I was listening to the latest blender podcast which mentions OTOY’s purchase of Octane Render. After reading radiance’s post about the buy-out, I was slightly disturbed by one of his comments:
radiance: …since brecht joined our company, only to vanish 2 weeks later with a copy of our engine code and 4 months later announce ‘cycles’, which is now integrated into blender… http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=28293
It’s obvious that every software developer is busy copying ideas from other software developers (especially in the open source world) but at first glance this sounds a little scandalous, maybe even premeditated. I’m a sold-out believer in open-source philosophy and would be disappointed to learn that great apps like Blender (or parts of these apps) are a result of questionable developing.
To be sure, this is only MY understanding based on radiance’s comment and what little info I’ve been able to scrounge in the forums - hopefully it’s a misunderstanding. Does anyone have any other information? Thoughts?
This is year-old news. We beat this subject to death when cycles first came out, both here and on the RS forums. The general consensus is that the code is completely original, but we can be certain brecht was inspired by Octane.
The post has been edited and the comment about Brecht is expunged.
It is potentially slanderous, if not true, so he’s probably just playing it safe by withdrawing the accusation.
I hope this isn’t the case. That’s ugly.
who really knows the legal truth to this but I assume this might be more personal than being real theft.
I think one needs to differentiate between stealing technology (code) or applying an idea/concept (how Octane works) to a new product (cycles).
There are also some differences in how both products work and what features they offer. Octane is very impressive when it comes to realism and Cycles tries to aim more for a balance between speed for animation and photo realism capability.
Think about Apples product design language and what Braun did in the 80th with consumer and house hold designs. Concept similarities are very evident but they are not the same products with the same concept and ideas and same functions.
Because of this I could understand that Radiant might be upset when Brecht in his view left Octane inspired by how it works. But this is an issue every designer faces in the world that what you do might inspire somebody else leading to design clones or products including elements.
I personally try not to get into the interpersonal plays - I simply only can have high respect for both guys because I extremely envy their ability to even program such fantastic software products.
And thus I truly wish both a lot of professional success and recognition they simply deserve.
Radiance is just full of shit, if Cycles truly was code stolen from Octane the lawyers would be all over Brecht the very moment he released the Cycles code.
Also if I recall correctly the Octane source code was actually leaked at some point so anyone that actually cares can just download it and compare it to Cycles
Great to hear! Can I get links to the year-old news on both forums please? I know you all can read and see that neither I nor the original statement by radiance directly accused brecht of stealing code and calling it “Cycles”. I guess I appreciate you making sure I knew this anyway. And it seems that each of you who have responded are more than comfortable with Cycles’ “inspiration”, however that’s defined. So of course, I should be too.
We don’t have developer agreements yet, but that for sure will be happening one of these days. Our open source project would be really vulnerable otherwise for abuse or other risky circumstances. That means that we won’t accept anonymous contributions
this means:
here is a closed circle of trusted blender-coder
Threads like this would be so much more interesting if some random dev actually broke down and suddenly admitted that all the Blender code was stolen, ripped through hacking Autodesk, or whatever… ;D
Lol alright, point taken. Forgive me for opening such a gapingly un-healed wound in the blender community. Forgive me for my lack of specific historical knowledge about brecht/radiance/octane/cycles. I should definitely spend more time on these forums… And forgive me, I now know the line of developmental morality is absolutely and irrevocably drawn at “copying exact lines of code”. So please forget I posted the preposterous thread. I’ll think twice, or perhaps thrice, before ever inquiring of you lovely people again.
Don’ t know why you’re kvetching about the response you get from inquiring of “you lovely people”. Your first post says: “Does anyone have any other information? Thoughts?” Which, anyone with reading comprehension will tell you that this invites information and differing viewpoints.
You sound like my wife who wants me tell her when I’m annoyed instead of bottling it up, and then complains when I tell her I’m annoyed about something.
I don’t get what the fuss is about. The Blender code is open (incl. Cycles). Obviously stolen code, even if heavily modified, would clearly be recognized and made a fuss about instantly as you can be certain that developers of closed code renderers are checking the open source renderers for inspiration continously, hehe… So you wouldn’t get away with that.
But there is a saying I like; “Nothing new under the sun”. One are seldom first with an idéa, no matter which. ;D
