sorry … couldn’t read all your post. you have a lot of time writing all these things. in short idea was this: create a feature list backed by several users. then move on create a pool project. identify the coders that want to participate. find out how much will cost. start the funding/donation. develop the features. implement them in blender. the code and all is still everybody’s, not mine, not yours, nobody’s in particular but blender’s … no “private parties” in my mind …
I would have no problem coding a feature for cash. Whether or not that feature makes it into trunk is another matter. Whether or not you have enough cash for what’s left of my valuable free time is an entirely different matter.
To go along with Briggs, you’re probably not going to find someone to do this on a general freelancers board. On the other hand, I just added a mix method to the compositor in about an hour, and wrote colorized shadows in about a day. I would have done either one of those for $250. 
I agree with harkyman’s last statement. Features added to Blender shouldn’t be payed for. After all, it is a free and open-source program.
Well… the cloth feature people had a donation button 
Thats probably the best way to do these kinds of things.
I totally agree. They don’t need to be payed for as such, but if a individual finds interest in a particular project and wants to donate, then he should be able to. But offering money for a feature is ridiculous.
Just my 2¢
And then you say that features shouldn’t be paid for?
Um, I thought I said that I would gladly code someone any feature they wanted for cold hard cash.
Offer me money for a feature and I will show you how completely NOT ridiculous it is.
Thats the statement I was agreeing with, but if I dont make sense then I’ll stay out of the way. Dont want to anger anyone or start a flame war. If I dont make any sense then I guess that I better just get out of the conversation.
First that is not what he says, quite the opposite :
I would have no problem coding a feature for cash.
Also Open Source is not about no cost, not-at-all, never was, never will be. It is about having the code out on the open, about freedom of ideas. Nothing else. No cost is a mere side effect.
Paid-for features are a reality that is growing in OSS : 37 000 or the last 38 000 patches applied to the Linux Kernel were made by paid coders. Ton Roosendaal is paid, Brecht is paid and hopefully Campbell will be able to live out of his Blender coding too. Hamed Zighaghi was paid for the sky generator. Broken codes Blender sometimes paid, sometimes for the love of it…
If you don’t write code, if you don’t write documentation, if you don’t maintain a web site to promote Blender then why not support it with your money?
Originally Posted by <b>HouseArrest</b> [](http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1194039#post1194039) If you were to pay for a good sized addition to be added to blender would you feel you should get some special priveledges? i.e. maybe when you make an issue out of another feature do you think your issue should be taken into concern prior to anyone elses? or maybe you just want your feature implemented in your own special form of blender.
That is a complex issue isn’t it ? I wonder if this community has the stamina to go through it…
Special features are already a reality. The ocean and sky generator are examples of it. AFAIK the work on the web plugin that is going on is mostly done by the employees of a company. Will they have priviledges ? Likely, that is only human, they will and they won’t be alone. Coders do have a greater say on features than anyone, a priviledge that none will begrudge them. Talented users can get features easier than anyone else but coders : so what ? I don’t know what the success of the squeaking wheels is though.
I feel that we will just have to live through it and see…
Jean
Since I didn’t make sense then I’ll get out of the conversation. One last comment: I don’t mind programers getting payed, just I don’t like people offering money for it. If this doesn’t make sense then please ignore it.
“Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
Matthew 20:15
p.s: just kidding ;), don’t want to offense you blend’n 4 jesus (I am also a christian) but I also like humour!
That would be too bad because, if I am guessing right, what you fear is the greatest danger that I see too. I think that you fear that the development may end up serving the interest of people with money rather than remaining motivated by the love of coding and research and sharing ideas. It is a serious concern and I thank you for expressing it. Maybe next time don’t take for granted that just every one knows the reasoning behind the declaration and elaborate a little more?
Jean
Jean,
my initial idea was to create a transparent project. no hidden agenda, no hidden thougths. just that i see some features that people are waiting for, developing faster in this way. if that is bad, then i did a mistake posting here.
the features that belong to (let’s say this time, because that is what i like seen implemented) architecture will be posted on project web site. then by vote we will purge/add to the list. then creating a donation we will collect the money. coding guys will be listed and could be questioned things/progress. i don’t want to go into a paranoid path and belive that somebody paying for features to be developed is a person with hidden agenda. for God sake, i’m an architect and i try to help open source community as much as i can.
You are right. I just have trouble with getting across what I’m thinking. Thank you for explaining me. 
Maybe I need to um… I cant think of words to put across my thoughts. :no::o
Well, I guess that you are not a preacher either…
Yet try, it was a good intervention.
