It’s probably better for some people if Blender is commercialized. I bought apps like Carrara, Amapi, Hexagon, Poser, etc., then modo, apart from 2D and other desktop apps. Anything above or close to $1K, I would avoid buying.
But because they’re not free you get a sense of making your money’s worth by learning them diligently and not complain so much like you see in this forum.
Time is money, like they say. Any software, whether it’s free or not, is worthless if you don’t spend time learning it.
If Blender was a commercial software I probably wouldn’t be buying it (well maybe, but it would need to be in a range $100-200). It has many things going for it, but realistically it isn’t really up to par with other offerings if you compare feature by feature. The integration of those features is something I would buy in at a much higher price ($1000-2000), but alas its not there yet.
Still, its a great support application when combined with other applications and it finds its place as such for me.
What about if Blender went from open to “open” where anyone who has bought a license can also develop patches and new areas of functionality (ie. UE4)? There might be a greater incentive to pay for Blender then.
Realistically though, Blender going commercial is a virtual impossibility because pretty much everyone who develops for it and works at the Foundation would not allow that to happen (you’d first have to get rid of the GPL licensing and that alone is hard enough).
Believing that something has a tag “Free” , means it is 100% cost and maintenance free is simply incorrect. Because there is always some kind of cost behind the scenes which needs to be paid , Web site bandwidth, Dev fees , Marketing expenses , even basic things like rent and utilities for the Blender Foundation.
A simple reality like the BlenderFund accounts being empty means the 200+ bugs on each release wouldn’t be resolved and you wouldnt be able to have a functioning software at all or the simple fact that if CGCookie and Hp hadn’t paid for the expenses Blender wouldnt have a booth on Siggraph '14 …
I don’t know if BF gets some government funding , but I do not think they do (Government grants usually come with some quaterly or yearly obligations or some development targets from a government institute related to the area of the software (Military , scientific,Medical etc).
I dont understand why people believe its hard or they need to earn money from blender to donate ? I have been saying this for some time, its the quantity not the quality of donations.
The 10 % of the 50.000 users (numbers given by Ton) were to donate just 5 euros it would total to 25000 euros /per month
25000/3000 euros = 8.3 developers
That 8 (developers) 0.3 (paid intern ?) would add to the R & D speed and quality. If a user does not care for this , I take it as he/she does not care for the future or sustainability of Blender.
Yii7; While it would be nice to get more people to donate monthly, the only way to force this would be to find a way to make Blender donationware (ie. the builds lock you out until you donate), but it would be just as hard as making Blender paid software when you take into account the GPL and that someone can just post a build without the lock.
In the past ive used Maya and lightwave. I havnt tired Modo or Cinema 4D ( yet I would kike to!) I simply like Blender’s workflow best. If I had to pay for it, i would probably pay what3ver amount it is, provided its not more expensive than the competetors.
You dont have to force anything on the users (no need to lock). Its just about changing the idea on people’s head that as little as 5 euros is enough to speed jump Development and features to a whole new level.
When people say they are not making money out of Blender so they cant donate is just an excuse for themselves , I personally dont believe this. Because then I would ask them ? How do you sustain your life ? Your Internet ? your food ? and If you are in a state that you cant put together 5 euros in 4 weeks time , its amazing you have internet at all.
Anyway of course there might be people who are having hard times with their economical state,but I also believe a lot of user just don’t care, that is why I gave a moderate percentage of 10% .
People constantly ranting about Blender (the UI, workflow, “its does not do this”, “its not good at this”). Then there is also people who want new features . Maybe they shouldn’t expect so much.
there are tools out there with a four digit price tag of €,£,$ which hardly deserve such price tags…
then there are tools like Groboto and probably many more tools where it is more than a bumpy road of development…
Blender has a speedy and steady development cycle and is offering me many beautiful things - one aspect is that it allows a student like me to use it commercially.
the crapware which Autodesk, Maxon and alike wants to give to me as a student, is in many cases if not always not acceptable.
when you get burned with for example Octane´s shitty eula(s) and price politics -only render on one pc or pay for more licences-
you will easily learn how heavenly cycles as a render solution is.
What I clearly want to avoid as long as possible is pure cloud based programs.
when you read that for example adobe is not able to secure the credit card and payment stuff and has downtimes, it makes me fleee to the competition.
Now to Blender;
I easily spend a couple hundred of € for Blender be it plugins, scripts, tutorials, etc.
It seems to me that Blenders eco system is getting stronger build around the type of available service and clearly not around hypotethical licences where you pay upfront
I have to admit that I am rarely donating money directly to the Development fund and that is why I am glad of being able to buy and support Blender via the Blender store or to give money to the Blender movie projects.*
it is simple for me; you make my life easier, you get my money.
*Since the gooseberry Blender Cloud/ shop got updated, my subscription got cancelled by the Blender team and after asking for renewal,I got an email to wait till the administration is finalised.
I send a mail a few days ago if it is okay again to send money via paypal but sadly I haven´t heard back yet.
Blender Cloud it is the way to go to support blender. You know ? Here it is https://cloud.blender.org/join go and support Blender. If you have the money.
