This is an offshoot from the thread "povray standard include files" to 
discuss licensing, copyright and release authorisations. The idea is to have 
an area on povray.org where a collection of objects, textures and include 
files, contributed by the POV-Ray community can be held so that anyone can 
download and use them in their scenes (potentially with certain constraints, 
as defined by a license).

I should start by saying that I'm not an expert in this field.

Warp explained that there's no fireproof way of explicitly placing work into 
the public domain (or at least, none that works effectively under all legal 
systems). Also, whether the originator of a piece of work explicitly claims 
copyright or not, they still retain rights over that work, including rights 
to decide who can reproduce the work and how. The copyright owner can give 
rights to others through a license or a release.

If I understand correctly, a release is simply a statement that you've 
genuinely got the right to license something and that you're willing to do 
so. In this context it could be that, when you submit something for 
distribution on the povray server that you state that you understand the 
origins of the content, that you do have distribution rights and that you 
are happy for that work to be distributed (in accordance with the terms of 
distribution covering the collection). I therefore think the release will 
probably be a standard piece of text that you can copy into a note 
accompanying a submission to the collection.

I think that licensing is the thing that needs most discussion. One option 
is for each person to define their own license and include information 
within their submission about the terms of their license. Personally I think 
this would be a minefield for people wishing to use the files and I don't 
think it would really differentiate this collection from the many assorted 
files available around the Internet.

I would rather see a standard license that would cover this entire 
collection and I think the main candidates are:
  o  The POV-Ray license
  o  A Creative Commons License (see 
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses)
  o  Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/)
  o  A custom license covering this collection

My view is that having an area on povray.org where all of the contributions 
can be re-used without any preconditions (or with a very minimal agreed 
standard set) would be good for POV-Ray and would make an important 
differentiator for this collection over other object and include file sites. 
This would also mean that the POV-Ray community could freely enhance these 
contributions over the years without having to get permission from previous 
contributors who may now be uncontactable. The downside is that it may 
discourage some contributors from submitting their work.

Any thoughts/ideas welcome.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Let me begin by telling this is a very good follow up on the previous
discussion. :)

"Chris B" <c_b### [at] btconnectcomnospam> wrote:
> I think that licensing is the thing that needs most discussion. One option
> is for each person to define their own license and include information
> within their submission about the terms of their license.

I believe this would be too cumbersome and eligible to many legal nitpicks.

> I would rather see a standard license that would cover this entire
> collection

me too!

> and I think the main candidates are:
>   o  The POV-Ray license

the problem with this one is:  wouldn't we fall into the same problem we
have with povray license today, where people who previously contributed
code to povray itself are unreacheable and thus the license has to remain
the same until the planned 4.0 rewrite?  I mean, if i submit a povray scene
which comes included with povray and is licensed under the current povray
license, will it be able to be included in next povray releases in case of
license change that reveals itself conflicting with the previous license?
Unless we explicitely stated that the scenes are licensed under current or
future povray licenses.

>   o  A Creative Commons License (see
> http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses)
>   o  Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication
> (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/)

This could be nice, specially since they're stabilished liberal licenses
that exist well outside of povray's realm.  I would also put the GPL or BSD
licenses under consideration.  The BSD is the classical liberal license,
allowing the code to be used for any purposes, by anyone.  The GPL is the
one conclaiming people modifying GPLed code to also distribute the
modifications IF redistributing the modified binary.  In the case of povray
scenes, i guess if people modify a pov scene and distribute the modified
generated jpg or png, they should also distribute the modifications to the
source scene file.  I don't know how compatible the GPL is to the povray
distribution so that eventual GPLed include files could be distributed with
it.

>   o  A custom license covering this collection

i'm really against Yet Another License For The Sake of It...

> My view is that having an area on povray.org where all of the contributions
> can be re-used without any preconditions (or with a very minimal agreed
> standard set) would be good for POV-Ray and would make an important
> differentiator for this collection over other object and include file sites.
> This would also mean that the POV-Ray community could freely enhance these
> contributions over the years without having to get permission from previous
> contributors who may now be uncontactable.

In other worlds, kind of the typical open-source project source repository.
This sounds really nice.  And should sound nice to povray maintainers as
well, since code contributions for povray includes eventually getting into
the distribution itself would be maintained by the community themselves. :)

> The downside is that it may
> discourage some contributors from submitting their work.

