass the resulting ray
of light
> > through a green filter.  Since red light contains no green, all of
the light
> > will be absorbed by the green filter.
> >
> > Mark
>
> Yep.  I get that quite clearly.  I was thinking of the mixing of
light sources as opposed
> to physical pigments.
>
> The real problem that I think I'm having ( yes, there are many :) )
is that the blob
> object behaves, well, very strangely.  Perhaps I'm doing something
very wrong but I have a
> blob object that just simply has chunks missing.  A smooth edge is
expected and instead I
> get a chunk missing with right angles.  There are dark regions where
no render takes place
> at all.  I'm currently rendering a six component blob with a
T_Chrome_5E texture and I'm
> producing the cpu histogram as well.  At 1280 x 960 resolution and a
max_trace_level of 32
> it will take a few minutes but thus far I can see the holes and
chunks missing.  I'll post
> a reasonably sized jpg to my web page when done and then perhaps I
can get some comments.
>
> Dennis Clarke
>
>  see   http://www.interlog.com/~dclarke/povray/broken_blob.html

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In article <37D02AE6.8A215053@interlog.com> , Dennis Clarke 
<dcl### [at] interlogcom>  wrote:
> Ken wrote:
>
>> The official status means the Pov team is dedicated to resolving bugs and
>> it becomes a customer service issue.
>
> I didn't realize that there were customers.  If so, is there a public stock
> offering?
>
> I've never paid a cent for POV-Ray but I've spent a lot of my valuable hours
> with it.  I am certainly considering buying the two IRTC cdroms just for the
> sake of paying for the joy of using POV-Ray.  I'd rather that there was a
price
> of $29.95 on the POV-Ray product itself as well as an activation key or
license
> number.  There would be no problem with the POV-Ray team buying the hardware
> that they need and you would have a viable company.

Here is something from the POV-Ray MacOS Read Me coming with the official
POV-Ray Mac version. Eduard Schwan wrote it a long, long time ago (I am
posting it here as Eduard doesn't read these newsgroups regularly as far as
I know). I think what it says is still valid, perhaps even more:

>>>

Why does the team do this for free?

Here's a letter I sent somebody long ago to explain the mission of the team:

"Thank you very much for your interest in compensating us team members
somehow, and I personally  appreciate your excitement and enthusiasm, as do
the other team members, and in fact, that's mostly  what we live for!  But
as far as any kind of compensation goes, it turns out to be a really
difficult thing to  deal with *fairly*.  First, we are spread all over the
world, USA, Germany, Holland, Australia, Denmark, etc...  Second of all,
different team members have been on "the team" for different lengths of
time and contributed different amounts of work.  I for example, have been on
the team for several years,  but only contributed a couple of things to the
main cross-platform POV-Ray engine (most notably the  Mosaic Preview.)  I am
the Mac OS team member, and have lately been single-handedly building the
Mac OS front-end for POV-Ray.  Third, this is being run as a cooperative
distributed hobby, not a for- profit business.  So let's say we pour a bunch
of money into a pot somewhere, who gets what  percentage? Do I get the same
percentage as Chris Young who has put more work into the project in the
past few months than I have in the past few years?  Do we all get free
Microsoft Windows compilers,  useless to me and the Unix guys. Mostly what
happens is our nice team comeraderie turns into a bitter  feud for divvying
up the spoils (BTW, this is spoken from direct team experience from long
ago.)  So  instead, each of us uses the ray tracer to make friends, show
off, create cool movies, write and sell  books and CD-ROMs, etc.  Since the
team treats this as a spare time fun activity, the joy we get comes  from
lots of people doing great things with POV-Ray, simple as that.  This also
explains why it takes  some time for us to come out with new versions... we
are working on it in what little time there is  between career and family.
Hopefully this helps explain some of the problems involved in getting money
for a team hobby.  Also,  please note that this is my personal set of
opinions and observations as a POV-Ray Team member, but I  do not speak for
any other team members or the team as a whole.  Other team members may feel
differently, and that is part of what makes this such a wonderful group of
people to work with! Happy Ray Tracing, and go show POV-Ray to your friends
and coworkers! Eduard Schwan -- POV- Ray Team Mac Dude"

<<<

Note: This statement is a private one from Eduard. I completely agree with
it. However, neither Eduard or I do speak for the POV-Team, opinions
expressed are our own ones, only!


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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