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Blender Is Free Software

code.blender.org

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Re: Blender Is Free Software

#321

Post by starbugs »

Jedd wrote: post #29
starbugs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

TFA refers heavily to 'free' as in the freedoms associated with this. You cite 'open source' as something that you admire. It's well known that 'free software' describes an attitude that the 'open source' crowd wasn't as keen to embrace, hence the subsequent linguistic wrangling.

The article refers to a "free/open source business model". Even there the terms are used in a somewhat identical fashion.

I really don't see how this kind of linguistic wrangling helps. Instead it kind of diverts from my initial point and drives the discussion into nitpicking.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#322

Post by starbugs »

mungoid wrote: post #61
tokai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think a lot of people get confused about that. There are hundreds (probably more) of paid software that offers it's source code up. You can use it to learn from or make improvements if you want but must pay if you want to actually use it. One example is I was recently messing around with Space Engineers code. Keen software gives opens it up but doesn't mean you can just download the code and get the game for free

That does not comply with the official (OSI) definition of open source and is a misuse of the term. It's a pity that people get away with this and cause this kind of confusion.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#323

Post by the_why_of_y »

somatic wrote: post #310
starbugs wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here's the text of #6: "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research." My thought is not to restrict anyone from doing anything. Rather that, for example, any profit-seeking entity can use any code, but that that profit-seeking entity must pay a st…

> "The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.", the GNU/GPL don't qualify as "open source" software.

May I suggest you first read the license before jumping to the conclusion that the OSI is incompetent at reviewing licenses?

5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.

A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#324

Post by sfink »

freedomben wrote: post #206
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.

It's pretty awkward to use for video editing. I tried it out, repeating a simple project I'd done in kdenlive. You have to do a lot of manual format setup. Worse, by default it'll be unusably slow until you configure the caching just right. I found it more of a "sure, you could get this done in blender, but..."

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#325

Post by phkahler »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #289
phkahler wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody wants to wait for a developer to implement the things they want. If they have work to do, they need a solution NOW. Pick what's available and pay what it costs. For commercial software that's some $$$ and for Free software that's $0.00. Then once the purchase has been made, the question of paying someone to work on it is a separate issue. Most rational people would say "why would I do that?" Comparing paying a…

> Nobody wants to wait for a developer to implement the things they want. And yet they still want them, and things take non-zero time to implement regardless of who is doing it. It's not as if proprietary software appears from whole cloth in zero time containing every feature requested by every customer. > If they have work to do, they need a solution NOW. If they have work to do they can do it the same way they did…

They probably see it as rent. There is awareness that newer versions may be better, but they pay to use the software.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#326

Post by sfink »

didibus wrote: post #242

Does Blender make any money? Are the developers compensated? I've always had a kind of conflicting perspective, as a developer myself, I enjoy the vibrant exchange of information and source which is open and often free and even "gratis". It has helped me grow and learn, it empowers me to be more productive as I can leverage a lot of existing code. That said, it also often worries me that the culture isn't willing to…

The direct financial impact is one thing to consider. But another is... I'll describe it as capability, complexity, and progress. The ability for developers to build on each other's stuff is hugely significant. Otherwise, every company reimplements the same stuff, and even for what they buy, the standard (and interoperable) solution that the industry settles on and is thus able to advance further, is determined by the vagaries of business: pricing, approach, market segmentation, lockin strategy, leaders' whims, etc. Quality factors in there somewhere. As a prominent CEO once said, "We're not here to write excellent software. We're here to write software that's better than our competitors'."

Free software is more important at the foundational levels, because the virtuous cycle of endless improvement raises the baseline for everyone over time.

For those of us whose livelihoods depend on software salaries, it cuts both ways. We can't get paid for writing grep, but we also don't have to spend our careers rewriting grep over and over again at different companies.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#327

Post by BeetleB »

fsloth wrote: post #313
BeetleB wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I think the following analogue is apt: lots of people drink coffee in the post-Columbian world. When you order coffee and sugar most of the 8 billion people on the planet understand what you are talking about. However, if starbucks does not exist nobody understand what frappucino is. You can have the drink and have a very active internet group of frappucino afficionados, but despite the fact you know thousands of fra…

You've written a lengthy comment explaining the problem with using the word libre, while completely neglecting the problem with the word "free", which is what my comment is about. Attacking a position I'm not advocating is not fruitful.

We have a long history of using the word "free". The problems with the word are not hypothetical - it's there in the history - to the point that it divides the free software community.

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#328

Post by em-bee »

notatoad wrote: post #292
dahart wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of the add-one on this site are commercial plugins available for sale by their authors. All Blender plugins have to be GPL Just a side-note about the distinctions between open-source, free software, and commercial software. The US government considers any software that has a license and is available to the public “commercial”. So all GNU software in their view is commercial. It’s not a legal distinction of whe…

"commercial software" has a well-used and generally accepted definition, regardless of how the DOD procurement rules define the term.

as more and more companies sell FOSS licensed software, that definition is going to change. commercial software as the opposite of Free Software worked as long as the majority of Free Software products were generally free as in beverage in addition to having a free license. "Commercial Open Source" is a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_open_source_applica...

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#329

Post by Jedd »

starbugs wrote: post #321
Jedd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA refers heavily to 'free' as in the freedoms associated with this. You cite 'open source' as something that you admire. It's well known that 'free software' describes an attitude that the 'open source' crowd wasn't as keen to embrace, hence the subsequent linguistic wrangling.

The article refers to a "free/open source business model". Even there the terms are used in a somewhat identical fashion. I really don't see how this kind of linguistic wrangling helps. Instead it kind of diverts from my initial point and drives the discussion into nitpicking.

> The article refers to a "free/open source business model". Even there the terms are used in a somewhat identical fashion.

This is not true.

The word 'free' is used six times in the first paragraph to emphasise the point being made, then they really spell it out for you :

"This freedom is what makes the GNU GPL license so powerful and it is why it’s much more than 'open source'."

Re: Blender Is Free Software

#330

Post by microcolonel »

la_barba wrote: post #305
microcolonel wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 di…

>Only if the software you're buying meets all of your current and future requirements, and is maintained indefinitely. Nobody expects 3d design software to be maintained indefinitely or expects 3d design software to satisfy future requirements magically. You buy a 3d design software to make you money by creating content. Either it makes you money or it doesn't. The easiest thing to do is to simply buy what everyone e…

> you have to now hire ...test/pm folks

Do you? Depends on what you need done.

> I don't agree at all. I think it actually is more manageable.

Well, at that point it is a matter of opinion.

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