I am already crying , blood and tears. I have to reexamine my life goals now.
Seriously though, and you may choose not to reply that’s ok , Free software and making revenue by selling services are deeply interconnected and a very large reason why free software has become so extremely profitable, including GPL products.
To understand the deep relation is to understand the code itself. If there is one thing that coding and business of software have in common is that have become far more complex than used to be.
By the way going back to original argument, one releasing a plugin on Blender may be forced to release it under GPL , but that does not affect the plugin on other platforms/software. So generally speaking there is nothing to be afraid of. Places like Blender market and Gumroad are flourishing and Blender addons remain the most popular.
Could you explain to us how much revenue is made preventing the integration of tools like substances, which is pretty much what the GPL does? We are not “afraid” of some things we speculate. We resent the already current situation, which would have been completely avoidable, without even going against the free software propaganda.
You make the assumption that because one day Blender would be re-licensed under MIT companies will start to pour in.
Does not work like that I am afraid. The user community of bender by large is made by amateurs and part time users, there is a reason why so many addons are so low priced. I doubt the majority of Blender users using Substance Painter even own a legit copy of it.
You live in the red hood fairy tale where the big bad wolf is GPL. I wish life was that simple, I really do.
You talk about assumptions while you describe your magical future where there is only software as a service
Allegorithmic has already stated its intentions to pour in by making a blender plugin that would allow its integration.
Your argument for not wanting state of the art tools to be integrated is that “blender is for cheap, dumb people anyways”. This is why people don’t take blender seriously, and why it will never grow. The integration of one of those tools adds more to blender than several code quests. The great argument of the GPL defenders!: “people don’t use those things anyways”.
Addons are low priced because they are nothing in comparison to the aforementioned tools.
The fact that tools are not integrated into blender is not a fairy tale. It is reality. But reality is a fairy tale for those who live in the fairy tale of the GPL. Allegorithmic (and I can only imagine how many more) does not have blender integration because of the GPL. Not because of free software, but because of the GPL. Life is that simple.
I never said the future is a service only market. Quite the opposite , I stated the business models grow more complex every year. But stating that selling services is by far the most popular business mode is like stating that Sun rises from the east.
Substance Painter does not need to GPL their software to create a GPL Blender importer/exporter. So yeah in my fairy tale , we all live in our fairy tales anyway, GPL is definetly not the reason why they dont do it.
Afterall far more state of the art tools have already done it.
This was already covered in one of the posts above.
What you are saying is simply not true, if you choose to believe Allegorithmic in their own words.
Quote:
I’ll add that its possible to find example of something akin to a live link (sending the results back and forth), but not direct plugin for substance.
I get the impression you may not be familiar how substances work when paired with game engines and or 3D Software. Its not simply importing/exporting. Actual substance files (think materials) can exist within the software, each with their own set of parameters (which can be animated). Its like having the substance workflow itself inside of each engine/software package.
You said “What I am saying is that sooner or later they will have to open source them because free software is growing exponentially and because how companies generate revenue has radically changed from selling products to charging for services.”
Your whole defense of the GPL is that we will eventually see those integrations because in your magical future everything will be open source and the requirement will not be an obstacle.
The GPL requires Allegorithmic to make his software open source, which they are not going to do. That is perfectly understandable, since they don’t want to make their techniques and whatever open to the public. And in a world where everyone has common sense, that is no problem, since SP is a separate thing from blender. But in the tiwsted world of the GPL, we must blackmail them into open sourcing their software. They have stated themselves how, with any licence that wasn’t GPL, they would be able to integrate their software.
You have not answered my question: what does the GPL achieve? Because it seems there is not a single virtue of blender that requires the GPL. There are only drawbacks. The excuse for those drawbacks is more or less: “who uses those things anyways?”
Simply buy yourself another software to run along.
is it really that hard to move on with your commercial works and stop being patronizing?
Paraphrazing Empty barrel is a loud barrel thus Dumb peepel talk dumb: “Weren’t Adolf a saint and a prophet while Ishua never existed or was the devil himself? Can’t never remember which one is it?”
All i see - Most have issues with themselves already.
Or do you envy the success that GPL brought…
Again the same lie. There are a million licences for free software that are not GPL. GPL is not synonim of free software, it is a perversion of it. The success of blender is despite the GPL, not because of it, and it is limited by the GPL, which does not bring any benefit-
Call me a dreamer, but It’d be amazing to see Blender’s unforgiving GPL-openness actually make a difference in the industry. Like establishing free industry standards for file formats. The FBX problem is a problem because of Autodesk controlling the format, not because of Blender’s GPL.
