Today is an exciting, but also chaotic and very uncertain election day here in the Netherlands. As most of you might have picked up, we’ve suffered our own 9-11 crisis with the brutal killing of maverick politician Pim Fortuijn last week. He was admired for his openess (gay!) and charming but provocative way to stimulate the public debate on politics in the Netherlands. Freedom of speech has been attacked, and it is scary to witness the aggression and emotions this murder has invoked in our usually so peaceful and tolerant country.
Waiting for the ballot boxes to close, I rather put my mind to other important issues, like sharing some updates from NaN with everyone.
In the past weeks we’ve been busy finalizing the startup/spin-off for mobile technology. This is almost finished, 6 people will be starting in june. That’s good! But not very relevant for Blender users, yet. Although it indicates the NaN Holding being fit for continuation.
Discussions and meetings with companies/VC’s willing to continue the Creator/Publisher projects have been organized as well. There’s still a very serious candidate. The company is small, but has a proven track of record in the 3D industry. I’m not able to disclose names yet, but I’m sure most of you will be positively surprised! At least there’s a serious chance now a new company will pick up (parts of) the Blender projects and continue development here in the Netherlands.
As an alternative, the proposal to continue Blender as a community oriented open-source project is still on the table as well.
Decisions are still pending. I had hoped to be able to give actual news on this by now, but it looks like it will still take another month.
BTW: We all think it’s very positive how the community reorganized around www.elysiun.com. Timothy Kanters has done a hell of a job providing services and a platform for the world-wide Blender userbase. He’s a hero! We talk with him regularly, also about how to make this new community service more permananent, supported or sponsored by the new Blender companies.
I hope the situation in your country calms down soon. It is events like this that make us remember the “not so nice” side of human nature. It makes me sick.
Thanks for the update! I look forward to hearing some good news soon regarding Blender.
Ton, sorry to hear of the termoil in your contry. I know how I felt when 9-11 hit here, and I’m a Canadian. Hope things work out for the best!
Also nice to hear some encouraging news about NAN. So if Creator goes to a smaller company for development, will that mean a C-Key being reintroduced? If so, that would be OK with me. What ever it takes to get things back on track.
Thanks for keeping us posted and look forward to your next post.
Yeah, it was quite a sad assassination, I was reading about it on the project entropia boards. It was quite shocking, and an assault on new ideas. Anyway, enough on that, but I feel for you guys in the nl.
Good to hear things could look up for Blender, I hope it continues, because it really was great. With all the grief people give to the realtime engine, it is the easiest to use, most powerful game development software I’ve EVER used. I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve been able to do with it. It still has some problems that bring it down, so I hope that whoever you find to continue it has time for realtime users as well. Maybe splitting the softwares would be the best way to go, considering how split the community seemed to be.
Anyway, keep chugging along Ton, and thanks for the update!
We had the initial reports in the U.S., but they weren’t very good. The politician was described as ultra-conservative or a right-wing extremist in the news reports. It appeared the news services were trying to lump him in with Le Pen in France.
Thanks for the update. It is appreciated. Is there any chance that the Tutorials, CJs, and demos from the Blender3D site will be available? I’m sure they are lumped in with the intellectual property, but that might be a good way to publicize Blender’s return.
We had the initial reports in the U.S., but they weren’t very good. The politician was described as ultra-conservative or a right-wing extremist in the news reports. It appeared the news services were trying to lump him in with Le Pen in France.
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i think the point is that democracy and freedom of speech means whatever a given party says people have the right to vote each way they choose (if you disagree with him it’s no reason to shoot him, he should be defeated at election), although if they went for an extremist (ie le pen) it is a cause for concern, and probably symptomatic of greater problems in society. i’ve heard so many conflicting things about the guy in this case that i don’t feel i can make a sensible opinion on him. (even the unbiased BBC in the UK have no idea what to make of it)
on the blender side, good to hear things for the future should be coming together. i await further details with ever more excitement . . .
Even at the dutch border in Germany I dont know much about
him,but some newspapers and radio-senders said that he
hate foreigners etc… Well dont know what to think of him
but its definetely not ok to shoot somebody death …
To NAN: I’m happy that its (almost?) sure that blender
will be continued in some way! :))
really nice to know that blenders progression might still have a future…i guess we just wait now for whats next =)
thanks for takin the time to update us ton!
It´s sad that sometimes it seems that we still live in a pre-historic age, with all the murders and acts of terrorism.
About NaN/Blender, i’m really happy to know that their great work will have some kind of future. I’m very new to blender scene (about 6 months) but i’m very eager to learn more technics and stuff with all the users who can help me!
Thank you again for keeping us updated. Sorry to hear of the turmoil in the Netherlands.
It sounds like Blender has become a phoenix about to rise from the ashes - it’s great to hear that development on Blender Creator may still continue. I hope the negotiations continue to go well, and look forward to next month when more news may be available.
I’d like to second your recognition of Mr. Kanters (and others) for keeping the Blender community alive during this transitional period.
We had the initial reports in the U.S., but they weren’t very good. The politician was described as ultra-conservative or a right-wing extremist in the news reports. It appeared the news services were trying to lump him in with Le Pen in France.
[/quote]
i think the point is that democracy and freedom of speech means whatever a given party says people have the right to vote each way they choose (if you disagree with him it’s no reason to shoot him, he should be defeated at election), although if they went for an extremist (ie le pen) it is a cause for concern, and probably symptomatic of greater problems in society.[/quote]
Yes, he was depicted as ‘evil’ in Italy too, expecially by left-oriented papers (don’t know why ). But freedom is freedom and this applies to Le Pen and Haider too. If the free people of a sovreign and independent states vote them the other free, sovreign and independent states should shut up. (This reminds me of what happened in Paris at the ‘Book exhibition’ when the left was still thinking to be strong in France while Italy was already center-right oriented and France criticized the Italian governament and authorized a political manifestation of protest within a strictly cultural event hehe (well not to speak of some italian writers (quite left oriented) who refused to join the event because the Italian stand was going to be opened by some right oriented man of the ministery of culture )
It is sad to have people killed for political reason, last one down here was earlier this same year, previous one in 96 but I may have forgotten someone in between. Good news is that it looks like up there you’ve already found who killed him, while down here we very rarely find who has been
On the other hand it is always nice to hear news from NaN
I guess every contry has it’s share of politcal assination stories. Especially over here in the US, there is so many ‘conspiracy theories’ and such. You never know what to think anymore. I’ve done a bunch of research on alleged underground military bases, and they do some crazy stuff with underground engineering nowadays. I want an underground base, I have this spot in my yard I might start digging one… 8)
@S68…isn’t Italy supposed to have some really god sub detection technology or something?
if you have access to other news networks here the bbc certainly looks unbiased (sky, cnn, nbc etc.) i’m aware as to certain individual journalists my friends have encountered, however, and when my uncle went on newsnight they scripted him! their website is made by so many people though that it comes out as quite unbiased (i don’t think anyone has true editorial control over that monster any more)
). But freedom is freedom and this applies to Le Pen and Haider too. If the free people of a sovreign and independent states vote them the other free, sovreign and independent states should shut up. (This reminds me of what happened in Paris at the ‘Book exhibition’ when the left was still thinking to be strong in France while Italy was already center-right oriented and France criticized the Italian governament and authorized a political manifestation of protest within a strictly cultural event hehe 
(well not to speak of some italian writers (quite left oriented) who refused to join the event because the Italian stand was going to be opened by some right oriented man of the ministery of culture 
)
