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Blender Is Free Software

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Re: Blender Is Free Software

#261

Post by Koshkin »

ralph84 wrote: post #161
Koshkin wrote: post #136

Information comes in different forms, and I am not quite sure why software is considered speech (and must, therefore, be free), but, say, schematics of an industrial electronic device or the blueprint of an airplane is not.

There are certainly some people who argue that any form of IP shouldn’t exist. Copyleft is a way to work within the existing IP system, but they would prefer IP be abolished. As for why free software took off while free $(other engineering discipline) hasn’t, I’d say it’s because “everyone” has a computer, but very few have an airplane factory.

"everyone" has bookshelves; should books be free, then?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#262

Post by destructionator »

chii wrote: post #217
briandear wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'.

I wonder if a GPL that said you cannot redistribute this for a price equal to or less than the amount you paid for it.

So if you got it free, it is fair to redistribute free or charge for it or whatever. But if the original author sold it to you for $40, you must sell it for at least $41. There's no royalties; all that money is yours, it just means you can't compete with the original author on price alone.

idk tho i gotta think about it

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#263

Post by BeetleB »

fsloth wrote: post #97
simias wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to interpret your reply in the context of what the parent is saying. Of course if it's not common to use the term then people will find it odd, out of place or maybe even pretentious. If some influential people manage to push it, eventually it'll be accepted. If our industry as a whole managed to utter words like "cloud computing", "webscale" or "full stack" with a straight face I really think "libre…

Sure, if a term becomes mainstream it's use is obvious. If you need to explain the connotations of a word in a lengthy forum post it's a pretty good indicator the use of the word is not adviced unless you are a tredn setter. If Elon Musk started to use the word libre software it might become a common enough term. If I use the word libre software I would have to first explain the word 90% of the time and become embarr…

>If you need to explain the connotations of a word in a lengthy forum post it's a pretty good indicator the use of the word is not adviced

That is the current reality with the word "free". Pretty much every HN/Reddit submission on free software will have this discussion, with plenty of people disagreeing with the use of the word "free". Unfortunately, the usual response is simply a denial of reality: "Those who don't oppose the word 'free' have an ulterior anti-free agenda" or some similar sentiment.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#264

Post by swerner »

voltagex_ wrote: post #80
smellsdonkey wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent Animation is trying to change this! They use almost 100% Blender, have some developers and contribute back to the community. See "Next-Gen" on Netflix for their latest movie. Disclaimer: Worked for them as a Blender developer on Next-Gen

Are you able to talk about anything you did there? I only get to work on open source in my spare time (and nothing as complex as Blender). What did a normal day look like for you?

Our repository is public. You can look at every single commit we did: https://github.com/tangent-animation/blender278/commits/mast...

"Normal days" changed during the course of the project. In the beginning, it was work on new features for months if necessary, towards the end it were overnight patches for "frame x in shot y looks wrong/crashes/takes forever".

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#265

Post by swerner »

craigsmansion wrote: post #251
micmil wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The idea that a company should just hire a programmer they don't otherwise need just so they can make some software work is asinine Weren't you just saying the magic ingredient was "support"? Do you believe a first line help-desk is going to provide better support than a guy whose livelihood depends on it and you can call to your desk? >That's like saying a home builder should hire a full time auto mechanic In this…

I worked as one of several in-house Blender developers on "Next Gen". In some cases, were able to get fixed builds into our artists' hands in within 24h of a bug report. I have not had such a quick turnaround with any commercial software vendor yet.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80988892

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#266

Post by type0 »

novok wrote: post #226
bad_user wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Source available” licensing is useless. Many companies and many developers have tried to misappropriate the term “Open Source”, to make it be understood as “source available”, because Open Source / Free Software have sex appeal for developers, so they are trying to have their cake and eat it too. Don’t fall into that trap. The freedoms provided by both Open Source and Free Software licensing are well defined and mea…

Source available is useful for debugging at least. I sure wish I had 'source available' when making iOS apps!

> Source available is useful for debugging at least

how so?

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#267

Post by redwall_hp »

bad_user wrote: post #155
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.

“Source available” licensing is useless. Many companies and many developers have tried to misappropriate the term “Open Source”, to make it be understood as “source available”, because Open Source / Free Software have sex appeal for developers, so they are trying to have their cake and eat it too. Don’t fall into that trap. The freedoms provided by both Open Source and Free Software licensing are well defined and mea…

It's being buzzworded pretty badly. I hate hearing about non-software things referred to as "open source."

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#268

Post by huhtenberg »

richardw wrote: post #50
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…

Maybe if they'd called it freedom software?

That's been claimed by "freedom fries" I'm afraid.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#269

Post by microcolonel »

la_barba wrote: post #216
microcolonel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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…

> one is known

Only if the software you're buying meets all of your current and future requirements, and is maintained indefinitely. If new requirements come up, they're at least not any more helpful than in-house resources (unless a lot of people suddenly have the same requirements at the same time); and if they stop maintaining it, there's a good chance you literally can't do anything about that.

You just have a different set of unknowns, one of which seems more manageable (which is probably why it is more popular), and probably is more manageable in some subset of use cases.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#270

Post by type0 »

micmil wrote: post #196
kgwxd wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wants fixed, known deliverables, the last thing they should be looking at is proprietary software, where a seemingly stable product suddenly updates and everything is different and the license changes retroactively, e.g Photoshop. Version controlled, open source means you can check out any version you might need, at any time, now and forever. Seems worth throwing some money at such a promise.

Spoken like someone that doesn't own a business. You do not throw money at promises. You throw money at solutions.

If you are short sighted enough to only care about day to day operations and don't see competence in software usage as an investment that will bring competitive advantages in the long run.
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