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Blender Is Free Software

code.blender.org

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Re: Blender Is Free Software

#31

Post by chrisseaton »

benj111 wrote: post #26
kingpinfreddy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wtf

When you say free software, you have to clarify, 'free as in freedom, not as in beer', libre doesn't have that double meaning.

The problem is many people in the free software community enjoy confusing their audience and then take delight in pointing out their clever wordplay.

No reasonable person would decide that the best way to cut through a complicated overlap of a technical discussion a moral issue with many subtleties was with a pun, of all things.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#32

Post by tokai »

starbugs wrote: post #22
Jedd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I honestly agree with most of what this article says and I admire the spirit of open source development and the GPL. If you don't admire the spirit of free software as well / instead, then you may have missed the point of the article.

How is me allegedly not admiring something related to missing "the" point of the article?

Open source is not Free software. The blog post is about how Blender is firmly behind the GPL and free software, which is in opposition to just having available source code without assured user freedoms.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#33

Post by 0815test »

starbugs wrote: post #7

From the article: "And if you think you ‘suffer from piracy’ or find it hard to do business with Free Software? Just distinguish yourselves with the proven successful free/open source business model: provide docs, training, content, frequent updates and support. Your customers will love you!" Well, then why does Blender need a development fund? [0] I honestly agree with most of what this article says and I admire the…

> Well, then why does Blender need a development fund?

Why wouldn't they have such a fund? Sponsoring is a viable FLOSS business model, and it heavily overlaps with support (which is discussed in your quote from the blogpost).

The notion that "people" aren't "able to make money" with FLOSS is just a fallacy, and Blender itself is one of the clearest examples of how wrong it is - it was failing as a commercial prospect, and then got "rescued" or "ransomed out" as FLOSS via crowdfunding - one of the earliest crowdfunding initiatives I'm aware of, for that matter; well before there was anything like Kickstarter, Indiegogo etc.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#34

Post by chrisseaton »

lozenge wrote: post #30
opencl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody recently launched a new site "Blender Depot" which hosts a bunch of Blender add-ons and provides a batch install feature. Some of the add-ons on this site are commercial plugins available for sale by their authors. All Blender plugins have to be GPL so this sort of redistribution is legal but some of these authors have been rather upset about it. So a large argument ensued on the Blender forums about the GPL…

I don't think using an API of a GPL software means your software "has to be" GPL. For example, not all software running on Linux using Linux APIs (syscalls) is GPL.

It's an area of open legal debate, with a spectrum of what it means to be using an API and what constitutes a derived work.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#35

Post by mbrock »

soulofmischief wrote: post #28
neilv wrote: post #18

I try to say libre software rather than Free Software , and I wish the FSF would back the libre term fully. When RMS is giving a speech, he has an opportunity to expound on what's now wordplay about "free software", to a captive audience that's perhaps already receptive or prepared to listen. But low-level grassroots advocacy opportunities often happen in contexts in which people are talking for some other purpose, a…

To give the FSF some credit, they would have to go through a ton of hoops and PR changing their name to the LSF if they got behind the idea 100%. :) Not that you are wrong. The "free as in freedom, not as in beer" trope has just gotten too tiresome. It's a losing battle. The only solution is taking control of the language, and Libre helps to achieve this. Going forward I will give some thought to always using this te…

On the other hand freedom is a really nice word that everyone loves whereas "libre" is some fake French or something that you have to try to pronounce with some kind of rolled r like is that really going to succeed in the American marketplace of ideas

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#36

Post by frutiger »

Jedd wrote: post #25
neilv wrote: post #18

I try to say libre software rather than Free Software , and I wish the FSF would back the libre term fully. When RMS is giving a speech, he has an opportunity to expound on what's now wordplay about "free software", to a captive audience that's perhaps already receptive or prepared to listen. But low-level grassroots advocacy opportunities often happen in contexts in which people are talking for some other purpose, a…

I considered this position some years ago, but concluded in the time it takes to explain that libre is a word from another language that means 'free in the sense of speech, not beer', I could just say I'm using the word free in the sense of speech, not beer. These days I don't think the problem is the use of the ostensibly ambiguous word 'free', so much as that people (generic) don't really value freedom (or privacy)…

What about “freedom software“? I know it’s grammatically incorrect but it sends the right message.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#37

Post by klez »

benj111 wrote: post #26
kingpinfreddy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wtf

When you say free software, you have to clarify, 'free as in freedom, not as in beer', libre doesn't have that double meaning.

Libre doesn't have a meaning at all, in English, so you'll have to explain that as well. In other languages that I know there is no such problem because the two meanings of "free" are clearly disambiguated by two different words.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#38

Post by asdkhadsj »

neilv wrote: post #18

I try to say libre software rather than Free Software , and I wish the FSF would back the libre term fully. When RMS is giving a speech, he has an opportunity to expound on what's now wordplay about "free software", to a captive audience that's perhaps already receptive or prepared to listen. But low-level grassroots advocacy opportunities often happen in contexts in which people are talking for some other purpose, a…

I also don't like the term "free" in the context of money involved. I think it makes instant and, imo, associations in the brain that are not helpful for the project in question.

Rarely are projects of any meaningful size actually free. Someone is paying to afford the hosting/dev/etc. Sometimes that payment is in the form of donations from larger organizations. Often a mix of that and user donations. However I think it's important that we don't so easily undermine a projects funding. Especially projects as great as Blender.

I think I just long for the idea that we all recognized that many of these projects we use could do well with some basic coffee money from us all. Something somewhat like Github is setting up. $3/m to a project I make money off of means nothing to me, but from a couple thousand users it would be amazing for the sole project owner.

It's complex, I know. There's pros and cons to a lot of funding talk. Nevertheless, I just want to see great projects succeed. As Blender is.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#39

Post by starbugs »

tokai wrote: post #32
starbugs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is me allegedly not admiring something related to missing "the" point of the article?

Open source is not Free software. The blog post is about how Blender is firmly behind the GPL and free software, which is in opposition to just having available source code without assured user freedoms.

Yeah, I never said that it is :) I honestly don't get the point of your comments, but I think you may not be getting the point of mine either.

To clarify: the article contains advice about how to fund operations for plugin developers. I doubt that it is viable for all plugin developers to fund their operations off of documentation and services. I am just saying that we should be honest and express that funding the development directly will be needed and probably the only way to get it is donations. That's really all I am saying here.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#40

Post by lozenge »

chrisseaton wrote: post #34
lozenge wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think using an API of a GPL software means your software "has to be" GPL. For example, not all software running on Linux using Linux APIs (syscalls) is GPL.

It's an area of open legal debate, with a spectrum of what it means to be using an API and what constitutes a derived work.

From what I can see, Blender is trying to pretend it's a hard-and-fast rule, and they are requiring addon authors to label their work as open source to sell on their store.
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