Now, this is more true. But we also need to define long term. One year of corporate funding is “good enough” long term for me. It’s a decent sum of money so you can plan to find a talent at least for a year or pay a dedicated developer to work exclusively on an important part of Blender for 3 or 6 months. It’s all great as I see it. Honesty, beggars can’t be choosers in our situation.
But I don’t agree that some of the sponsors dropping from the list is a suprise for Blender Fundation. I can’t imagine Ton or whoever is responsible for looking for funding sources is not approaching corporate sponsors well in advance to secure the commitment for another year. So if a corporate sponsor decides not to there should be enough time to adjust and reevaluate things.
We actually saw it this year after a few sponsors dropped and funding was removed from a couple of modules. Now it seems like it’s back with new sponsors and new talent.
Until a higher percentage of users starts committing to Blender Fund the reliance on corporate sponsorship will be the main factor in the success of Blender development.
Luckily, I don’t think Blender will lose a significant number of sponsors any time soon. I think it moved beyond the threshold where there are a number of big corporate players invested in the Blender success as much as many users.
Sure, you can fund some project, but what you actually want in a software company is to have indefinite contracts with your developers. In that regard, corporate sponsors are a larger risk.
Why should I find another way of funding? My point is that their funding is more risky when it comes to planning for the Blender Foundation. It makes it more difficult to ensure job safety for the developers.
Just because I claim it is more risky doesn’t mean my opinion is it should go away.
Man… why can’t people just be happy that we have a little more resources than a month ago?.. More is obviously always better. We have more now than we had before and it’s a great reason to celebrate. Those resources can be well spent on developing better Blender.
If you can affect the current state of things and help Blender achieve a status where it can get all the developers it needs at indefinite contracts and answer to no one, I’ll be ecstatic!
The whole software development or art career today is a risky endeavor. I would argue, looking from the outside, Blender Foundation does a good job and provides a better job stability than many other companies.
At the risk of sounding sarcastic- “duh!” I can’t believe this is even up for debate… I’m personally acquainted with 2 year-olds who seem to understand this concept better than the last dozen replies on this thread. Money is good, y’all. Why look a gift horse in the mouth so aggressively?
Their salary is below average and because of their funding, job safety is likely below average too.
As I just mentioned, it is not just about that. To find qualified coders, you have to provide something too. Sure, money is good, but if all of a sudden you don’t have enough to pay the salaries and you have to let people go, there is a risk of being in a bad situation to find talents in the future.
What i also always wonder how people want to decide how things has to be done… when there is no mentioning about any “support” from them, any experience in coding, developing, project or team management, knowlege in mathematics or physics… and when… then it is something like sooooo smaaalll which properly sums up to be helpfull but nevertheless doesn’t legitimate to take over the rudder…
Even the developers and management of big AAA 3D apps did made catastrophic decisions… that’s sometimes the reason whye their software/company… is gone… or sold… and gone…
Hey bus driver: after being on that once a year event… i just paid 1.80… now drive my to my home… 120km away from here… but pronto…
I am very irritated, because those comments appear to be about the comments I made.
I pointed out that the funding from those big sponsors is risky regarding the long term planning for the Blender Foundation. That’s it.
I never wrote that the money should not be accepted, I never wrote what they should do or anything like that. I didn’t point out the Blender Foundation did something wrong.
Yet, I feel some replies point in this direction which is quite confusing to be honest.
At least my reply was meant more general and explicitly to J’s post… and also the almost offtopic…
…and i also saw in general that several times people almost got into “fights” just because the there were other with other opinions…
The really weird thing is that those people do repeat themself several times trying to “be more detailed”… but alomost ever they do not know to complet context…
And by the way… Ton does know that some “big donorer”… do not do this to really help blender… but for reputation… and will never be made to make something they want… or don’t want…
They’re only paying the equivalent of one mid to senior level engineer’s salary, and unlike that engineer, it’s a tax write-off. That’s justification enough for a lot of companies.
Yes, I completely forgot about this. Companies who sponsors Blender kill two birds with one stone. Or maybe even three. They create good will, at least among the Blender community. I certainly feel less angry at some terrible corporations. They get to write off the donation as taxes and, of course if it matters to them, help a great project to live and develop further.
Just another throw-in…
I ever wondered about my (previous most liked browser…) FireFox: i think Mozilla did in the past and maybe now a by far worse job with “all the money they got”… bureaus all over the world ( who wanted to donate for that ??)
… splitting FF and FF-mobile, developing HTML renderengine and then not using it (but still ther is code…)
And now… the “re-structureing”…
…whatever…
So in blender developement there might by some not so nice decisons… people are disappointed because something
did not change since some time (and there were very few using it… or/and it is not easy )
did change (with advance notice)
Nonetheless people can use LTS versions (and even specific older versions ) i parallel… aaannnnddd can register to see whats going on on blender devtalk, the new gitea system… etc…
So in the end i do not know soo much (evolving and advanced) other software which can do this… an did not disappeared already… ( maybe emacs, vi… which also may count as e… and a… )
A decision they’re far more likely to make if Blender users react to the corporate funding with hostility, wouldn’t you say? If I was giving money to something and came across these last few replies on this thread, I would stop giving my money
My point still stands that large sponsorships are more tricky for the Blender Foundation to handle, because they can not naively use all of it for indefinite contracts. They have to be prepared for significant portions of that money to not be available within a short amount of time.
Sure, money is money. However, whether funds are more likely to be available in the long run is also important.
I am quite confused by the critique I am getting here. Somehow, one is only allowed to have a differentiated view, if one provides significant funding that could replace the amount that is being discussed?
I currently work in the world of non-profit, and part of our funding comes from grants. The funding period often lasts just a few months; certainly none of them are indefinite.
So - yes, the money “runs out” at some point, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t able to create a company budget, establish goals and deliverables, purchase various services needed, etc. Sometimes a grant renews, some times it does not. We aren’t firing people left and right when we apply for a grant and the answer is No, as we have a solid base foundation for our finances.
I am quite confused by the critique I am getting here. Somehow, one is only allowed to have a differentiated view, if one provides significant funding that could replace the amount that is being discussed?
Having a different view is allowed, but I don’t know why you feel different views aren’t up for discussion or debate.
I guess I’m not being clear. Here’s what I’m trying to say:
There are people from large corporations who donate money to the Blender Fund reading this thread. Some of them have recently been tagged. What are they going to see when they check their tags? Not gratitude, that’s for sure. They’re going to see complaining. Is that going to influence them to keep donating? I highly doubt it
Up for debate and not agreeing with it isn’t my problem at all. Being misrepresented and being straw manned is my problem. And to be clear, you didn’t do that.
The complaining was not against the sponsors… If the thread was named “Let’s praise the Blender Foundation Sponsors” I would never have replied.
I hope you can at least see that my points were continuously misrepresented.
I can’t believe this is even up for debate… I’m personally acquainted with 2 year-olds who seem to understand this concept better than the last dozen replies on this thread. Money is good, y’all. Why look a gift horse in the mouth so aggressively?
… but even those people do exist…
)