Quick side note on this, Groboto hasnt ceased development as much as its been perfected and built upon under the new name MeshFusion, which is a plugin for Modo. The creator of it has already let it be known that its evolving much faster within Modo’s ecosystem and that dynamic topology & autoretoplogy…curve generation based on meshes, low poly variations and such are on the roadmap. Its set up to become something crazy, in many ways a completely new modeling approach. You can read a bit more about whats going on with it here: http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=4&t=91552 (look for posts by Darrel, which is the creator of Groboto, good stuff starting on page 3)
@ SaintHaven,
many thanks for posting the link.:eyebrowlift:
I am closely watching Modo and Meshfusion, my main grief is that I paid full price to get a free update to a 4.0 version of Groboto and it never was released and it is more than uncertain that it will ever be made.
the upgrade from Groboto to this Groboto derived modo plugin which would force me to buy both modo $1,495.00 and meshfusion $395.00 is hard for me to justify because of that.
The problem with that is that paying users begin to expect more input for their money. As it is, even those of us contributing to Blender are being told to shut our yaps when we have something less than positive to say about Blender’s direction or focus. The developers tend to snark about us too (less openly here, more openly in other mediums).
You want to change the community’s view about whether they should pay? You’re going to need to change the views of the developers AND their supporters to accept that such payment is going to come with increased expectations. Are you willing to fight that battle because, as it stands, it seems you’ve been more willing to slam people for expectations than you are for arguing the opposite
First of all nobody is talking about hiring,leasing or contracting . Its not a payment agreement ,which lets you make demands towards your software needs, its a donation. You donate the money for the cause. The process benefits all , and priorities are arranged according to projects , bug reports , research & necessity.
By saying “contributing” I hope you mean to the code base, because ever since Gooseberry all I have seen from your posts is negative criticism.
Secondly this is not a battle it is not a crusade. Everybody can make up their own mind according to their own position/situation.
But people should know the donations of small amounts pile into big ones, and it is much more beneficial than a single big donation (well unless youre donating couple of millions) . Since nobody is expected to donate very big sums , the most efficient type is small donations from a large number of people on a regular basis. In this case 5 euros per month from 5000 dedicated users will do.
I am one of those people who support the developers conducts.Like I said the devs have their own opinions and processes , nobody needs to persuade anyone.
The thing is demanding some feature or blunt criticism achieves nothing, there are feasible things which can be done with small number of people and there are expectations.
As soon as you start trying to convince people to donate money, you need to appeal to their desires. If you are (as per the post I quoted) appealing to their desire to speed up development, a significant portion are going to want some influence over what is developed. It’s human nature. One need only look to the fact people donate to charities directing efforts toward specific goals as opposed to just any charity helping humanity to understand this.
I’ve contributed funds through direct donation, purchases of products I didn’t really need from the e-shop, and paid a non-trivial sum for improvements to Rigify specifically. I’m also donating through Steam asset sales. I’ve written one or two patches plus discussed improvements in others. I’m also paying for a Gooseberry subscription I really haven’t gotten any benefit out of.
Whether or not that meets your personal criteria for “contributing” doesn’t fuss me much. However, I’d suggest we can dismiss that particular line of attack (you’ve used it before) as pretty piss-weak in light of the above.
Ok , let me repeat and I will do it slowly so you can understand better. It is not a campaign , there is no goal to achieve; it is the process of development that benefits. A bigger donation pool hastens both research and development time which in return benefits the user by a more robust 3d package and in the long run with features.
I’ve contributed funds through direct donation, purchases of products I didn’t really need from the e-shop, and paid a non-trivial sum for improvements to Rigify specifically. I’m also donating through Steam asset sales. I’ve written one or two patches plus discussed improvements in others. I’m also paying for a Gooseberry subscription I really haven’t gotten any benefit out of.
Whether or not that meets your personal criteria for “contributing” doesn’t fuss me much. However, I’d suggest we can dismiss that particular line of attack (you’ve used it before) as pretty piss-weak in light of the above.
Well you see , your reply smells so much of vanity ; that it makes me wonder what are you even doing here ? you all mighty. When you are so helping and generous when clearly you didn’t needed to be , your majesty. Might I bolster your mighty ego with a pillow thy holiness ? Which makes me wonder do you even use the Blender software , since you clearly don’t need to ,your holiness?
:no:
Even on a slight remark that I made about your negativity makes you think I try to attack you.
It is evident from this point forward you are just looking for a fight. Which I will avoid (Beware Troll Ahead).
I really don’t care what you have to say at this point, so please avoid replying to my posts because I will be ignoring you .
I’m sorry I have to make this observation but for those of us on a fixed income I’m sure the Blender Market will set a price within a year or two. And, I’m aware of the counter viewpoints believe me. But, suddenly Blender has changed at least for us. Now we have Maya plugins.
But, one more thought if I may. Blender is used all over the world in countries where you suspect the electricity is only on five or six hours a day. So now we have started down the road of paid Addons. Which will at some point means the Blender they have is not the sure fire hot smoking deal with all the plugins. Is it just me or will there be two separate Blender versions when that happens. And, it’s happening at a remarkable rate right now. So it seems Blender isn’t exactly free anymore and has definitely changed.
And, I’m sure my bones will be picked clean in this thread after posting this. But, yes Blender has changed in the last few months. I thought we prided ourselves on giving that talented kid in one of those countries the Blender that we all use. Suddenly that is no longer the case.
