I think this will be a long, comprehensive post covering both the technical aspects and the behavior of some effective developers, managers, and other people responsible for working with the community. This post will be a culmination of my experiences, some of which have already been voiced by me or other users.
P.s: Everything I wrote is just my subjective, useless, stupid opinion. So I ask jokers and pranksters to pass by. (Damage control)
Perhaps I will make a remark, since many people consider this text an “attack”:
I love blender. I have known it since 2015
I know the history of Blender (at least at a minimal level)
I am not against Blender, but this does not mean that I will defend it at all costs (as I did before) or that I will not allow myself to criticize it.
I think that with time and experience comes an understanding of the shortcomings of the product you love.
If I wanted to just provoke the community into emotions, I wouldn’t bother writing this canvas. I just wanted to leave my opinion somewhere where at least someone would notice (since it’s impossible to influence anything)
I am well aware of my insignificance and that there is no point in even trying. But maybe someone will respond to something from my thoughts.
Lack of proper feedback: Blender is a powerful tool, and I, like many other users, would like to see it developed. However, it is worth recognizing that most of the feedback from users is limited to technical forums, where discussions quickly degenerate into a formal style, and many questions are simply closed with a note “in the wrong place”. This applies not only to bugs, but also to suggestions for improving the interface or functionality. When your question or suggestion is simply ignored or sent to the “wrong category”, it creates a feeling that users are not being heard. Also, developers and some other users like to use the argument “Suggest how to change it” or “This is an open source project, take it and do it yourself”. I consider these arguments to be illegitimate and not working. I am a simple user who wants changes and improvements. My task is to draw attention to the problem (in my opinion) and not to give instructions on how to solve it. I believe that the etiquette of communication between the service provider and the users (consumers) is absolutely absent in Blender.
Problems on the forums and in the bug tracker: It is difficult to find truly useful and constructive discussions on the Blender developer forum. Especially in the bug tracker, where suggested improvements are often simply lost among dozens of bugs and requests. The process of filtering suggestions and complaints is not transparent enough, and without clear feedback it is difficult to understand how seriously the community’s ideas are taken.
Technical problems that remain unsolved: Despite active work on new functionality, some old and obvious problems in Blender remain unresolved for years. These include, for example, optimization issues with both the render engine and animations. Sometimes it seems that developers are too focused on new features, forgetting that convenience and stability are also important aspects of work.
Why is this important: Blender is a project with huge potential and a large community that invests a lot of time and effort into its development. If Blender continues to remain closed to real feedback, then valuable ideas and solutions can be missed. We all want to see Blender as the best tool, and criticism from users should be perceived as an opportunity for growth, not as an obstacle. Dear developers and managers, you are not all of Blender! Blender is people, a community. And this applies to open source projects first and foremost. Is it worth reminding how many projects have sunk into oblivion when this truth was forgotten?
It seems to me that Blender does not understand what Blender should be in the first place. Perhaps the point is that Ton Rosendahl is losing his opportunities in the company as its leader. Sooner or later, someone has to become its successor, right? What will happen to Blender then? Blender has excellent SMM specialists who create viral videos that can attract the attention of new users. Make them believe that what is being done is a necessity, and that it will be better than before. However, the most important problems are not solved. The entire Blender community (and I was one of them) loves to laugh at Max, Maya and wonder why Blender, during its long history, still remains (and this is a fact) on the sidelines of the general media industry. The answer is simple, these programs are predictable. Perhaps they do not add anything new, but this is only because they already have everything they need. While Blender users who use it not for creating videos on TikTok but for professional work, with bated breath and bated breath hope that the new version will not break their work and will not force them to change the development pipeline or stay on old versions, missing out on new, really important features. New Gres Pencil? Seriously? Or maybe better support for GPU skinning for animations? New Workbench? Or maybe improving the performance of Eevee next or at least including the old eevee in new builds? I can’t understand who Blender is targeting at the moment? 2D artists? Is blender now photoshop or Adobe(rip)?
It’s surprising and ironic, but the longer I know Blender and its community, the more I understand Blender’s opponents. It’s a paradox and it saddens me.
Let the hunger games begin👇
The best approach