It is possible to have copyleft software without requiring add-ons, scripts, etc that one can use with it to be copyleft as well. Copyleft is not limited solely to GPL (which is the license in question causing the issue).
Well, if as a user you use a proprietary plugin, the software you’re using is no longer completely free. So if you want to see how it works, change it or share it with others you can’t.
This sort of thing is a descision you make as a project, do you want to allow for (potentially higher quality) closed components, or do you want to discourage it.
I thnk both are valid options, and you could argue that if you really value free software, the latter is the better one.
Sometimes as with Wings3D the seemingly strange interface was largely the point of the application. In this case it is program designed to do particular things and do them well. It’s amazing how some users just don’t get that.
Alright… let’s stop right there and take an opportunity to be clear about something:
There is no “potential” license change.
It’s already been pointed out numerous times, in multiple threads, that trying such a thing would not be feasible. But more to the point, there is zero interest* from any of the core Blender developers (and I daresay most periphery Blender developers) in changing Blender’s license. It’s not on the table. Is. Not.
Saying “potential license change” in Blender is just as ridiculous as discussing the “potential license change” of Maya or Photoshop or [insert proprietary app].
Blender is licensed under the GPL. This affords it some advantages and some disadvantages. Proprietary programs are closed source. Similarly, that affords them some advantages and some disadvantages. Neither license is likely to change. Solutions for interoperability start after accepting that premise.
- (+/- some standard deviation)
Theres “free” software and then theres “free” (as in freedom) software…neither are really true in this case. The BF still needs revenue, plugins are now starting to cost money along with the encouragement that the money will continue support/development, time can also be lumped with money depending on circumstances… so its all going to cost something one way or another. So what about “freedom”? In order to have open source licensed via GPL, you gain some freedoms by giving up some freedoms. The pro is also the con, so its about knowing what you are getting and what you are losing at the same time.
This is not a show-stopper, in my mind. I learned Erlang so I could contribute to Wings3d (and did). That’s easy compared to learning how a large complicated codebase like Blender works.
Every year or every open movie , there will come people arguing about it! User interface then GPL then some feature that go in …like B-Mesh.
Maybe have sticky with this so people that go over board gets pointed to it.
Game engine it is the only one that gave in time to time the GPL type of discussions , once for the exported game , then for other thing.
Looks there it is really need for some stickyes with this related things and even in Blender 3D manual a page or two with this cleared out.
So people when go in they get the “idea” and the limits and use the limits to make things better.
Sure you can. You simply cannot distribute the host software (Blender) with the proprietary addon/plugin. You can easily, however, download & install it from within the host application. Copyleft affects distribution, not use. Installing a plugin/addon when you already have the host application installed comes under use of the application & distribution of the plugin only.
And I would argue that we’re not talking here about the free software movement but the practicalities (or lack thereof, if you prefer) of Blender allowing commercial plugins. It might come as a surprise to some, but there are people that choose the GPL for reasons other than the ones inspiring Stallman put the license together.
I would posit that if it comes down to choosing between people “really valuing free software” and artists “really valuing Blender in the workplace”, the latter would probably have more impact on Blender developers 
Thanks. This really needed to be said. Most of us took it for granted but there has been a bit of misplaced hope (denial?) about the ‘potential’ since it was made clear by multiple developers what that meant for BGE distributions (& the code therein) recently.
With that out of the way, perhaps we can talk about realistic options now 
Oh, I learnt it based in Wings too. Then some months later, having added it to my resume, got head-hunted for a project using it. Worked out well in multiple ways for me
Whilst it’s not a show-stopper by any means, the fact one has to not only learn a new programming language, but a new programming paradigm (one that is pretty awesome, but not one known by most developers) does cut down on the potential number of people that can actually work with the code base in any big way.
For completeness although its a technicality, it might be worth mentioning that there was some talk about a migration to AGPL.
Thanks. This really needed to be said. Most of us took it for granted but there has been a bit of misplaced hope (denial?) about the ‘potential’ since it was made clear by multiple developers what that meant for BGE distributions (& the code therein) recently.
What DOES that mean for BGE distributions? I… have a friend who wants to know.
Put simply, code using the API’s must be released in a GPL compatible manner. Meshes, textures, animations, etc being standalone works not reliant on the API are free from such licensing restrictions. However code that must use GPL functions in order to function (i.e. pretty much anything you would need to include in a BGE distribution) would have to be made available upon request to anyone you distribute to.
This is not just me speaking, this is the Free Software Foundation AND at least one Blender Foundation permanent developer.
Really? Why? I wouldn’t have thought that running a Blender render farm (the ONLY reason I can see for this) was that important a case to enforce distribution of code to people submitting their .blend files to it.
Do you have a link to this discussion?
I never heard Ton or any other developers talk about migrating to AGPL.
The fact that plugins cost money is actually based on the good will of the buyers, as the plugins are GPL. So there is nothing to stop a buyer from giving the
plugin away, except the knowledge that if the programmer doesn’t earn any money from the plugin he/she will likely stop working on it. Jonathan says that is working out pretty well for the pluging they are developing and maintaining. So, if the community has enough fair minded people in it (which I think blender does), you can have both free as in freedom without always having free as in beer. The same thing holds for blender itself. It is formally free in both senses, but enough people have to take responsibility and donate, otherwise it won’t work. Luckely, we do, so I don’t really see the problem.
