Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we look at Blender's history, one could make the argument that they would get more support if they fully opened their product. I think it's important to know that Blender probably became big because they went open source with a nice tool, not that they were big before and then released the source as open source. If Blender didn't go open source, I'm unsure if Blender would even be around today, they were in big…
being open doesn't mean it becomes free to use, you can still sell your licenses https://www.aseprite.org/ successful product, and is open source: https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite there are many examples like that being open source allows your users to participate in the development, fixing things, and adding new features the company wouldn't have done themselves because: lack of budget, or "too risky" this is wh…
I strongly disagree. Blender is a wonderful story and a wonderful team but it’s truly the unicorn in the FOSS software space.
Industry adopted Blender because it has evolved into being a really good tool for the job, is frequently updated (thanks in part to those corporate sponsorships that most pieces of software don’t get, unfortunately), and because it is good software.
Thinking the license played any role in that, I think is foolish. Industry, particularly the video and vfx industry, is not moved by ideology. It’s about what works, what is fastest and what can do things the best way. The editing world has relied on proprietary software since time immemorial and the two cases where we’ve seen more adoption of FOSS tools (Blender, OBS) are both recent (and again, I would argue are largely exceptions b/c the software is good and usable which is not the case for most video packages that are open source) and in tandem with existing tools, not a replacement for those tools.
As I said in another comment, I think in many cases, the open development model is best. But I also recognize that it isn’t always the right business move. And in this case, when you’re talking about an industry that doesn’t have any ideological ties towards doing things the open way, I don’t think it’s an idea that makes a lot of sense. Even if it would be nice to see.