I don't believe it would discourage people any more than today when no such
provision exists and it would even clarify legal issues so everyone would
benefit.

Post a reply to this message

nemesis wrote:
> "Chris B" <c_b### [at] btconnectcomnospam> wrote:
>> I think that licensing is the thing that needs most discussion. One option
>> is for each person to define their own license and include information
>> within their submission about the terms of their license.
> 
> I believe this would be too cumbersome and eligible to many legal nitpicks.
> 
>> I would rather see a standard license that would cover this entire
>> collection
> 
> me too!
me three

I have different opinions about how the includes and scenes might be
licensed. For clarity, I think of includes as collections of single
objects, textures, macros, lighting patterns, just about anything made
mostly of #declares and meant to be reused. Scenes would be the
individual artistic expression, possibly made up of items from the
include. Clear as mud, and probably open to legal nit-picking.

>> and I think the main candidates are:
>>   o  The POV-Ray license
> 
> the problem with this one is:  wouldn't we fall into the same problem we
> have with povray license today, where people who previously contributed
> code to povray itself are unreacheable and thus the license has to remain
> the same until the planned 4.0 rewrite?  I mean, if i submit a povray scene
> which comes included with povray and is licensed under the current povray
> license, will it be able to be included in next povray releases in case of
> license change that reveals itself conflicting with the previous license?
> Unless we explicitely stated that the scenes are licensed under current or
> future povray licenses.
> 

The way I read things, scenes are not licensed for re-use unless they
are in the incdemo folder. I don't know where to look to see what the
terms of donating a scene are.

While the includes could easily be added to POV-Ray, probably without
changing the license by just adding them into the INCLUDE folder, I
don't know that any scenes could be. Legalese isn't even my second
language, but the usage provisions seem to say that anything in
scenes/incdemo is free to reuse or distribute, while the other scenes
are not. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground available. Either
the new includes would have to be added to the normal package in the
proper folders, or the POV-Ray license would have to be changed /
rewritten to account for the packaged includes being distributed outside
of the normal package. That would fall into the Yet Another License
category.

>>   o  A Creative Commons License (see
>> http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses)
>>   o  Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication
>> (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/)
> 
> This could be nice, specially since they're stabilished liberal licenses
> that exist well outside of povray's realm.  I would also put the GPL or BSD
> licenses under consideration.  The BSD is the classical liberal license,
> allowing the code to be used for any purposes, by anyone.  The GPL is the
> one conclaiming people modifying GPLed code to also distribute the
> modifications IF redistributing the modified binary.  In the case of povray
> scenes, i guess if people modify a pov scene and distribute the modified
> generated jpg or png, they should also distribute the modifications to the
> source scene file.  I don't know how compatible the GPL is to the povray
> distribution so that eventual GPLed include files could be distributed with
> it.
> 

I think that 'distributing' would need to be clarified a little with
regard to images. Is hosting a jpg of a GPL scene distributing? Is
printing a hard copy of a scene, which is a derivative of a binary
representation, distributing if it is given to someone else?

I'd be more partial to an LGPL style license for any includes, over the
normal GPL, for reasons like the following. If someone creates a scene
using one of the proposed new includes, which could be anything from
vector transforms to colors to anything else, when would they need to
provide access to the source of the scene? If they hosted it online, or
ran off a hard copy that they sold, or had Zazzle sell copies of it? If
the scene is theirs, why would the include need to affect the license of
the final scene?

For scenes I think I would prefer stricter terms. I know I would be
annoyed to see my scenes turn up in someone else's Zazzle store unmodified.

>>   o  A custom license covering this collection
> 
> i'm really against Yet Another License For The Sake of It...

Some derivative of the normal POV-Ray license, possibly co-licensed
under GPL or LGPL or anything else, would not quite be 'Yet Another
License' but might cover all of the bases. And it might allow for what
ever license change takes place with 4.0 or later.

