              A Message From POV-Team Coordinator Chris Young 
                               July 12, 1996

      Over 26 months ago, on April 6, 1994, I uploaded a set of files 
called "POV-Ray 3.0.alpha.0" to the private POV-Ray Team area on 
CompuServe's Go GraphDev Forum.  It was a version of POV-Ray 2.2 with all 
vectors and colors changed from structs to arrays.  This was just the first 
of many huge changes that would turn version 2.2 into 3.00.
      In the months that followed, various team members and I submitted 102 
updates to create 19 full revisions of the 3.0 alpha version.  Well over 
100 new features were added.  This was followed by 7 major beta versions 
consisting of over 70 intermediate patches.
      Dozens of new scenes have been created.  Documentation has been 
totally rewritten.  Two totally new platforms have been added to those 
officially supported.  It has been a tremendous effort by the finest bunch 
of programmers, artists and testers I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.  
From Germany, France, Hungary, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, USA and who 
knows what other countries I've forgotten. the group of un-paid volunteers 
known as the POV-Ray Team has poured countless hours of their lives into 
this effort.
      The problem is this: It isn't finished.
      In some ways, it never will be.  There will always be bugs, design 
limitations, unclear docs, scenes that need revision and countless other 
changes.  But for now, we have to call it good enough.  The Team is facing 
serious burn-out if we don't take a break.  We deserve a rest and you, our 
loyal fans, deserve unrestricted access to the program.
      Therefore today, July 12th, we will release "final" versions of POV-Ray 
3.00 executables with full source code for at least MS-Dos, Mac & Unix/Linux.  
There is no expiration date on these executables.  An updated Windows and 
Amiga beta will be released soon.  A final Windows version will be ready in 
early August and Amiga will be released afterwards.  
      There is still be unfinished work on the "final" version.  The 
tutorial section of the documentation will probably be incomplete.  The 
reference section is 99% finished and should serve you well.  After final 
release, we will set up a system where you may volunteer to help us finish 
the tutorial.  Some early sample scenes which were designed to use halos 
prior to beta 6 still need updating to look right under later versions.  We 
will tell you soon how you can volunteer to help update these scenes.  
There will still be bugs in this version.  We will release 3.01 or 3.02 
bug-fix releases as the need arises.  However this unrestricted release 
will relieve us of the pressure of releasing new betas just because the old 
one is expiring. 
      It has been a real labor of love to produce this program and we 
continue to be excited and amazed by the wonderful images all of you turn 
out using our program.  After a suitable period of rest we will dig in and 
continue to try to make POV-Ray the greatest program available in the field 
and we promise you it will always be free.
      Chris Young - POV-Team Coordinator
