Official Blender 2.5 Support Team Announced

Posted on by

Changes at the Blender Foundation! They today announced the formation of the official Blender 2.5 support team. Did somebody say awesome?

Ton Roosendaal writes:

Hi all,

I proudly present to you the official Blender 2.5 support team!

Campbell Barton gets a year contract, and will fill Brecht’s position. He will be working for Blender Institute, which might mean he has (current and future) Open Movie related assignments as well. For at least the first half the year his main focus will be stabilizing Blender and the Python API.

And! Thanks to additional sponsoring the Blender Foundation can also hire:

Nathan Letwory and Janne Karhu, each for 7 months half-time. They will be fully assigned to the job “get Blender out of beta”, manage bug and patch trackers, support other developers, and get our documentation updated. They will officially start on September 1st.

Diego Borghetti is still working part time on tracker bugs as well, his contract has been extended to end of September. I will also check on doing a more visible donation (subscription?) system for hiring him or another additional official Blender developer for support topics.

Lastly: I’m planning to be also be available for development, especially after the Sintel premiere and Conference. My assignment will be to wrap up unfinished Blender 2.5 project topics, and ensure the UI works as pleasant and fast for experienced users as they were used to in the previous versions!

I think we have a great line-up this way, with team assignments that will have a clear benefit for everyone out there. This kind of work is the least Blender Foundation should organize.
A discussion how to extend this, like a pay-for-feature, still has to be done. My preference still is to organize it independently, as opportunity for new consultancy and integration business around blender.org.

Exciting times ahead!

Laters,

-Ton-

Be Sociable, Share!

    Twitter



    Please support us

    • http://www.cabanadigital.com jose cabana

      Times are changing! This is a milestone for the fundation. Congrats

    • stenosis

      that’s fine but any news on bmesh yet?

    • Milad thaha

      This is amazing! Blender support, woah! surely exciting times ahead. I bow to your dedication, Ton!

    • Bernard

      Really great news.Thank you all for the hard work! 2.5 is going to be exeptional :-)

    • redbyte

      This is great news! I especially like that that someone will be updating the wiki. What a good idea! :D

    • http://riokuro.com Rio

      Nice one, i’m definitely liking the pay for a feature idea!

      I’d like to help with bug tracking but as long as the search function in the bug tracker isn’t fixed i’m just not doing it.

    • http://iklsr.blogspot.com iKlsR

      very cool, blender needs some firm documentation and also, the wiki is finally gonna be cleared of all dead links… w00t! good news!

    • http://www.montagestudio.org Jonathan Williamson

      This is great news!

      I too am particularly keen for some developers to jump on the “Pay for Feature” option. I would be one of the first to pull out my wallet.

    • Drew

      *Bows to the great lego-builders.*

      Thank you for letting us play with your toys.

      *goes back to rigging constraint project*

    • DanielWray

      Congrats to all involved :)

    • DanielWray

      I also agree with Jonathan, I would be very happy to hand over cash for a pay for feature type of development scheme.

    • Konstanty

      “A discussion how to extend this, like a pay-for-feature, still has to be done.”

      Tread carefully here, guys. That opens the door to making Blender commercial software.

      And yes, I know there are people right here who would happily support that, and are ready to start handing money over right now. But although I’m sure it must be tempting, it’s still a bad idea.

      “My preference still is to organize it independently, as opportunity for new consultancy and integration business around blender.org.”

      I agree completely.

    • namekuseijin

      @Konstanty, AFAIU*, it’s not “pay for the software”, it’s “pay for feature priority and support”, and I like that business model. It’s not like they are closing sources or not receiving code contributions anymore, more like money going to where fixes are most needed.

      *U for understand, understand?

    • Deniska

      Please answer me.
      Wireframe in skulpt mode with solid on back it is realy?
      mail quakeii (dog) mail.ru

    • Spamagnet

      “That opens the door to making Blender commercial software.”

      Nope, not unless the Blender Foundation decides to offer commercial licenses (and I doubt they ever will). Under Blender’s GPL license, a modification to Blender itself must either (1) never be distributed to another company, or (2) the source must be released. Period.

