Blender Is Free Software • Hacker News Board

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#211

Post by starbugs » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #149

mungoid wrote: post #42

This argument has been going on for a while, but apparently exploded recently. Im so conflicted about this. I feel like my left brain is fighting my right brain. Or mom and dad are fighting again. On one hand, I have been a huge blender fan for over a decade and personally would give away anything I developed for it. Even if it were high quality. I am all for this way of doing it. Kind of forcing a level playing fiel…

If only there were a license that made the original project open but allowed you to license derived works in whichever way was most appropriate...

There are such open source licenses: LGPL and MPL for example. These, however, come with their own set of caveats.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#212

Post by mattigames » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #142

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…

Yeah. The idea of a world where every piece of software is free and open is a nice one, but unfortunately we live in a society where people have to be compensated for their time in order to live, and doing support won't always cut it. Edit: To be clear, I'm not downplaying that ideal, only pointing out that at least in the United States it's pretty unrealistic. In some other western countries they don't balk at the i…

Nobody is talking about every piece of software having to be free; if they want to make add-ons that can be sell they should have made those plugins for a software that allows such financing model such creating plugins for Autodesk Maya.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#213

Post by Theodores » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

Washuu wrote: post #123

wlesieutre wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2.8 is a big step forward for the new user experience. https://www.blender.org/2-8/#user-interface They’re also finally switching the default to left click select. Having to select with right click was one of the big things that made the UI feel really alien for anyone who hasn’t used it a lot.

Blender 2.8 is literally the reason I am starting to actually learn 3D modelling. I have repeatedly tried 2.7 and could never get around that clunky interface along with the default mouse controls.

2.79b is what you get with stock Ubuntu. Is it worth getting 2.8 if one is starting now?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#214

Post by protomikron » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

Blender is a great piece of software and I appreciate their choice of license (GPL). Obviously the GPL put a lot of thought in the development of their licenses and it's important for software developers to know about the subtle differences. With AGPL they try to close the loophole that companies use to build a network layer around GPL licensed code. AFAIK if you link to GPL your work is "derived", so you have to open it which is not the case if used "over the network".

I wonder if AGPL should be considered a secret weapon against the big SaaS companies. On HN I read that GPL and especially AGPL software/libraries are a no-go for some of these companies, but maybe this can be a feature for small players?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#215

Post by DoctorOetker » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

frutiger wrote: post #36

Jedd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

like the "molecules of freedom" or "freedom gas" but then "programs of freedom" or "freedom software" ?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#216

Post by la_barba » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #107

heavenlyblue wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s risk management - it’s better to pay a bit more for a packaged product and accept it’s drawbacks than hire a developer who may or may never deliver.

> ...than hire a developer who may or may never deliver. I don't really see the difference between this and "accept its drawbacks", except that if your developer turns out to be productive, you have something a lot more valuable on your hands, and if the developer fails, you can replace them (whereas for a given proprietary product, you typically can not replace the vendor while keeping the licensing agreement and in…

>I don't really see the difference between this and "accept its drawbacks"

The difference is one is known, and the other is unknown. When you're evaluating existing software you can evaluate multiple competitors based on their finished product. You can't do that when you're hiring a developer.

>and if the developer fails, you can replace them (whereas for a given proprietary product, you typically can not replace the vendor while keeping the licensing agreement and investment in training [this last bit being a big part of why in-house developers make sense for Blender, as they always have for 3D animation studios]).

I'd say this argument supports using only existing established successful products, to avoid being burnt.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#217

Post by chii » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #195

chii wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely that the SFX industry has their training done on proprietary software, and shops that don't use the industry standard ones like Maya would have trouble hiring. Plus the after market plugins tend to be commercial in nature and won't want to sell with a GPL licence.

> the after market plugins tend to be commercial in nature and won't want to sell with a GPL licence. That’s exactly it, developing a high-end plug-ins is very expensive; to give that away for free is completely illogical. It’s a restaurant giving away sandwiches and selling napkins. Selling “service” and “support” or “hosting,” is ridiculous for the plugin industry. Most people in the business know how to use most o…

> except anything we don’t want you to do. The MIT license is the one that is actually free.

GPL's ideals are good. It's just that the ideals are hard to achieve when there's a need to also make money. I would describe MIT style to be 'free to exploit me [the software] as you please, even if you don't intend to contribute anything back'.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#218

Post by kilpikaarna » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #213

Washuu wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender 2.8 is literally the reason I am starting to actually learn 3D modelling. I have repeatedly tried 2.7 and could never get around that clunky interface along with the default mouse controls.

2.79b is what you get with stock Ubuntu. Is it worth getting 2.8 if one is starting now?

It's still in beta with a release slated for July, but yes.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#219

Post by chii » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

micmil wrote: post #191

chii wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely that the SFX industry has their training done on proprietary software, and shops that don't use the industry standard ones like Maya would have trouble hiring. Plus the after market plugins tend to be commercial in nature and won't want to sell with a GPL licence.

Bullshit. This is like saying someone that trained in Java will struggle learning Python, or someone that learned with C will have a hard time picking up Rust. With a few exceptions (Houdini probably being the prime example) all 3d graphics tools work in the same fashion. The concepts and techniques are universal, the only difference is the implementation. If you have even a modicum of experience with one thing, you…

> The concepts and techniques are universal, the only difference is the implementation.

only someone who hasn't really used the tool in anger and mastered it would claim this. I can't even switch to eclipse from intellij and not have a huge productivity hit for several months. and that's just typing code! A real 3D modeller would have so much muscle memory for their modelling app of choice it't not funny.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#220

Post by starbugs » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

0815test wrote: post #204

micmil wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a viable model. How many people are actually paid by the Blender Foundation for their contributions to the software? How many fewer employees do they have than a company like Autodesk or Maxon? The simple fact is that FLOSS is the outsourcing of large swathes of development cost to those stupid or interested enough to make something happen for free on their own time. What do you do when that interest wanes?…

> What do you do when that interest wanes? What do you do? You pay for support, plausibly via a crowdfunding-like mechanism - continued development and maintenance being something that's encompassed by "paid support", of course. What do you do when interest in a piece of proprietary software wanes and the original developer goes out of business altogether? Never mind, you answered that quite nicely already! FLOSS is…

How is the fact that there is old code in modern Linux distributions suddenly becoming empirical evidence on the viability of a business model? A business model does not become viable because you as the customer are somehow able to work on the project after it is no longer commercially available. By the way: there are a lot of commercial projects having escrow agreements to solve that problem without having to be open source.

I simply don't buy that we all should be living off donations to support our software development. It's utterly clear that only the biggest projects can pull that off, and even there — only to a certain degree, with some notable exceptions (RedHat, Linux).