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Blender Is Free Software

code.blender.org

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Re: Blender Is Free Software

#201

Post by Animats »

bscphil wrote: post #197
carlmr wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it wouldn't even interfere with their competitive edge, since the software isn't their business. They don't have to care about the GPL as long as the software does what they want. Most developers know this, but company managers that forbid open source contribution don't understand this. That's why I'm personally not too much against source available licensing. It's the only language old companies understand.

Speculation on my part, but I think one of the reasons the big graphics companies have their own software (think Pixar) at least in part is because it gives their results a unique visual look that becomes part of the brand. Why anyone would use all third-party proprietary software, I have no idea.

Pixar has a house style, with procedural textures, written in Renderman. Everybody else mostly takes pictures of real world stuff and uses those as textures. Pixar's approach has the advantage that the camera can get very close to a surface without the texture going blocky. "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story" use this heavily. Wouldn't help in making an Avengers movie.

Here's where that procedural texture approach started: "Road to Point Reyes".[1] First "photorealistic" render, 1983. Today, that's not even an acceptable game asset.

[1] https://lucasmuseum.org/works/detail/asset_id/1292

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#202

Post by antidesitter »

dmos62 wrote: post #48
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…

Isn't it fascinating that the English language doesn't have a distinction between the social meaning of free and the economic, in that these meanings are meshed into the same word?

What does “economic”, in opposition to “social”, mean in this context?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#203

Post by antidesitter »

0815test wrote: post #33
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 prospec…

> The notion that "people" aren't "able to make money" with FLOSS is just a fallacy

Which fallacy?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#204

Post by 0815test »

micmil wrote: post #200
0815test wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 prospec…

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 more viable than non-FLOSS in the long run. And we have solid empirical evidence of that, because we still have code from the 1970s and 1980s chugging along nicely as part of our modern Linux distributions. Try that with Windows 10, or even mac OS!

And yet, in the meantime...

> ... How many fewer employees do they [Blender Foundation] have than a company like Autodesk or Maxon?

...how is that supposed to be a bad thing, exactly? It's a lot like measuring the worth of a software project by the LOC of its source code, given a constant or even shrinking set of features.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#205

Post by DoctorOetker »

micmil wrote: post #190
craigsmansion wrote: post #65

It's nice a high profile project such as Blender speaks about freedom to push back against the "source available" movement. I've always wondered why niche specific software such as Blender doesn't have a ton of industry backing. Any medium sized graphics shop could have a full developer on the payroll for a fraction of the repeated licensing costs of proprietary solutions, that is, someone who works full time on Blen…

It has nothing to do with "employee vanity" and that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. There's a simple reason Blender doesn't see much use in film production: Support. There is no way the Blender Foundation could provide the level of support that a company like Autodesk does. When you run into problems you call your enterprise support team and get it fixed. This is why you pay them the big bucks. Their…

uh, couldn't a (or multiple) blender foundation(s) sell support? the software remaining FOSS, but feature requests / bug fixes being paid services. Feature and bug attention would be driven by the big commercial users, and the community would profit. Since the shops can choose which blender support team they buy support from, they get competitive pricing too.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#206

Post by freedomben »

dghughes wrote: post #174

Blender is a great application some day I will put more time into learning it. I have always loved drawing, photography and video. Even as a kid in the 80s when two of those were very expensive. I was into it so much that as a child and teen I was labelled as "that kid that likes to draw". Later in life I was moments away from apply to an art college (NSCAD) but backed out. Also as a kid I liked programming but I nev…

I didn't realize Blender did video editing! I do very basic editing, mostly with Kdenlive. I will have to give Blender a try.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#207

Post by starbugs »

somatic wrote: post #147
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…

What if there were a license that made all hobbyist and educational use free and open source, and all commercial use propriety with kickbacks to devs? Would that resolve your hemispheric conflict?

This is exactly what open source is not, per definition of the OSI: https://opensource.org/osd, see paragraph 6 "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor".

What you are proposing is a form of a shared source license.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#208

Post by mattigames »

_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...

That's exactly what Ton is speaking against here, he doesn't want add-ons to have specific licenses but to share the same 'freedom' Blender has.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#209

Post by la_barba »

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…

>If you have even a modicum of experience with one thing, you can pick the other up in an afternoon and be up to speed within a week.

Have you found this to be true in your experience?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#210

Post by dmos62 »

antidesitter wrote: post #202
dmos62 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it fascinating that the English language doesn't have a distinction between the social meaning of free and the economic, in that these meanings are meshed into the same word?

What does “economic”, in opposition to “social”, mean in this context?

Economic as in it doesn't cost money; social as in social/political freedom to do with it what you please.
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