      Having said that, anyone can make proprietary Python scripts and sell them commercially.

      http://www.blender.org/education-help/faq/gpl-for-artists/

    • Blendiac

      2.5 documentation and bug fixing FTW!

      Bmesh would be great, but it’s not much use for people until they actually learn Blender 2.5, which is helped by a stable app and good documentation.

      Go – Go – Rosendaal Rangers! :D

    • Blendiac

      @Konstanty – If you’re going to start throwing around the old phrase of Blender “going commercial”, at least define what you mean. I’m sure that *no one* is wanting to have Blender become something anyone would have to pay to receive (aside from the fact that being GPL with many, many contributors makes thiss near impossible). Generally people are saying that they would be happy to help fund specific features and bug fixes that *everyone* would receive under the GPL, just as we’ve all recieved features developed and paid for by open movie project sales.

    • Perpetual

      I think the “Pay for a feature” confuses people. I think they should re-word it “Donate for a feature.” Unless somehow ‘a paid for feature’ could only be used by the user that paid for it. But I don’t think that is what they meant.

    • dave62

      quote: “…My assignment will be to wrap up unfinished Blender 2.5 project topics, and ensure the UI works as pleasant and fast for experienced users as they were used to in the previous versions!”

      maybe add some old goodies…:)?

      for me after a lot time of using 2.5..

      if i start blender 2.4x versions now, some old methods in the ui were a lot faster: just to split the window, there was the whole edge of the window where you could click to select split, in 2.5 its just a very tiny area in the edge to do so.., the button window type selection was accessible out of the outliner. just clicked on the material icon of an object and the material options were shown, ..zoom/pan backdrop in node editor,
      add/rebuild some of these old standards would be great.

      i never understood the new standard spacekey mapping, biggest key of all assigned to a search function..
      yes of course you can change, but you got to doit for each windowtype. ok there´s some aid with an addon. a addon to make it standard..hmmm

      i think 2.5 is real great but 2.4 still got some little advantages, even without drag n drop;)

      great news congrats to the new team
      and thanks to all involved for building this great tool!

    • Sen

      Donation in subscription-form is a good idea. Tell me when it’s ready. Ten bugs a month shouldn’t hurt for that awesome tool, which i realize my dreams with!

      Good news, yeah!!!

    • imposterX

      There already is a community out there to offer support. Be a part of the community, and if the tools work, then you won’t need anything more. I’m starting to smell venture capitalism in it’s early stages, a deceptive bait and switch if you will. Might be time for other frustrated parties to start an alternate route 3D open source app as a safe-line.

      There is no need to even have an employed staff or a budget for a long-term open source project developed by a large number of programmers on a per hobby basis. Besides, it’s entirely unfair to have an open source project, where many developers offer their time, development and input into the software free of charge, just for the love of doing it, while some other developers becoming part of a staffed foundation, are going to get paid for offering a subscription model, profiting from the work of others without compensating them equally. This is in contrast to the only other profit scheme out there so far for blender, which is selling training material, which while mostly un-necessary due to the multitude of free training available, is at least for the most part not deriving profit from the unpaid work of others.

      Really bad idea. As well it’s completely un-necessary. Impure hands have apparently introduced themselves. Again, might be time for a backup plan and a 2nd open source 3D alternative for just in case this goes sour entirely.

    • imposterX

      To elaborate further on the above. (since the edit function wasn’t working)

      This (horrible concept) opens the door, for it to actually become monetarily profitable, to hinder and retard the development of the software, so that one group can get continue to get paid to offer “support”.

      Basically, providing a virtually finished, near zero bug version, would put the aforementioned “support” model out of financial business, hence an inbred conflict of interests.

      So while you can contemplate what may or may not actually take place, why open the door when it’s not even needed?

    • txrx

      Good update Ton, thnx!

    • averil

      Excellent news guys.

      @imposterX: I believe that Apache Foundation and GIMP have some paid developers in addition to their volunteer groups. No sign of those becoming tainted by capitalism yet.