So, I see two main points of view in this discussion:
Many people here prefer if Blender is a free and open source platform for commercial applications, such as substance painter or Corona. If these programs could integrate well, Blender would adopt much faster in the industry.
Others want Blender to stay completely free and open and even be protective of its freedom (thus, GPL and not more permissive licenses.) Even if it means Blender won’t adapt as fast and scare away some well established companies, you can be certain that Blender will remain entirely free and open in the future.
Whatever opinion you have on it, I think it is important to say that the GPL is not faulty, broken license. It does exactly what it is intended to do. Richard Stallman simply doesn’t want proprietary components to be added on top of free software, as it would violate their philosophy. You are free to have a different opinion but I think it is important to know that he knew what he was doing when he wrote the GPL.
Personally, I don’t only want to see Blender succeed, I also want to see change in the industry towards more openness, less DRM, open standards and accessibility for everyone. Can an industry only sustain if companies heavily DRM their products? So much money is buried in legal, licensing and marketing issues, and end-users pay for it.
So, could Blender really bring such a change to the industry without a strong copyleft?
Maybe not for you. For me it does bring benefits. My benefit is that the code I contribute will not be taken, modified and sold back to me in a binary-only format. I give out code for anyone else to use and modify, and in exchange I get back code to use and modify. I understand if for anyone who isn’t a developer, source code access doesn’t matter. It does to me.
It does exactly what it is intended to do, which is to be a cancer that attempts to blackmail OTHER software into being open source. The GPL is not about the future of blender, it is about trying to force others. So the point is not “I want blender to stay completely open”, but “I want to use blender to force my revolution”
Also, can y’all please calm down a little. This is really interesting to read, but please please don’t start being disrespectful. We all come from different places, and have different ideas, so let’s make use of that and not start having arguments about it.
If that is the sole reason and there is no deeper reasoning behind it then yeah he is wrong.
First of all Blender has no plugin system, plugins are indeed in the form of DLLs and the most popular way used by third party developers because it allows the usage of C++ which is far faster than something like Python. The idea of not having a plugin system is an extension of GPL, is to force people to contribute to the source code because already GPL forces you to open the source anyway. So there is no mechanism to support plugin for him to worry about in the first place.
There a ton of ways you can make things work in any software. Coders have a universe of libraries and tools that offer them immense flexibility. Even under the usage of heavy data you can still use files and there is ways to optimize the data flow and keep the size do a degree that does not compromise real time interaction.
I am not saying that GPL does not create a barrier for them, it would be foolish to claim so, but on the other hand nothing in his arguments proves that it does as the problem he described can be dealt with and already is done in many cases.
But with modern cheap SDDs at 0.5 GBs/s read and write speed this should not even be an issue. Of course what they talk about is deep integration with Blender , with real time feedback, moving around huge textures. Then in that case it would be a problem but is definitely not the only way to integrated Substance Painter and Blender.
Many people already use Blender integrated with Unreal and there is no real time support. Still Blender is very popular with small studio and indie game developers.
Basically what he is saying “my way or the highway”. So yes its definitely the highway. They simply dont care about Blender, fair and square.
Is it really surprising that Blender does not care about them ?
It’s not blackmail. It’s just a license like any other, and one can agree and use it or disagree and not use it. Most commercial software has licenses that prohibit any redistribution and prohibit reverse engineering. A lot of software these days is subscription only. Some require you to pay for a separate license in order to write and distribute plugins. Does that mean that they’re pressuring the user into something?
It’s just a simple business contract. Agree to the terms and use the software, or disagree and don’t. Nobody is being forced to do anything.
Even if there were a C++ Blender plugin API, plugins would fall under the GPL as they would be derivative work. See the GPL FAQ, they have a whole section about plugins.
I know how Blender license works. I was actually reading the GPL FAQ yesterday. My point is they worry about an option Blender does not offer in the first place. Which means they don’t even understand how Blender works.
It isn’t blackmailing at all, tbh I think that’s a really funny way to word it. But yeah, that would be the best outcome and pretty much what Richard Stallman wants to happen.
Then, what’s the problem, really? What can possibly be bad about Blender opening up the industry? Personally, the only unfortunate thing about it is that Blender won’t be adapted so quickly.
DRM forces users and companies into dependency, and GPL forces users and companies into freedom.