To put it in simpler terms:
I have been on this forum for about six months.
I am an x’s and o’s or a 1’s and 0’s type of person.
I take none of this personal.
But as objective and non fanboyish as I can be, I believe that Blender is amazing.
And I am not even compelled to elaborate on what I think of other animation software.
fan-boys should not hinder a studios productivity.
They don’t. However, for the longest time there wasn’t a real good way to get information on using Blender other than asking questions in BA.org or IRC. One bad incident is all it takes for someone to back away, and it’s not because we are weak rather that our time is very limited and if it is wasted on some troll fanboy then that is something that does not sit well with us and a bad taste is left which can take some time to go away.
Communication is really important in this industry. I have known of several applications and plugins that colleagues pass on simply out of bad experiences with the developers. Since Blender is community maintained this means the developers/contributors are either fanboys themselves or mingling a little too close for comfort with those that are. Granted Ton and the BF is taking steps (Blender Network) to improve on that but prior to this you had to wade through a lot condescending and nasty remarks just to get a simple answer and that is if you ever got the answer in the first place.
The reason studios do not use blender is most likely compatibility
Meh, not really. That doesn’t seem to stop people trying to mix up applications in a pipeline, this is why we started the Alembic project.
stability
Not by a mile, commercial applications might seem stable to some but wait until you get into a large shop where it has been noodled with to no end and there is a constant danger of crashes from either scripts or compiled plugins that may get developed under horrific deadlines who have to rush everything out without always being allowed to test first. Blender is no more or less stable than what I have to fight with on a daily basis. Sometimes the stability issues are not necessarily the fault of the 3D platform.
and pipe-line integration.
Some truth to this, jumping into Python 3.2 is a little too bleeding edge and that alone will be a hard one for many to catch up with. Each year there is actually a large meeting with commercial developers (which is now mostly Autodesk, SideFX, TheFoundry) and the technology heads of major studios. This is where lots of discussion occurs over topics like Python versions. With many of our pipelines based heavily on Python it is critical that we keep the versions of our pipelines and 3D platforms as close as possible. Not saying that there is anything wrong with 3.2, large shops just don’t move forward as fast as some might thing.
Yes the Maya/3dsMax communities have their own turds. But to be honest, very very few of them are actually working in a studio. You rarely find fanboy attitudes in a studio. Something about long hours and stress seems to beat that out of people. All they care about is getting their jobs done. With that said, not all of us are fans of commercial applications. In fact we aren’t all fans of any 3d application. They have all managed to piss us off and let us down at some point in our careers. We do what we do because of a greater love than just a particular application or brand name.
There are many of us who do use Blender, however I am one of only a few that will come close to this forum or the IRC channels. And it isn’t because of “Blender fanboys”, it’s just fanboys in general who have never walked in our shoes that we have no time for. In fact we really do avoid many CG communities in general, big part of that is we can stay up on commercial products without being close to a community. For a long time getting involved with Blender met interacting with the community. Better documentation and sites like Blender Cookie are allowing people to get hands on with Blender with minimal or any interaction with the community.
Be the community others fail to be. Just because someone is new to IRC or doesn’t have a certain amount of posts on BA.org is no reason to speak down to them or attack them. You truly have no idea who you are talking to. I think that is one point of failure in this community. If you’re name isn’t known or you’re not a mod then you couldn’t possibly know anything and are treated as such. Tho in some contexts I have seen similar behavior #cgchat but this goes back to being the community others fail to be.
There is a growing interest in open source in this industry, as some of you have noticed studios have started open sourcing some of their technologies over the past few years. Open source does need a community to thrive and you can’t thrive without good communication. There is a chance for this community to set an example that an entire industry would potentially notice, the question is are any of you up for it?
+10 for what Jonathan said!
you’ll always find in a population a certain average and then you got the Alpha and Beta .
some are near the edges of the statistical curve !
and not much you can do about it !
Some peoples are bias positive or negative in their comments/evaluation
and i doubt that anything can be done about it !
don’t forget also that the forums attrack people of all ages and with all kind of experiences!
but on average on forums here i think it’s generaly good and when you have a question you get an answer
which is the idea of a forum i guess
hope this will be added to the Forum registration form may be!
at least new people coming in will be aware about it !LOL
happy blendering
and salutations
My friendly suggestion is always just this: - Blender is what Blender is … and if you don’t like what you see, wait two weeks. 