    • http://www.montagestudio.org Jonathan Williamson

      Really I feel the “pay for feature”, if implemented by a third party, by individual developers, or by the Blender Foundation it self will not so much create a commercial side to Blender so much as allow professional users who are in need of specific features a way to get the features they need without having to switch to another commercial package.

    • imposterX

      Again, it opens the door for it to be profitable if the software requires support, hence it is in the best interest of those profiting, to keep the product in need of support. It’s a cycle of dependencies, or a cyclical conflict of interests.

      The ultimate goal of support, if they were to do it with the intentions you are hoping for, would be to entirely obsolete themselves in the fastest time possible, putting themselves out of business on purpose. If this goes through, my only hope is that enough bright people decide to work on a “back up” alternative.

    • namekuseijin

      good point, imposterX.

    • Dundaglan

      When you said Blender support team 2.5 I thought you meant support the users. i.e why don’t the F buttons work anymore etc….. now that what i’d call support

    • DT

      @impostorX:
      You made a good point, but you made some premises which i think are not true and therefor your argument fails:

      It’s, as far as i know, not possible for anyone to just go:”Give me money, then I will work on feature X for you.”
      Instead, coders who have previously shown dedication and skill in Blender developement are offered to work on Blender fulltime.
      So not just ANY coder can earn money from working on Blender, but only those who, well, “earned” that kind of offer and are also willing to do it.
      After all a great coder, contributing over years may have a good job and/or family that he/she doesn’t want to leave for such a long time.

      I think we’re safe as long as Ton is pulling the strings ;)

    • Keen1

      Where do I put in my credit card details? =P

      I’m looking forward to this, I was actually thinking about this a couple of weeks ago because blender really needs a full time team =)

    • kijja

      Fighting!!!!

    • ralmon

      Very exciting things are happening. I wonder where all this go. We are sailing uncharted waters.

      Well, the only thing I’m worried about “pay for a feature” is conflict of interest. If a lot of people pay for certain feature than other features, then the focus would be on the most paid feature but then how about the other features? That might create conflict. People who paid for the less paid features would be alienated.

      There is also this problem, the statement says that payment is only for adding features and not on improving them. That may seem of little issue but the statement suggest only on interest for quantity, not quality. I think there should also be some consensus on improving existing tools. I think many tools end up just being bells and whistles and never actually used other that tests and the like because they are not actually very unusable. I sometimes wish that there would be an intensive development focusing only on improving this unusable features.

      Still they seems to know best. Hope things would turn out good. Good luck Ton.

    • ralmon

      Wow I can’t edit my comments. What happened. I desperately need to correct mistakes from my previous comment.

    • http://nyquist.net/ John R. Nyquist

      I’m really looking forward to Campbell stabilizing the Python API. I’ve been sticking to version 2.49b for professional work utilizing Python. I need to play with the 2.53 APIs on the side :-)

    • http://www.applegrew.com AppleGrew

      Kudos!

    • Campbell Barton (ideasman42)

      its an honer to have this position and I’m really enjoying it so far!

      @stenosis, bmesh is unrelated to the 2.5 project, however I’d like to see mesh improvements too.

      @Rio, paying for features has been going on with blender (un-officially) for quite a long time, but would be great for BF to formalize this.

      @Konstanty, I don’t see a conflict here, as long as you pay for developers to write OpenSource software there are no problems.

      @ralmon, see your point about paid for features getting higher priority may not be in blenders best interest, but think we have to accept this. if I was freelancing as a developer I would end up working on projects I was paid for (and commit the code to blender in most cases).
      Though I think this ends up doing more good then bad since these are working with real-world problems rather then features I think are fun to code.

      In an extreme case, a company could try get the BF to focus on say… the sequencer entirely.
      At that point I think we can reject their offer since this takes the focus away from blenders user-base too much – we can use our common sense to choose our focus on too!

      @imposterX, your point about support vs stability being in conflict of interest, I can see what your getting at but practically I really doubt its going to be a problem.

      We attempt to fix all bugs in the tracker, commercial groups can only ask for priority.
      So including a bug would only postpone the trouble of fixing it.

      If you built houses and did a bad job in the hope you get called to make some fixes, it may work a few times but in the end you’d be known as a bad builder and not get much work :).

