Thanks, yes. So what I am searching for is, what can I do legally and what can I do as a nobody in software sales especially if it is taken and made available elsewhere. The whole system would involve quite a few tutorial videos or a manual, and there are my own external Windows scripts and apps to process the Blender .json and .txt file outputs for example. And with the ongoing development as a service it seems like perhaps a video channel and a Patreon or similar may be a good idea.
hi, thank you everyone for the replies.
I am a bit confused about the GPL open source thing.
What is the point of the GPL? It seems like the reason Blender has done it like this is to allow and encourage development?
I have spent a year building up the addons, scripts and project templates so it functions as a âfront end to another industry softwareâ, what i meant by that was my custom blender outputs .json and .txt files with motion data and other data in structures that can be used by another industry software, or two.
Its a very comprehensive and unique system and would be valuable to many people. I use it every day and there is nothing else available that I can find that would enable me to work in this way.
So it seems logical to make it available for profit.
The ruffling of feathers was mentioned above, which adds to my confusion. Anyway, a good start for some research here, thanks again.
Without seeing feature specifics, I wouldnât be able to know if such a build/product would have be worthy of a price tag, or not. This applies not just to a custom fork, but any addon or system of addons.
So - can you attach a price to access via download? Yes, absolutely. The market interest is another thing entirely.
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I think the important point youâre missing here is that your addons, scripts, and project templates can be sold for profit, by you or by anyone else. If you release them, you must make them GPL-licensed, which means anyone could grab them and re-sell them for a dollar less than you, stealing all your potential customers. The GPL license means you canât put restrictions on the use of your code.
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No easy answers Iâm afraid, lots of reading and thinking ahead of you. 
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Great point.
For OP - i donât actually use vanilla Blender for production, I use a fork that is made available to people via a Patreon sub, which people can pay/join and then download the full install from.
The forkâs code IS on github, so anyone can compile themselves and not pay any fee. (Though itâs not a walk in the park⌠far more tricky than compiling vanilla Blender.) Theyâve made the code available, which is what the blender license situation requires⌠of course, the license doesnât require you to help people with the code, help them compile the code, etc. They could probably just put the few dozen files they re-coded on the internet and call it a day, instead of the entire packageâŚ
In any case, thereâs nothing except personal ethics which says I cannot take what I got off Patreon, and then upload it on to the internet and just give it away to everyone.
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OK, nice, so perhaps this is the main point for me and what I was looking for. You can compile a custom Blender, built it out with all your addons and scripts and templates and sell it, but so can anyone else sell it. Therefore the issue with all this is a sales issue. Other entities can sell it or give it away, so the trick is to have reasons for people to get if from you and pay.
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NIce! so there, you paid on Patreon, why did you pay and not get it for free somewhere else? Several reasons probably. I think its quite possible to get enough kind folks like you who want to pay the developer directly.
Yep - definitely about supporting the developer. The Patreon is only $5-10/mo, so not like it requires some sort of other financial sacrifice in life. Thatâs less than I spend on takeout for dinner, and that place has really good mongolian beefâŚ
The software itself is worth far more to me than that; if they sent an email tomorrow and said they were cancelling the Patreon, but I could purchase a lifetime version with future upgrades for $500 - Iâd pull out the credit card.
Same with Blender- itâs free to use, but costs money to create. So, I pay them too.
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Maybe we need somebody on a stage moving lots of random household objects between various boxes for an hour to understand what GPL means.
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If you want to enforce people paying for your stuff, youâd need to get the payment before making anything available, like a Kickstarter. Youâd get paid for the current effort, and no one can undercut you with your own code until your release.
Of course, once you release (fulfill the kickstarter), you need to release the code too as per GPL, and from that moment other people can get it for free and/or develop derivates and/or sell it (although if they only sell the same stuff you already released, they will only catch the people who are unaware of the product state).
The advantage is that you have a guaranteed sales number before releasing; if the kickstarter results do not meet your expectations, you will not release the product at all. You will not be able to generate a regular income from it though, unless people pay you voluntarily or you create a new kickstarter for a new version (which, as I understand it, is frowned upon). And you cannot keep control over the product, as someone else may improve and sell it.