> 
>> My view is that having an area on povray.org where all of the contributions
>> can be re-used without any preconditions (or with a very minimal agreed
>> standard set) would be good for POV-Ray and would make an important
>> differentiator for this collection over other object and include file sites.
>> This would also mean that the POV-Ray community could freely enhance these
>> contributions over the years without having to get permission from previous
>> contributors who may now be uncontactable.
> 
> In other worlds, kind of the typical open-source project source repository.
> This sounds really nice.  And should sound nice to povray maintainers as
> well, since code contributions for povray includes eventually getting into
> the distribution itself would be maintained by the community themselves. :)
> 
>> The downside is that it may
>> discourage some contributors from submitting their work.
> 
> I don't believe it would discourage people any more than today when no such
> provision exists and it would even clarify legal issues so everyone would
> benefit.
> 
> 
> 

Having a defined set of rules and requirements might encourage people to
reuse some code instead of reinventing it. As it stands right now, I
hesitate to go through the posted scene files looking for things similer
to anything I am working on. Since only a few that I've seen have
licenses in them, I would believe that all the rest are not licensable
and I wouldn't want to accidentally reuse some little trick or function
I happened to read. While I don't think most people here would fuss over
a simple texture on one rock in a scene, someone might and it's just
easier to reinvent everything.

And if the rules allow or require changes to get put back into the
repository, then we might even end up with better results since things
could be built up instead of reinvented.

Post a reply to this message

whoa!  thanks for commenting, Sabrina.  good to see women using povray as
well.  Specially as intelligent and skillful as you seem to be. :)

Sabrina Kilian <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote:
> For clarity, I think of includes as collections of single
> objects, textures, macros, lighting patterns, just about anything made
> mostly of #declares and meant to be reused. Scenes would be the
> individual artistic expression, possibly made up of items from the
> include. Clear as mud, and probably open to legal nit-picking.

That's a very good definition, i believe everyone will agree.

> I don't know where to look to see what the terms of donating a scene are.

I think that's what we're trying to accomplish here.

> Either the new includes would have to be added to the normal package in the
> proper folders, or the POV-Ray license would have to be changed /
> rewritten to account for the packaged includes being distributed outside
> of the normal package.

AFAIK, povray license is likely to change in coming versions, am i right?  I
heard they're seeking to put it into an OSI-compliant license.

Anyway, i don't think this reworked include collection would go into the
standard include folder as the legal terms stand today.

> Is hosting a jpg of a GPL scene distributing?

I think if users are able to download and save an image to their PCs, it's
like software they can download and use.  OTOH, has you ever seen a GPLed
web site or web service?  I mean, yes, we can see the *generated* html
content, but not the actual PHP sources or something like that...

> Is
> printing a hard copy of a scene, which is a derivative of a binary
> representation, distributing if it is given to someone else?

I realize it was better in the good ol' days.  Too much legal obfuscation
these days...  I wish povray scenes could be licensed under a poetic
license or artistic license, like perl... ;)

> I'd be more partial to an LGPL style license for any includes, over the
> normal GPL, for reasons like the following. If someone creates a scene
> using one of the proposed new includes, which could be anything from
> vector transforms to colors to anything else, when would they need to
> provide access to the source of the scene? If they hosted it online, or
> ran off a hard copy that they sold, or had Zazzle sell copies of it? If
> the scene is theirs, why would the include need to affect the license of
> the final scene?

Very good point, much more well reasoned than mine (i was busy at work and
didn't give too much thought to details).

Indeed, the LGPL is much more well suited for library components.  And it
still retains the GPL benefit of people changing the LGPLed work itself to
contribute back the changes.  Note this doesn't affect people merely using
such works in a scene, they can indeed hide the sources without problems.
And if their scene use a slightly modified LGPLed work, the only
requirement is to publish the modifications to the GPLed work, not to the
whole scene!

> For scenes I think I would prefer stricter terms. I know I would be
> annoyed to see my scenes turn up in someone else's Zazzle store unmodified.

fair enough.

> Having a defined set of rules and requirements might encourage people to
> reuse some code instead of reinventing it. As it stands right now, I
> hesitate to go through the posted scene files looking for things similer
> to anything I am working on. Since only a few that I've seen have
> licenses in them, I would believe that all the rest are not licensable
> and I wouldn't want to accidentally reuse some little trick or function
> I happened to read. While I don't think most people here would fuss over
> a simple texture on one rock in a scene, someone might and it's just
> easier to reinvent everything.

well, if you ever need a potato texture or detailed brick wall texture and
happens to find some of my old scenes, feel free to use them!  When such
collection area is up on povray.org, i'll republish with the chosen proper
license... :)

> And if the rules allow or require changes to get put back into the
> repository, then we might even end up with better results since things
> could be built up instead of reinvented.