      I think a developer who does this would not stay in the industry long.

      @John R. Nyquist, its great to be back from NL and finally have time to work on python! though for now bug fixes are #1 priority for the next beta.

    • http://www.letworyinteractive.com/b/ Nathan Letwory

      I think people are jumping the gun about the pay for feature issue. As the announcement says it’s something that needs to be discussed. Readers obviously don’t read the entire announcement, as it is clearly said what th wish is of Blender Foundation.

      Then, about people who see venture capitalism, theats of closed source and all that everywhere. These people seem to be expecting that open source means no money, that developers should live on air just so that the user can have software for nothing, just because the user doesn’t want to pay for it. Well, grow up. Even the hobbyist developer needs money to ensure he doesn’t die at the keyboard while working on the software he loves. Perhaps the developer has a family to maintain as well, who knows?

      Over the years that I’ve been active in Blender developement (already since 2003, damn, I’m getting OLD), I’ve seen users demanding every bit of software they use for free, every bit of open movie entirely for free, every bit of book related to blender for free. In my eyes this type of user is nothing more than just a parasyte, leeching on the goodwill of developers, but giving nothing back in return. For these users I have never used my time for the improvement of Blender, rest assured.

      Fortunately there are users who want to donate, give something back in return – for these users I have worked all these hours. And for one I see this possibility as a token of gratitude. On the other hand, it ensures me to actually be able to work on Blender without having to worry too much about my family; they’ll get their food and other necessities, even though I work on something that’s my passion. So, maybe it helps the ‘leechers’ to think of this as a way for devoted developers to concentrate properly on Blender without having to worry about their financial situation too much. If users still feel it might create different casts of developers: http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/donation-payment/ Shut up and donate money so much, that all current active developers can be hired.

      For me, some of the money will definitely find it’s way back to the community not only in Blender development, but also in http://www.planetblender.org and http://www.blenderstorm.org . I hope we can together work on making Blender the best there is.

      /Nathan

      ps. I am aware that not everybody is in a position to donate, even if they wanted to – don’t worry, your intention is what counts. Just keep using Blender!

    • Joolme!!

      To learn Blender
      Nearly 1800 pages of manuals to learn
      and
      Many tutorials and practice must be.
      And
      the computer-based knowledge
      and
      Many of the other software
      (Image-related and sound-related. etc)
      Should learn.

      But

      Most of the humans on the planet

      Tired of working for their own lives
      in the apartment
      Sitting on the couch eating potato chips and watch TV on
      Fall asleep on the couch.

      These people make up more than 98% of the earth.

      98% of one person
      If have to learn Blender
      He will be
      a psycho.

      see this post here,you,,,
      people are people who belong to the 2%.

      Why are people so hard to live
      Sleepy eye in free time
      3D Max could see the manual?

      It is now more 3D Max is the hope of better job brings.

      When they have gotten a $ 5000 3D Max is purchased.

      When I think

      Most people using Blender to make money, I know this is not.
      But
      we do not make money through the blender to
      All the hard life of people
      Blender is not want to use.

      If We can make money through the blender to
      many people watching us
      Will be read by the Blender Manual

      Because of
      Nevertheless
      I think that we created to make money through the blender should pay

      At least until then
      Change the great free open source software to become unstable Cheap Software

      If have Blender
      If unstable Cheap Software

      I can not tell.
      Through the blender can live a better life.

      If can not say that
      In Korea
      People who use Blender……

      I’m only one

      I am afraid it …

    • Campbell Barton (ideasman42)

      @Nathan Letwory, Im not so bothered by the ‘Leeches’, one of the things I like about opensource is there is no obligation to give back, I use loads of opensource apps and don’t donate back to the projects (not yet at least).

    • ralmon

      @Campbell Barton: That is great to hear. I was afraid that things might go wrong… my fear seems to be out of place. I have no fear now that you will make the right decisions when the time comes. You have my support.

      @Nathan Letwory: Sorry for the trouble we give you. I will try to give something back to Blender.