Right now, people are doing so. Which is lucky… but most people cannot (or at least, don’t) rely on luck for long term business decisions. Also, it only takes one person to release the source. Just because the existing customer don’t means nothing whatsoever about future ones.
I’m a developer. I’ve worked on projects so proprietary I cannot even discuss what I did on them. I’ve worked on GPL code which remained in house and GPL code that was widely distributed by uni students after it’s release. I sell products retail and work on contractual basis for companies that want to own the results of my work. I’ve worked the entire gamut of “freedom” in regards to sharing software and I can say from experience that I’m not the only developer that is hesitant in investing large amounts of time on the chance I’ll be lucky and recoup my costs before someone decides to share the code legally & without anything I can do about it.
I understand that you are hesitant about this. But for projects that take more time and are therefore more high risk for the developer, other models exist, such as crowdsourcing. That worked quite well for the tiled compositor and at no risk to the developer, because he was paid upfront. Ofcourse, this again
relies on the fact that enough people contribute and that people don’t just sit back and wait for others to pay for it. There is some interesting game theory
behind that btw.
But to make a long story short, I think there are financing models that work for both small addon like projects as well as larger project carried out without dev fund backing, at least for individual developers. I don’t think the current models of either crowdfunding up front or sale of GPL-ed software afterwards are sufficient for company to invest resources.
To be fair, you’re somewhat in danger of falling into the trap of equating “free (as in beer) user” with “lost sale”.
In the case of commercial Blender add-ons, we’re somewhat fortunate that the Blender community has a generally high, um, I’ll call it “fairness awareness”. As freeloader-y as many of us can be, we’re really quite allergic to anything that smells or tastes of scammy-ness (yeah… I’m making up a lot of words here… bear with me). Because of this, if someone were to try to take any popular commercial add-on and nakedly redistribute the source, it’s very likely that fans of that add-on (and its developer) would be quick to point people to the original source (see, for example, 3D Magix and friends).
With that kind of communication in place from the community, if a person still gets the freely available redistribution without paying, they never were going to pay. It’s not fair or nice that the developer doesn’t get compensated for that usage, but it can’t really be counted as a lost sale, either.
I think we might agree on this part - which is a step forward from our usual 100% disagreement
I don’t argue that there are financing models that work for small add-on projects. They are, by & large, ones that need a smaller upfront investment. Lower stakes make for higher risk tolerance. It’s when we get to large investments with large risks that I see the GPL model for development breaking down in regards to Blender. The majority of pure GPL licensing success stories come from providing services & support (see Red Hat) and/or commercial companies sponsoring GPL development to add value to their products (see IBM).
The simple sale of GPL software, whilst perfectly possible & legal, is not something I’ve seen work as a medium or long term business plan. Services & support, on the other hand, work well… but Blender’s adoption won’t really support much of that in the add-on/plugin market. Maybe in the provision of render farms & training at this point, but realistically not much else at this point.
And to be fair, you’re somewhat in danger of thinking that people fall into one camp or the other. Yes, there are people that will only download the product if it’s free (i.e. are not a lost sale) and there are people that will only purchase then product regardless of it being made available (therefore would be a sale regardless of license). I submit to you, however, that the vast majority of people lie in between these two extremes and they will (at various levels of cost pressure, desire, and temptation) download & use a free version when they might otherwise have bought one if the free version wasn’t legal.
Put it this way. I believe I could walk into almost any Blender get together and there will be at least one person that has pirated at movies, songs, and/or other copyrighted work. That’s outright illegal and we’re talking about the legal & aligned with the free software ideals as espoused by Richard Stallman. It is more moral to distribute/download GPL licesned software than it is to pirate movies & songs and we both know the latter is simply a matter of temptation & access to most people.
Also, “3D Magix and friends” tend to be charging for the software one can get for free from the official source. We’re talking about the opposite. As such, I don’t really think the two are comparable.
FWIW, I don’t think cheap plugins/addons are going to present a large enough temptation to people to find/use the free source. It’s when plugins/addons cost $100, $200, etc that I think the temptation to say “bugger it, I’ll get it from the free site” will become more prevalent. After all, it’s legal and justifiable according to the FSF head honcho
I think we agree more often that it might seem. It is just that when we disagree, we do so quite passionately grin.
Anyway, I think you make a good point with your IBM example. In that case, there is a clear advantage for the company to support the development of the Linux kernel. And what’s more, some kernel developers are so famous in certain circles that companies will simply put them on the payroll and let them do more or less what they want. I guess the same holds for a project like Python. Companies like google and dropbox rely so heavily on python that it is clearly in their interest to spend (what from their perspective is probably a symbolic amount of) money on that project. Blender doesn’t really have that leverage and the question is how it good get it. However, I don’t think the GPL is what is holding this back. It is simply a chicken/egg situation. Commercial companies would probably invest in blender if it were so widely adopted that it would hold them back if they would not have blender in their pipeline, but for that to occur, some investment would probably first be necessary. Blender needs a critical mass and the question is how to get it. Perhaps a look at how other open source projects got critical mass could shed some light on this.