Yes, but i've realized many people here are highly creative artistic minded
people who indeed enjoy creating things from scratch.  Still, might be
useful for other people interested in composition rather than creation.

Post a reply to this message

To summarise the discussions so far on defining a license for an area on 
povray.org to hold collections of objects etc.:

We seem to have 100% vote for adopting a single license for the whole 
collection (3 out of 3).
Similarly all seem keen on making the collection as open to re-use as 
possible.

It sounds like the POV-Ray license would not be able to cover this 
collection without modification.

I'm not sure that the GPL or LGPL licenses are all that appropriate because 
they contain a lot of terminology that is exclusively oriented towards 
software/programs rather than works of a creative or artistic nature (no 
offence to application developers intended). I think this was probably why 
the Creative Commons Licenses came into being. The reproduction and 
distribution of images and computerised descriptions of scenes can throw up 
unique issues, such as, when is an image a reproduction and when is it a 
representation of the original work? (i.e. is a thumbnail a copy or can it 
reasonably be used in an index or search engine).

Unless we can enlist the help of a licensing Guru then rolling our own is 
probably out of the question.

I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of available 
Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or 
disagree with that?

To move on into some of the detail:

On the subject of scene files, I didn't necessarily see this as being a 
place where finished scenes would go, although samples and example scene 
files could accompany objects, textures, macros and include files to 
illustrate their use. I would argue that there are other forums where fully 
finished and refined scenes can be maintained including the IRTC and various 
Internet galleries, POV-Ray rings etc.

If an image is rendered from a sample scene file and sold on Zazzle or to 
the Tate Gallery, then I would propose that we have no more access to the 
cash than the guys who made the pile of bricks that the Tate Gallery bought 
for a wheelbarrow full of money a few years back. The money goes to the 
artist who makes the sale. In any case, if very minor changes could get the 
artist/charlatan out of trouble, then, would the addition of a corporate 
logo to your pride and joy really make you feel any better?

The other issue raised by Sabrina and Nemesis is around whether users of the 
collection should be required to contribute their work back to the 
collection. My vote is that we don't impose such a restriction. Personally 
I'd like to see a license that's about as close to public domain as we think 
we can get. I'd prefer one that allows re-use for both commercial and 
non-commercial purposes without needing to give credit to the original 
authors. I'd also like people to be able to redistribute the files in 
original or modified form. I think we should maybe suggest that giving 
credit is polite, but not make it a licensing condition.

Am I out on my own now, or is anyone else thinking along the same lines?

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> To summarise the discussions so far on defining a license for an area on 
> povray.org to hold collections of objects etc.:
> 
> We seem to have 100% vote for adopting a single license for the whole 
> collection (3 out of 3).
> Similarly all seem keen on making the collection as open to re-use as 
> possible.
> 
> It sounds like the POV-Ray license would not be able to cover this 
> collection without modification.
> 
> I'm not sure that the GPL or LGPL licenses are all that appropriate because 
> they contain a lot of terminology that is exclusively oriented towards 
> software/programs rather than works of a creative or artistic nature (no 
> offence to application developers intended). I think this was probably why 
> the Creative Commons Licenses came into being. The reproduction and 
> distribution of images and computerised descriptions of scenes can throw up 
> unique issues, such as, when is an image a reproduction and when is it a 
> representation of the original work? (i.e. is a thumbnail a copy or can it 
> reasonably be used in an index or search engine).
> 
> Unless we can enlist the help of a licensing Guru then rolling our own is 
> probably out of the question.
> 
> I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of available 
> Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or 
> disagree with that?

BSD and MIT licenses might also be an option, since they refer to source
code, which SDL is, and binary form, which the final images would be. I
didn't read them in their entirety, but I didn't see any references to
'program' or 'executable' in there.

www.opensource.org/licenses has several others that might work,
depending on their wording. The Academic Free License looks wordy but
seemed general enough to be used for everything.