The implementors consistently produce a product of high quality and at the same time they achieve very rapid change. And that, my good friends, is saying a lot. If there’s a process, a technique, a software feature that you’d like to know more about, it’s probably somewhere in there now, or somebody’s working on it. It’s an astonishing (educational) tool in addition to being free. - Every software product has pimples. A product of this complexity has lots of them. (And makeup.) - Software products never replace one another. Therefore, comparisons between them aren’t particularly useful. No studio with millions of dollars of intellectual property invested in one course is ever going to “change course,” nor should they. (The very notion is insane.) Therefore, expressions of preference are basically irrelevant to any discussion here, except when a knowledgeable user of another product has a genuinely informed and useful opinion that will help guide the direction of the Blender product.
I’m quoting this for 100% agreement. In my experience most fanboys (from all parts of the internet and in all communities) do not tend to be the people that are actually invested in the software on a professional basis or heavily involved with the software through their studio. Like you said, all it takes is one bad experience to turn someone off from learning Blender (or any other software). When you’re working in this industry professionally, particularly if you’re freelancing, your time is very precious and it’s in your best interest to go the route of least resistance.
@ecaspersen, interesting post,
I’d guess fanboys are probably not working in studios (where you hit software limits frequently and often fight with all sorts of technical issues).
And definitely not developers (where you read the source code and realize various short-comings all the time).
Expect they are mainly enthusiastic users who start out thinking they need something professional, and realize blender is free and for some uses as good as commercial software.
… then view this as a free-vs-commercial conflict and want to support their favorite software. (similar to linux-vs-windows blah blah thats been going for years).
Some reply to points you made,
agree there needs to be better docs and for general questions you shouldn’t have to join forum and ask (should be documented in manual, or even have technical support - blender network may resolve this issue to some extent).
Python3.x is now 4 years old, surprising how slow the adoption is, for us it made sense to switch when doing an API re-write, expect in the next few years it will end up being better supported gradually.
ideasman42,
It is crazy how slow the adoption of new Python versions have been. From what I understand Maya 2014 may still be using Py2.6. I for one like Py3.x and actually kind of hope that if Blender finds its way into larger companies that it helps drag rest of the industry, kick and screaming if need be, to get up to speed.
EDIT: I think the docs have been improving a lot over the years. Documentation, for anything, can always be better so don’t beat yourself up over it.
The only thing with this… is that if you’re unemployed or an enthusiast/student, Autodesk’s software (most of it) is free. Same with Houdini, Vue, Sculptris… and I’m sure there are either free or really cheap versions of C4D and Lightwave. There are very few companies that charge an arm and a leg for 3d to the casual users these days.
I agree with you Frederick.
To quote:
"first, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth, unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in a manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its’ rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost or enfeebled, and deprived of its’ vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground and preventing the growth of any real heartfelt conviction from reason or personal experience."
John Stuart Mill - from On Liberty
These “fanboys” may have a point and even if not then thanks to them you now have the opportunity to test your own point of view.
“most”
92.478% of all statistics are yanked right out da air. 
What part of “most” is a statistic?
hehe… at least we agree it ain’t no statistic.
There’s a difference in being silenced and being asked not to sound like an ass when you’re voicing your opinion.
There’s a difference in being silenced and being asked not to sound like an ass when you’re voicing your opinion.
Haha, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Please, by all means then, explain it to me.
My opinion:
Just use the dang software!!! If you don’t know it, learn it!
haha, always good jokes from the robot. 
Please, by all means then, explain it to me.
Do you think asking someone to be polite and respectful is the same as asking them to stop talking? (for a few people yes… but the majority)
As Guitar implied… but seriously… if you don’t know the difference in being asked to be polite and being told that you are not allowed to communicate then I would suppose that you’re either trolling, unusually melodramatic, mentally imbalanced, very young and naive, or in serious need of some “away from keyboard” time.
I believe it is important to note that:
Being a good member is more than just “not being a fanboy”.
Being a good member has a lot to do with improvement.
If you start out as a “fanboy” with nothing particularly redeeming to offer…HORRIBLE!
But as time goes by you improve your blender skills,
you improve your skills in asking questions on the forum,
and sharing information and experiences of the forum with others…WONDERFUL!
Being a “fanboy” is an undesirable trait, but it isn’t the end of the world.
And just because a member doesn’t exhibit classic character traits of “fanboyism” that doesn’t necessarily mean said member is a good member.
If you ask questions that obviously display that you are not doing your own homework
and you ask them because you are too lazy to exercise due dilligence,
that may not be the definition of being a “fanboy”…
however, not exercising due dilligence in trying to solve a problem
and relying on the forum to hold your hand
is not being a good member…
there are many other examples of not being a good member too…
not staying on topic
not respecting the free help and mentoring from the advanced users
not spending some time trying to answer newbies questions and setting good examples
getting overly emotional over the 1’s and 0’s of unemotional computer work
not having a sense of humor
not appreciating how awesomely cool animation is
the list goes on