In the context of each other, one of those statement makes no sense.
Comments like this are the mark of a Blender-fanboy. I hope you are not infected by that disease.
I don’t like Autodesk the company as much as any other 3D artist with a working brain, but engaging in wishful thinking is still delusional and not really helpful.
Just a heads-up: I’ve split the above posts from this thread, since a[nother] discussion of the GPL is off-topic from the core of that thread’s discussion.
Well, all this seems somewhat ambiguous.
On the one hand people clamor for more permissive unrestricted Blender license, to turn it into an even more powerful all in one 3D “free” solution. So if it should happen, what do you think would happen with all those companies that sell similar software to Blender?. I suppose that in part people are angry here with GPL because in some way it prevents completely abandoning some paid application of which they have to continue to depend because Blender limitations.
This is oversimplifying things a lot. At the bare minimum you should differentiate between end-user applications and libraries.
Note that there also is an economical factor to the license choice: The incredible success-story of open-source software is probably due to it’s practical benefits, not so much to the “freedom first” philosophy. So the GPL, which has the main purpose of ensuring the latter is not preferred when it’s mostly about economics. This article goes into more details.
Point is, saying License X is better than GPL because it’s used more widely is not a wise approach. Things are more complicated.
Cycles’ primary use is as a library within other applications, so again, for the exact same reasons I mentioned above. Details are available here.
And again, OpenCOLLADA is not an end-user application. Same reasons from above apply.
Good advice.
So i’m a fanboy because i prefer not to use FBX, oh common. 
If you do lookup of VFX breakdown and Blender you’ll see its used in various movies and TV series, and commercials, just take a look at https://www.blender.org/user-stories/goodbye-kansas-studios/
(@Ace_Dragon, that link is a nice example in contribution to your initial topic text)
The adoption becomes wider and wider even architects these days get attracted to it.
GPL keeps the core open as “Blender”, no disputes of ownerships of forked code.
Still companies who write 3d software are free to write exporters or importers, or invent open industry standards, currently that’s a role Blender performs, and eventually open standards will rule, it just takes time.
@JulianSeverin that explanation is spot on.
I don’t know if you are a fanboy, that comment was meant for proxe.
I just doubt your professionalism if you have no use for exchange formats and sadly FBX is an important one.
I share your sentiments about Autodesk’s behavior and the unfortunate situation Open-source software is in because of them, but that doesn’t change the fact that a format like fbx is a must.
I know that Blender is used in TV/movies (albeit sparingly), but it is used because of FBX and alembic and in spite of its limitations. If these limitation weren’t there it would be used even more.
Thanks for proving my point.
They adapt or die.
But if you think that this will break Autodesk, think again. Their product portfolio is aimed at the industry and i am not talking about the media industry.
Who wouldn’t?
A proper OpenVDB pipeline for exchanging Data from Houdini to Blender would cut out the autodesk middleman and would make the work of smaller VFX artists much more profitable for example.
The fact is, autodesk seems intent on slowly killing its self, you may not be aware of it, but ultimately if they continue down the restrictive lane, they will eventually push their user base away, that is why I say;
10 years from now people are gonna be like, remember autodesk?
And if you think it would be devastating, it would be to the user base, autodesk would be just fine, their software accounts for a small amount of their revenue, with the exception of CAD.
They are a business, and the model is failing, because the alternatives are there.
Repeating what you wrote before doesn’t make it more real.
So you are saying that Blender in its current state is an solid replacement for Max or Maya and ALL of its functionality for ALL users?
No, i don’t think so and even if i am very optimistic i don’t see that happen in the next 3-5 years.
Course I am not, if I was, I would have just said it, Open source is the future, community driven software is going to outstrip everything.
Then what do you mean with “the alternatives are there”. Where and what are they?
And then the problem becomes which version of FBX?, maybe the gaming field has some sensus about a specific FBX version (i dont work in that area), the engineering world is not so specific. They tend to use “latest”, or a version that doesnt work with latest, or some older product that is almost alike autodesk but its not the same thing and tries to work (just as blender) with a broken FBX format.
Its not Blender who is causing this formats trouble on the contrary (people tried to solve it, wrote in their free time importers / exporters, with an ever changing fbx format).
So i dont think its fair to blame this on Blender, put a voice on those vendor forums that they should support open formats.
blender, gimp, krita, inkscape, mypaint, alchemy
if you meant operating system them I would suggest Arch Linux
Theres other things too, like gpick for awesome color picking, peek for quick gifs.
Code editors, I prefer vim but atom , visual studio, code blocks, etc are all very good.
Libre Office and scribus ofcourse.
These are my alternatives, perhaps you will prefer other software out there.
Forgot unreal engine, which is a good example of community driven software that is not open source
How naive.
At the end of the day its irrelevant who to blame.
If it doesn’t work it counts as point against Blender, simple as that. You think the end user cares about fairness over comfortability?
Krita is an solid alternative, i give you that. But the rest can’t beat proprietary software, and therefore is not an solid alternative. I wish it weren’t so, but it is.
And these tools have nothing to do with Autodesk.
That’s all i have to say about this, as we are getting off-topic and are in danger of slipping into a software war which i wish to avoid.
Well we are in the GPL discussion thread, not sure if you noticed the move. The alternatives don’t need to have every feature the proprietary flavors offer, in some cases, like inkscape, just one feature is enough to get the job done.