Also, if you use your product as helper to offer a service, having access to the product exclusively may be worth more that the income from selling it (by giving you a competitive advantage in your service).
If you distribute a modified or repackaged version of the GPL-licensed software, you are required to make the source code of your modifications available to the recipients under the same GPL license terms. Users are allowed to charge for distribution, but they must still comply with the terms of the GPL by sharing the source code of their modifications.
This is a good point, because nobody mentions exactly how the source code should be shared or formatted or in what state it exists.
The most standard technique is that you shall have a CMAKE file, then have dependencies (third party libraries) be downloaded, then a project file be generated, then the code be compiled.
However in other terms nobody specifies how exactly the building process sticks into the picture. Is only a matter of the source code files mostly and not the build stack itself.
From what I remember I used MonoDevelop back in the day a lot of the time, but Microsoft in order to deprecate it userbase (in favor of VSCode and VS2022 on Windows) made the compilation process so complex and difficult that essentially even the most enthusiast hobbyist contributor would âcall it quitsâ.
(This is a technique to prevent users from compiling and turning the compilation process into a nightmare puzzle).
Another idea is that the Armory game engine, is only available through itch io payment, however the source is open source and that.
(This is a technique to prevent people from using it freely as a binary runtime in order to fund development â now probably there could be third party exe builds somewhere but I have no idea about it).
These are quite the sneaky workarounds, but they are quite interesting as well in their own wayâŚ
@Foto_360
In general terms, I consider that up to a point, either you release the source code either not, it wonât be so much of a problem. Because more or less it means that your real danger are third-party-packagers or other competitors. Third party packagers are essentially distributing free binary builds (which is a negative) but you get 0% piracy in that respect (because there is no protection to break), but indeed third-party packagement of your software is illegal. On the other hand if there are competitors, essentially it means that they too will be obliged to release their source as well, this can be a huge bummer for them essentially you prevent competition, or even if perhaps there are competitors you can also improve your software as well by peeking at their source code as well (this results to a mutual benefit despite the competition).
But the real point of doing open source business is that you get paid through the services rather than the software itself. The software is only the platform and the services are the core of the business.
Say in that regard that even the legendary Blender Foundation, since they have the software established, they can build any sort of business model on top of it. As of now they are preparing for the asset store and the addon distribution network. But their own business efforts in that regard are irrelevant to the meaning of Blenderâs source code.
Think about it and if you see that is viable solution go for it, all open source.
All great advice and thoughts here, thanks very much.
I am nearly ready to get it out there,
I am thinking of not compiling Blender but offering a download of separate panels/scripts etc with a video tutorial series. The system requires/includesâŚ
12 custom panels
4 Export scripts
4 Template Projects
A few Image Assets
A Windows Script Dropper App I made
Python, Powershell and Batch scripts for the Script Dropper App.
What are your thoughts now I am doing it this way?
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Thereâs no chance I would download and use a custom fork for the above; Iâm already using another custom fork, and nothing is going to get me off using that.
So think splitting it into modules as it looks like youâre doing is a good idea.
It mostly depends on the level of usefulness.
Some people might find it interesting, other might find it of crucial importance, others could not see the benefit in their own minds.
Mostly I think that it has to do with the nature of the problem. If for example you know where specific use cases suffer, and then you come up with a drop-in solution. Then definitely going by this notion is a big win for you making it and also users get value in terms of boosting their productivity.
In this case, as you mention. If these 12 panels are very well thought of and implemented properly perhaps some users will find them useful and support you. However one problem is no matter how much well-thought the panels are, if the addon is rather easy to replicate (with eyeballing) or it has no hard-to-find features (mostly hard-to-replicate), it would be a tough sell. You wonât have a soft-monopoly in this space, when it comes to having something that provides you sustainable and secure income.
But I might be talking rubbish here⌠Take a chance to release the addon if you like and see how it goes. Though I am doing mostly guesses here, future is unknown but also up to some point expected.