    • Pawel

      Very exciting news in general!
      As for the “commercialization fears”, as long as Blender stays open source and you don’t HAVE TO pay for a full-working copy of Blender, it’s fine with me. It’s in our common interest that the devs should be properly rewarded for their work.

    • http://www.youtube.com/robbielosee Robbie Losee

      This is the best news I’ve heard in a while. I had been a little afraid development would slow down for a while after Durian. Very cool to see there is a development team in place. Rock on devs!

    • Charon

      Good news and it seems the Blender developments will move faster. Functions are important, but the user interface is the most important. I have been using Blender for over 5 yrs and still not very familiar with the 2.5. Yes, I like the old school interface because I love the way boxes and choices are clustering in small space, rather than always find the function by opening (or closing) many arrows. The faster Blender release, the more force to push me to learn and change!

    • imposterX

      In reply to: Campbell Barton

      After listening to you respond, I’m actually more convinced now, that this is going to be a bigger problem than anyone here is expecting in the not so longer run. I hope that I am wrong, best of luck to all involved.

    • tmr232

      “and ensure the UI works as pleasant and fast for experienced users as they were used to in the previous versions!”

      Yay!

    • http://www.blender.org ton

      I might have better left out the last remark about ‘pay for feature’, that really has nothing to do with the actual announcement!

      What I wanted to clarify was that the support team will restrict to general benefit projects only, to maintain the facilities to keep Blender an open project for everyone – paid or volunteer equally. The team will operate under my supervision on tasks to support every active developer, and specifically to solve issues volunteers keep avoiding… which is just simply basic maintenance. In order to get Blender 2.5 finished, an essential step in my opinion.

      To those who are afraid that Blender becomes “commercial” now, be aware that since Blender became open source – in 2002 – I’ve setup the Foundation to get revenues and sponsoring to pay at least my salary, pay for website support, organize conferences, and participate in SIGGRAPH. In 2005 I we started with Open Projects, which then involved several full timers to work on Blender as well.

      Blender cannot run as a volunteer-based project only, and it never has since its beginning. I’ve tried to carefully organize it in a very ethically strict manner, trying to prevent conflicts of interests, and especially to guard our basic open principles. When – outside of blender.org – paid developers join the team, they’ll be welcomed equally by everyone, including the official Blender Foundation team. No conflict of interest here, I think that’s a very clear situation. :)

      I also think that “the community” is already giving us a tremendous level of support, which will be difficult to optimize further, like with ‘pay for feature’ campaigns. I much rather extend our community with professionals, (small) studios, universities and institutes. That’s the places were actual growth can happen. And they shouldn’t pay the BF for support, but instead hire developers, trainers, consultants, integrators and of course a lot of artists!

      -Ton-

    • Bernard

      Great that Ton added this comment! I just wanted to say that I am very confident reguarding Ton and the core of developpers of Blender who know very well what they are doing since the beginning. I am glad to be able to donate and understand that many users cannot. Every one is free to support the way he best can. Anyway a stable 2.5 and a good documentation seems a good priority to help Blender go ahead in the the near future and get more used in the professional studios.

    • kram2301

      this anouncement is great :D
      Support will be very useful. I can’t see myself needing that any time soon but I’m sure, many people with actual big projects will be very happy to have such an official support as a possibility.
      Also, what ever is found as a problem in big studios and solved/bug fixed, will also help who ever uses Blender in a smaller scale :)

    • jeo

      and ensure the UI works as pleasant and fast for experienced users as they were used to in the previous versions!
      :):):):):):):):):):)
      ++++++++
      thankyou

    • Emlimop

      Sounds like Blender is going for a bright future. Good luck with support team. Also I am looking forward to this “pay for feature” feature.

      I am not sure about totally independent development strucure. What about “big features” where much of Blender code is involved. You risk maybe big overlap of development, and much code might not be accepted in Blender main, so discontinued??. Maybe there are ways to deal with these concerns.

      Offtopic.. Anyone can tell if this new node based programming system will come for the game engine, and possible when?

      Ontopic.. Would this be a kind of feature I could pay to get, or would it be too big(or what if if only 1000€ is invested, but much more is needed to complete the task?) This would consern the question of total independent devolpment structure.