I have made money with all the software above professionally for years, my clients could care less about what software I do it in, they care about results, at the end of the day only one thing matters, results, if you can do it in free software, good, you just made more money, now go donate to the blender foundation or something lol.
I would have to agree here. Only time will tell, but most companies (due to working business models and competitive constraints) can only afford a % of total revenue diverted to R&D. Open source is driven by appeal, usefulness, functionality, etc. — a hybrid capitalism undergoing rapid evolution.
At some point the competitively constrained R&D budgets of even large corporations (operating within current business models) will not be able to compete with the growing number of grad students, hobbyists, freelance professionals and studios, contributing to and improving open source applications and solutions such as Blender.
Licenses will propagate and adapt to the new business models developing within the open source arena. Or have I missed something?
It seems to some people that they think licensing will magically solve the issues.
Like the Playstation 4 OS is based on FreeBSD which would imply that you can play games on a FreeBSD OS machine now. Nope.
Permissive licenses often do that. Someone would take Blender and modify it and sell it under it’s own brand without the need to contribute anything back. The majority of the people (especially regular users) would not know about it. I’m using the Amazing 3D Reloaded app and it is great. What is a Blender?
Of course, that doesn’t have to be the rule. The companies using the software can contribute back with financial support, bug fixes and code contributions. However, they don’t have to use the branding, nor clearly mention on what they based on their software. It’s enough that is somewhere in the license file or file headers.
From the annual report the FreeBSD foundation is around 1.2 million $ in annual revenue for 2017.
I left a summary from a lawyer which went directly to the heart of the issue on licenses. I wouldnt say it was so much an “over simplification” as it was getting to the heart of the issue.
On the issue of “free” and ensuring it stays that way as a pro-GPL argument, I am not completely sold (pun intended) on that. Take Krita for example, if you want it on certain platforms (accessibility), you still have to pay for it despite it being GPL 3.0. On Steam its $9.99 USD, on the windows store $9.79. Sure you can grab it from other sources for free, but the same logic/mindset can be applied to the other open source licenses as well. There are always ways to “price gate” something, especially if its based access and platform.
Thus the “free” factor does not necessarily go away, even if others find ways to monetize or have incentive to build off something that can be monetized.
Speaking of “end-user application” status, even end-user applications still get hit with the same problem. It essentially removes the possibility or inclusion of tools/formats that suddenly become “non-GPL compliant”. If, and this is part of the argument, the end user application is meant to work within an existing pipeline and or be a software solution a larger industry (as opposed to being the “industry” on its own), then that connectivity, that ability to play nice with everything is far more important.
Substance is a great example of this. As Allegorithmic’s Cyrille Damez explained, “the Substance plugin needs to be a dynamically linked library (dll, so, dylib, depending on the OS), and linking is prohibited by the GPL.”
The prohibition aspect is, in Blender’s case, I would argue… is a bit counter productive. For end user applications, its often nice to consider the actual end user as well. As the lawyer I linked to pointed out, it adds a layer of complication into the mix that works to “disincentivize” rather than incentivize. Free and open source probably shouldnt be so risky for commercial entities, or those who are also not “opening up” their work.
But that’s just my take on it… and why I don’t think its helping Blender in the long run. Too late to change that now though.
I think he means free in the Free Software sense, not pricetag. Other Open Source licenses can be taken and proprietary versions be made—similar to the embrace, extend, extinguish strategy.
I think Rhino and Cinema4d use Cycles—anyone know if they contribute many Cycles patches back upstream?
I don’t agree. If they don’t have all the functionality it leaves people behind who needs certain functions, ergo its not an alternative.
Then you are lucky, most aren’t. A lot of clients demand not only good results but in a format they could use, and you have no way of influencing that.
And if not? That’s what i am mainly concerned with.
Get out of your personal bubble, you are arguing only from your perspective which is valid, but also limited.
This is considered Anecdotal evidence and doesn’t mean anything for other people.
When did this ever happen with a program as complex as a DCC?
Autodesk might fuck up because their development of Max and Maya is moving at a slow speed (currently), but just take a look at SideFX and the picture is different.
You think Blender is able to catch up to Houdini?
I don’t think so.
Check my comment again. I did not contradict what the lawyer said, I responded to what you said.
The lawyer I think describes the situation pretty well, although I do wish he would’ve pointed out the important difference between libraries and end-user applications.
I in fact do believe that the GPL is a reason why Blender is not used more by “the industry”. But I also believe that there are far more significant reasons why it isn’t.
Remember, the GPL restrictions only come in when companies distribute their modified versions of Blender (or code that is written to be used with Blender only).
Here I’d argue that companies which are afraid of adopting Blender because they don’t want to open-source their modifications are not the ones that will contribute anything significant back to Blender anyway - at least not in terms of source code.
OTOH the GPL intentionally tries to pressure organizations into distributing their software as free & open-source, for public benefit.
So in short my opinion is: The GPL probably presents an issue for Blender’s usage in “the industry”, but it’s not as significant as people make it seem here.
The misinformation and controversies on the GPL may well be more hurtful for GPL software adoption then the actual legal issues.
Also, when discussing appropriateness of the GPL you should at the very least know what is meant by the term “free” in the context of free & open-Source software: “Free” as in freedom, not as in beer. That is the very essence of the GPL.