@studioa :
Transparency as a rule would be nice.
My worries aren’t extreme though. Also, I am confident that idealism has a tough skin among Blender devs and the Foundation. Guys like that could earn a whole lot more if working in the proprietary sector and they chose not to. That means something.
Jean
I like the idea.
GPL does not restrict you from selling your modified code so you could have a automated blender patch system that works like a shopping cart – with revenue going the team that made them.
Even though the code can be mirrored somewhere else I think some people would still buy a brach or plugin to show their support. I know I would because I have no problem dropping few 100 bucks on software if its going to make my life easier – and it helps ensure those people that made it can keep doing what they do best. Its win-win as far as I’m concerned.
Added:
You know… you could just make a Plug-in API and dual license it so that a proprietary license code could be used with blender. That would allow people to write tools, sell tools and license tools for use with blender. That way makers of tools that are already in the industry can sell ports for blender.
Just a thought.
I’ve been thinking alot about just this subject, development bounties, and emphatically think it should be seriously considered for fast-tracking by the Foundation.
I love Blender very much, the interface is far and above the best for someone coming from 2D like myself, but there are some features on the backburner that are pushing me toward spending money and reeducation time on commercial packages. This I begrudge, as I see it as a waste: I’d be much happier spending my $3000 on stabilizing Freestyle or the multires project, implementing space-switching, or mesh-on-mesh deformation, than on a commercial package.
Besides independents and freelancers, I expect the same thing would be universally true with studios and production houses the world over. There are great unique things about Blender, like Linked Libraries, which wow people and get them to try it out, but (besides big stuff like the hotkey thing and ngons, which will be fixed in 2.5) they find a dearth of relatively smaller features more common in the big commercial packages, like tighter integration with outside renderers, adaptive subdivision, expanded rigging and deformation tools, native network rendering, and the like.
What’s needed is a system to facilitate bounties, which would approve feature proposals’ thoroughness, police code integrity, etc. – a job, I’d say, for the Foundation.
A radical angle like this would speed the already quick development of Blender exponentially, and garner a lot of attention from the opensource community and beyond. After all these years, we’re about two steps away from overtaking the commercial packages, and dedicated development by means of a bounty system would help us cross that gap so much faster.
(sorry for the long post)
At first glance it sounds very promising. I did like when I read the title of the thread, and I like what NURBS people are doing to implement them.
If this becomes popular my concern is if some good things of the non-paid spirit could be affected. For instance, if economical speculation could appear, and some Devs would delay projects just to see “the number” grow. Or, if the results of someone who had been contracted to develope a feature would have the same quality as the results of someone working for the passion (I know some actual Devs are paid, but I think they have passion too). By “quality” I mean: instead of just “getting the work done”, thinking in the end users, being innovative to find new, more simple or better ways to implement features instead of cloning other softs, do maintenance of the code, hear the community and understand where is aiming.
I would keep it simple, which means not trying to make profit with this, if licenses start to appear for this and that feature all that will have to be organized. Which contributors get royalties? how much royalties they get? how do they receive their royalties? who collects the money from royalties? how much ‘legaly’ possible is to create that international organization? how much money contributors will have to invest in bureaucracy and organization in order for this to really give profit? what paperwork is needed for each country? Bureaucracy can be a PITA.
I would let everyone vote the features (polls?), those who donate and those who don’t. And always with a spirit of integration with the Blender Foundation. Together is always stronger and warrants a better future. If a feature is not approved by the BF, try to find the way together, and if still is not accepted, well, everyone is free to make a development on their own. But remember PlumiBlender (correct me if I’m wrong) they added some nice features, but it was not possible to integrate them in the actual Blender version. (maybe a future plug-in architecture could make integration more viable? don’t know). If you make a project with a version like that you will not have compatibility with the main version, not being able to use the new features that will be developed after yours.
In brief, after reading the different ideas I liked:
- Poll’s for features where some people is willing to pay.
- Give participation to the whole community to express interest.
- Simple non-profit spirit, open code.
- Always seek BF integration.
.
It seems to me that there is no other way than to state in the contract that the intellectual rights would go to the Foundation and the license would have to be GPL. Then the trouble would pretty much be nil.
Am I wrong?
The most effective way to do this is to treat it like a business, get someone to do contract work, or by the hour. Post some fliers at universities. Like your own personal google summer of code. Of course you will need money…
It works better then the Bounty system, because you find the people, you don’t let them find you.