> 
> To move on into some of the detail:
> 
> On the subject of scene files, I didn't necessarily see this as being a 
> place where finished scenes would go, although samples and example scene 
> files could accompany objects, textures, macros and include files to 
> illustrate their use. I would argue that there are other forums where fully 
> finished and refined scenes can be maintained including the IRTC and various 
> Internet galleries, POV-Ray rings etc.

I separated my opinions since the POV-Ray license did the same, and
because I got lost trying to follow the discussion before this thread.
If we want to just avoid finished scenes for this discussion and focus
on a library of reusable items and demo scenes, great.

> 
> If an image is rendered from a sample scene file and sold on Zazzle or to 
> the Tate Gallery, then I would propose that we have no more access to the 
> cash than the guys who made the pile of bricks that the Tate Gallery bought 
> for a wheelbarrow full of money a few years back. The money goes to the 
> artist who makes the sale. In any case, if very minor changes could get the 
> artist/charlatan out of trouble, then, would the addition of a corporate 
> logo to your pride and joy really make you feel any better?

Bricks do make a good analogy for the items in an include library. I
would be flattered to see my texture used in a nice picture on Zazzle,
but I would be annoyed to see my whole scene with someone else's name on
it. I was focusing that argument on finished scenes.

> 
> The other issue raised by Sabrina and Nemesis is around whether users of the 
> collection should be required to contribute their work back to the 
> collection. My vote is that we don't impose such a restriction. Personally 
> I'd like to see a license that's about as close to public domain as we think 
> we can get. I'd prefer one that allows re-use for both commercial and 
> non-commercial purposes without needing to give credit to the original 
> authors. I'd also like people to be able to redistribute the files in 
> original or modified form. I think we should maybe suggest that giving 
> credit is polite, but not make it a licensing condition.
> 
> Am I out on my own now, or is anyone else thinking along the same lines?
> 
> Regards,
> Chris B. 
> 
> 



It seems like we are working backwards, going from established and known
licenses and taking out the parts we don't need. Let's start from the
ground and work up.

So, the issues I can think of are copyright, re-distribution of the
include, giving credit, commercial use, and re-distributing it under
another license.

I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
what ever they want with their piece of code. I also think that the
license should enforce the copyright notice in any re-packaged forms of
the include. It's a license for use, not a contract for sale of the items.

I also think the library as a whole should encourage giving credit to
the include and the author of the piece that is used, but I don't think
it needs to be a term in the license. It might be easier to use an
established license, but most of them enforce some display of copyright
being kept with the include file.

Now, re-distributing the entire include seems the easy part. Anyone who
downloads a copy should at least be able to pass it on under the same
terms they license they received it. I think they should also be able to
redistribute part of the include as well, since that would make
publishing scene code. I don't think it is necessary for this include to
force people using it to put any scene using it under the same license,
like the GPL would.

Stuff like the BSD and Creative Commons Attribution licenses would allow
them to then re-license it under any other license as well. That would
solve any problem with commercial use, since all someone would have to
do is re-license the library to them self under terms that would allow
it. If Pixar thinks we can make a better glass of water then they can, I
say we let them use it.

What I don't like about the very open licenses is that ability to take
the entire library and bury it in another program without even a mention
of it being used. This gets back into the problem of distributing the
code vs distributing the final work, but I would prefer to see this
license keep the include free. I like the terms of the LGPL for this,
but I'm not sure it could be tuned to non-executable use.

Finally, I did some more digging into GNU licenses and found the GFDL,
Free Document License. It would take more reading but it might be
possible to use something like that, similar to published computer
books. "The text (and whole library) is licensed under GFDL, and code
snippets (individual items or functions) are free to use in other
programs without attribution."  I haven't had time to really read it
yet, so that might not be possible, but now I'm going to check some
O'Reilly books to see how they word code licenses.

Post a reply to this message

Sabrina Kilian <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote:
> Chris B wrote:
> > We seem to have 100% vote for adopting a single license for the whole
> > collection (3 out of 3).

ah!  the destiny of many in the hands of so few!  come on, povvers!  vote
now! :)

> > I'm not sure that the GPL or LGPL licenses are all that appropriate because
> > they contain a lot of terminology that is exclusively oriented towards
> > software/programs rather than works of a creative or artistic nature (no
> > offence to application developers intended).

yes, indeed.