      I do not know how through these questions are discussed. Just want to give my line of thinking.

      Anyway. I am sure you will find good solutions.

    • Olga

      To NATHAN LETWORY,

      If I’m not mistaken most of open source is written by hobbyists, something they do for fun in their spare time without expectations. When you mention a “hobbyists dying at a keyboard”, that’s pathetic, perhaps you should get a full-time job at Microsoft, Autodesk or Google if you need to feed your family.. I design game maps for an open source game, for fun, without expecting to get paid, along with many many other people. It’s a very nice, friendly, open source community project.

      You calling hobbyists, casual users, or maybe just poor folks, “parasites” and “leeches” is disgusting. With this type of attitude make me a favor, please GET LOST! I don’t want to use a snippet of your code! “Shut up and donate money” – what an attitude, you pathetic human being!

      I’ve donated some money to various open source projects as gift of appreciation and I’ve purchased few books from the Blender Foundation to support the project. Even though there is already a book out on the 2.5 release, I decided to wait a bit longer and to purchasing new learning material for the 2.5 – 2.6 release from the Blender Foundation in order to support the project. Though at times when I hear such a lame rant from one of the coders, it makes me pause and think whether it’s worth to deal with such whining BS! Sometimes I think it’s worth popping extra cash and getting state of the art, well documented app like Maya, and skip all that BS. But, thank god for folks like Ton, who are still around…

    • flagus

      I’ve read most of the comments above and I can sense how much everyone is attached to blender :). Many have different views and opinions, its great that everyone can express what they think and even say what they fear might happen if…(read the comments above if you want to know :) )

      Blender have brought a lot to many, and to me in the first place. Today I can make in an 3d image what I’ve thought in my mind which is just owesome, and once in a while get a little paid job :).

      I just want to say a big thanks to Ton and all the Devs that have work so hard to make Blender what it is today. Ton vision of Blender really gave a whole new “dimension” to the 3d world.

      Again thanks to Ton, the Devs, and also a little thought for all the websites that are dedicated to Blender and help us share our passion.

      I’m sure that 2.6 is gonna be really owesome and bring Blender to a whole new professional level!

    • http://www.bespired.nl joeri67

      Cool to see such talented people getting hired by the foundation.

      Super that there is money to do that. I guess most is earned in the e-shop and not spend on luxury hotels at siggraph :P

      @Campbell Barton (ideasman42):
      I think you are a real blenderman. Fast and result driven. Enjoy.

      @Nathan Letwory:
      As you know on the internet there will always will be people who read your posts just a twist different from how you wrote them. I can tell you by experience as you are not half as old as me. Maybe this is also true for you?

      I find what I read in your post to be a little, … euh … small minded. Every user that spends time into blender as a hobbyist makes magazines like 3d world hire Bassam to write tutorials and give Blender the status of a real program. So even without actual spending money on you as a blender developer the people who spend time on learning blender and not a real 3d program make it possible for blender to grow. Without users no blender.
      Not to mention what a hell it is for users to use a program that constantly crashes on them or having “work-arounds” that take hours while another app has a single click to do it. And to have documentation that’s outdated because the developer thought it would be okay to remove or replace a feature. At NaN we even had saving images removed by a developer with a note: “do we really need it?” Don’t get me started on developers. :P
      Anyway: Try to enjoy your new job. You will not get back the time you spend on this.

    • http://www.letworyinteractive.com/b/ Nathan Letwory

      Just as a small addition: I meant those who only take, not give back. Using blender and create great art, animations and such for the community to enjoy is also giving back. I don’t really care how people take my comments, as long as they know that I have a passion for Blender and its users and strife to make it better in any way possible.

      I’m sorry I aggrevated those users who shouldn’t have felt the need – I didn’t mean you (but it’s good that you stand up for the small user!).

      Peace?

      /Nathan

      ps (I still don’t like those who only take and demand everything to be there to be taken, or take illegally otherwise).
      ps2 (I love Blender and its users).

    • http://www.letworyinteractive.com/b/ Nathan Letwory

      Oh, and before people get it wrong again – I don’t mean that people have to give to Blender specifically – any open source project is cool with me. (Just don’t only take, give back too, in any way you can, be it code, money or otherwise).