> > I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of available
> > Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or
> > disagree with that?

I agree.  In the previous thread, Gilles Tran also seemed to hint at CC, but
i won't put words into the mouths of others...

> > On the subject of scene files, I didn't necessarily see this as being a
> > place where finished scenes would go, although samples and example scene
> > files could accompany objects, textures, macros and include files to
> > illustrate their use.

Indeed.  I started a thread to update povray standard include files, not
demo scenes or the like.

> > The other issue raised by Sabrina and Nemesis is around whether users of the
> > collection should be required to contribute their work back to the
> > collection. My vote is that we don't impose such a restriction.

point taken.  I'm an admirer of the GPL way of doing collaborative work, but
can certainly see the benefits of more liberal schemes.  If CC is to be it,
let's get ahead with it! :)

> I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
> snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
> what ever they want with their piece of code.

That's right.  But i hope there's some provision in the license under which
he (the contributor) published his work that restricts if he suddenly
changes his mind and begin requesting the contribution to be dropped from
povray or something.  I mean, he has to abide by the terms under which he
originally licensed it.  If later he begin to develop other version of the
file and publishes under another license, that's his right, but the
original should still be under the original license so as to be used by
povray.

> I also think the library as a whole should encourage giving credit to
> the include and the author of the piece that is used, but I don't think
> it needs to be a term in the license. It might be easier to use an
> established license, but most of them enforce some display of copyright
> being kept with the include file.

This sounds like BSD.

> I don't think it is necessary for this include to
> force people using it to put any scene using it under the same license,
> like the GPL would.

not at all!  The LGPL scheme would work much better.  But i believe CC is
the way to go if not anyone more pronunciates about the subject...

Post a reply to this message

"Sabrina Kilian" <ykg### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
news:456b36c3@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>> I therefore think we're probably down to picking from the list of 
>> available
>> Creative Commons licenses/certificates. Would anyone care to agree or
>> disagree with that?
>
> BSD and MIT licenses might also be an option, since they refer to source
> code, which SDL is, and binary form, which the final images would be. I
> didn't read them in their entirety, but I didn't see any references to
> 'program' or 'executable' in there.
>

These both seem good and short and I like the disclaimer, but they do seem 
to me still to be oriented towards application code. They both speak of 
software and although we could potentially draw parallels between software 
and SDL and between binaries and generated images, it does seem a bit like 
shoving a round peg in a square hole.
To me the Creative Commons vocabulary, such as 'work' and 'derivative work' 
seem to better fit what we create.

> www.opensource.org/licenses has several others that might work,
> depending on their wording. The Academic Free License looks wordy but
> seemed general enough to be used for everything.

There do seem to be quite a few  different licenses there to choose from. 
Would anyone like to do some homework on those?

>
> It seems like we are working backwards, going from established and known
> licenses and taking out the parts we don't need. Let's start from the
> ground and work up.
>

Good point. I think this list gives us an excellent way to compare the 
credentials of different licenses. I've tried to map the Creative Commons 
licenses against this list and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 
license seems to me to map pretty closely to what you've proposed.

>
> So, the issues I can think of are copyright, re-distribution of the
> include, giving credit, commercial use, and re-distributing it under
> another license.
>
> I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
> snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
> what ever they want with their piece of code.

Agreed. The original author would still have considerable rights, though 
they could not subsequently sell it under any 'exclusive' distribution 
agreement.
I think this leads into an issue that Nemesis has eluded to, that the 
release that we get the author to 'sign' when contributing the work under 
the terms of this license would have to be in perpetuity, otherwise they 
could change their minds later and cause no end of grief for people who had 
developed derivative works.

>
> I also think that the
> license should enforce the copyright notice in any re-packaged forms of
> the include. It's a license for use, not a contract for sale of the items.
>

This seems mostly consistent with the clause in the CC Attribution 
Share-Alike license that "lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work 
even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their 
new creations under the identical terms."
I assume this would mean they could modify your include with the same 
license on that include, but potentially a different license on other pieces 
of their own work that they distribute it with. I don't think this would 
stop them selling their work, which could include your work.

>
> I also think the library as a whole should encourage giving credit to
> the include and the author of the piece that is used, but I don't think
> it needs to be a term in the license. It might be easier to use an
> established license, but most of them enforce some display of copyright
> being kept with the include file.
>

The CC Attribution Share-Alike seems to cover that where they say they 
should 'credit you'

> Now, re-distributing the entire include seems the easy part. Anyone who
> downloads a copy should at least be able to pass it on under the same
> terms they license they received it. I think they should also be able to
> redistribute part of the include as well, since that would make
> publishing scene code. I don't think it is necessary for this include to
> force people using it to put any scene using it under the same license,
> like the GPL would.
>

From reading the CC Attribution Share-Alike, this seems to me to be covered 
by the clause for Collective Works. I think that cutting and pasting into 
another file would mean that the new file would have to come under the same 
license (being a derivative work), but the original include or the 
derivative work could be distributed as part of a group of files where the 
other files come under different licensing terms.

>
> Stuff like the BSD and Creative Commons Attribution licenses would allow
> them to then re-license it under any other license as well. That would
> solve any problem with commercial use, since all someone would have to
> do is re-license the library to them self under terms that would allow
> it. If Pixar thinks we can make a better glass of water then they can, I
> say we let them use it.
>
> What I don't like about the very open licenses is that ability to take
> the entire library and bury it in another program without even a mention
> of it being used. This gets back into the problem of distributing the
> code vs distributing the final work, but I would prefer to see this
> license keep the include free. I like the terms of the LGPL for this,
> but I'm not sure it could be tuned to non-executable use.
>

I think that the CC Attribution Share-Alike Clause 4c covers this quite well 
by requiring derivative works, which presumably includes graphics generated 
using your objects,  to include 'a credit identifying the use of the Work in 
the Derivative Work (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original 
Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author")' that 
appears "where any other comparable authorship credit appears and in a 
manner at least as prominent as such other comparable authorship credit".

>
> Finally, I did some more digging into GNU licenses and found the GFDL,
> Free Document License. It would take more reading but it might be
> possible to use something like that, similar to published computer
> books. "The text (and whole library) is licensed under GFDL, and code
> snippets (individual items or functions) are free to use in other
> programs without attribution."  I haven't had time to really read it
> yet, so that might not be possible, but now I'm going to check some
> O'Reilly books to see how they word code licenses.

The next closest is the Creative Commons Attribution License which is a more 
liberal license that just requires credit to be given for the work (and 
derivative works where reasonable), but allows subsequent redistribution 
under stricter licensing conditions. I don't think that the stricter license 
could subsequently stop people using the copy from povray.org, but could 
potentially prevent people from reusing some of the works derived from it.

Would anyone like to summarise how an alternative license maps to these 
proposed requirements.

Regards,
Chris B.

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:web.456b65696ea74aa99d738cb0@news.povray.org...
>
>
>> I don't think we can get rid of copyright. The person who writes each
>> snippet of code would still have the right to give it away, sell it, do
>> what ever they want with their piece of code.
>
> That's right.  But i hope there's some provision in the license under 
> which
> he (the contributor) published his work that restricts if he suddenly
> changes his mind and begin requesting the contribution to be dropped from
> povray or something.  I mean, he has to abide by the terms under which he
> originally licensed it.  If later he begin to develop other version of the
> file and publishes under another license, that's his right, but the
> original should still be under the original license so as to be used by
> povray.
>

If I understand you correctly, this would mean that the contributor would 
need to agree to the license in perpetuity. ie. They would need to give away 
the right to change their mind. Otherwise there could be consequences 
affecting all derivative works covered by the original license. I think we'd 
need to cover that in the release that the contributor 'signs' up to when 
contributing the work.

Regards,
Chris B.

Post a reply to this message

Chris B wrote:
> If I understand you correctly, this would mean that the contributor would 
> need to agree to the license in perpetuity.

The expression I see used in contracts in the USA is "grants to the 
Client a non-exclusive, non-transferable, perpetual and royalty free 

whether you want it transferable, and the fact it isn't business use 
we're talking about.  Potentially adding "unlimited" or something, to 
indicate the author is giving up all the extra "rights" that europe 
gives to authors that the USA doesn't, like moral rights etc.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Scruffitarianism - Where T-shirt, jeans,
     and a three-day beard are "Sunday Best."

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