    • Ciriaco

      I think current development formula generates a quality software.
      I prefer to have stable simples tools rather than unstable Super-FX tools

      Thanks for your work

    • http://www.sinsoft.com/ Sinan

      I want to thank the devs and the Durian team for giving us Blender 2.5. Especially Blender 2.5 beta :)

      The devs have given us a new interface, a new animation system, and a solid python core with iterative workflow among other things. (*other things* is a huge list!)

      @joeri67

      I’m not sure what you mean by a real 3d program.

      It’s not really constructive to compare 3d packages. But I actually spent some time this year studying the Softimage Mod Tool simply out of fear that I “must learn a commercial 3d package”.

      Here is what I found out:

      1) Softimage with its unique user interface is still not as fast as Blender.

      2) Blender is not that far behind when compared to other high end 3d packages (the new animation system proves that).

      3) Blender has cool features (hint — sculpting), other 3d apps: no cool features.

      4) Blender is catching up fast.

      The subscription system will help with 4). Anybody who uses a 3d app worries about the future of that 3d app. This comes from the fact that there is so much time investment required to learn a 3d app and build a pipeline around it. Yes the pipeline is very important. The question of “given this 3d apps pipeline, how fast can I finish this” doesn’t get answered right away. You really need to spend time with the app.

      Now I can tell you that if you read the Softimage Message boards you would see that even the people who use Softimage are worried about Softimage’s future. Not the worry that Softimage will be discontinued. But rather the speed at which development is going at. All of it are warrantless fears.

      The fact that Blender is open source helps lessen the fear. And given that the developers are considering subscription models is a good assurance to those people who worry about the future of a 3d tool.

      Remember that whenever you build a complex piece of software, especially ones that involve artists, fear about the future of the software is packaged right along with the software. Artists for the most part do not like to change packages, just ask Photoshop artists.

      I also don’t like it when people compare Blender to other open source apps. Blender is very unique in that it can do things that professional apps can’t do: the speed at which you can create content.

      Sinan

    • Spamagnet

      @Nathan … I think most of us understood what you were saying. Unfortunately communication miscues happen far too often in a text-only environment such as this. Nevertheless, Olga was way out of line by resorting to name-calling. I certainly find it very upsetting when that sort of thing happens, so … hang in there, dude. You’re doing great work.

    • AndyC

      Spamagnet is spot on – I certainly understood what Nathan meant. Perhaps it’s English not being first language, perhaps it’s the problem of conveying subtle meaning when all you’ve got is text, or perhaps it’s that some people just enjoy taking offense – who knows?!

      I’ve come across plenty of people who whine about this, that or the other not being ‘free’, when of course they mean beer, not speech. Good software costs. Open source (especially Blender) has given me the chance to have high quality software I couldn’t otherwise afford, and now, slowly, pay back as I start to earn some money (as a chemist, Blender is strictly a hobby!). Nathan, I certainly appreciate all you, and all the other developers do, and certainly won’t complain when you dare to suggest that these things do need a bit of money to organise.

    • Bobster

      I don’t mind the pay-for-features idea. I’ve administered sites that have very specialized 911 software (GIS/Database/Emergency Response software connected to radios/telephone/hospital etc). Because the software is large and highly configurable (like Blender), people were given, based on how many seat licenses they had, a set of points they could put to a list of bug fixes and also to new features. The projects (bugs and features) would be prioritized based on what people wanted, and this is similar to that. Paying for features is not a lot different from the Google summer of code but instead of Google picking up the tab, users pick it up. Everyone winds up getting all of the features, but for those people who don’t pay, a feature you want may be slow in coming (although they can always contribute the feature themselves). There are also the ‘pay for support’ and ‘pay for training’ models for supporting GPL software. MySQL is a pay-for-support model. There are many ways to support Blender and not break the GPL. I wouldn’t even mind contributing directly to the blender foundation. Blender is pretty nice software (Whoa! What an understatement!) and when compared to commercial software, feature for feature, its easy to find money to support it.