Paid addons without free options just bring inequality in Blender community. Just like everything in capitalism.
It would be fair enough if people who make money with this plugins and blender itself, could make donations using percent of profit they get, or by making free tutorials. But many people like hobbiest, students, teachers, anyone who educate themself could use it for free (in perspective they will make money, too).
More pay addons, more temptation for old enthusiast make their addons paid.
But you know, that’s kinda the point, they do exactly that, which is what we’ve been trying to say all along. They are directly contributing, not just to the community in terms of help and training etc, but also to the financing of the Blender foundation, therefore, they are directly ensuring the continued development of Blender itself. Asking any more is just being petulant.
I’d imagine the same holds true for the studios. My guess would be many freeleancers at least subscribe to the Blender Cloud, thus financing Blender, but knowing folks who freelance with the “big gun” software, I am not sure they tend to have the luxury of time to do much else, I’m surprised at times they find time to sleep!
For those who can’t afford to help financially, I’d like to hope they do as I do, just help out, especially with the folks new to Blender. It’s easy to say “google it” and “RTFM”, but I have found a small 5 mniute video showing the steps gives folks a “lightbulb” moment and drives them on to want to learn more. The more users using and pushing Blender, the better both the software and the community can be.
Speaking for myself, I have been helped by people I hold in very high regard and this has always been something, I think, which makes the community special. As a result, I try, whenever possible, to “pay it foward”.
The phenomenon of blender, but also that of open source in general, and of creative commons, is destined to grow in general and free the world from the false, elitist, dishonestly competitive, artificial-scarcity and predatory paradigm of the financial and capital world speculative, which is inherently nature fed by those who are attached to the accumulation of money and power as a goal of life, and for this reason it is largely dominated by delinquents, mafias and people dominated by low predatory instincts and by people with no - empathy … and that in recent years has become so excessive that it has almost totally separated itself from the real economy world … in reality they are the last cries of an obsolete system in contrast with the world of automation, artificial intelligence , internet of sharing and everything that goes with it. So I am suggesting that in the coming years more and more people will understand the true value of open source and sharing, especially with the growth of new generations … and simply the current monetary world will become obsolete and will be replaced with something more balanced …
“Blender and its comunity” is destined to shape the new millennium with new paradigms … in its field.
Ye gods, you don’t actually beleive that tripe do you?
It strikes me, I have yet to see anyone taking this fanatic point of view and actually applying it to their own lifestyle. If you truly, for one second, held that to be your core truth, you would not be supporting the “elite” by buying hardware and software, or cars, or any trapping of life such as mobile phones, TVs, et al. You would also be voluntering, for free, to help the needy and homeless and impoverished, rather than being part of any “capitalist” society. You would not support large corporations by, heavens forfend, buying things you do not need and merely “want”, because that would make you a willing part of the very fabric of that which you seem to detest.
I don’t hate anyone.
I consider myself a pragmatic realist.
They are not bad people. they are the energies that dominate them (including me) that push them to not reason and to let themselves be affected by causes and effects.
It is a fact that in a certain historical period, being able to make easy money through financial markets has hallucinated the minds of many.
it is a fact that the stock exchanges, thanks to the rapid acceleration of the markets and also thanks to the internet and the telemantic, have become so fast that investing in the stock market is more a metaphor for las vegas and gambling.
It is a fact that the old world broke 10 years ago.
And it is a fact that the ability to create abundance for all thanks to automation and artificial intelligence is in stark contrast to the rules and laws of the old world.
My pragmatism comes from this, I have no enemies and I am not a fan.
I see the instinctive energies that direct men to large numbers. Everyone likes wellness and luxury (including myself), but few are interested in the negative consequences of these lifestyles.
And as a logical man, I believe that historical events will lead us at a certain point to seriously consider a definitive paradigm shift. it will only be a question of weights and measures, of awareness and convenience.
If I sold you something for five dollars, then it’s unfair that I now have five dollars you don’t have.
At least that is the impression that I got from this quote, I wonder if a number of people in this thread are even aware of how buying and selling things work, and how the concept of making money is quite accessible to everyone and not just to corporate bigwigs.
Awesome paid addons → more users → more potential funds for the BF → better tools and more features people enjoy for free. Even FOSS needs at least some form of capitalism so a dev. team can deliver the features users want. Also keep in mind that the BF has a strong belief in not allowing addon makers to have a monopoly on features (which means if you made an addon and a patch was submitted that hardcodes your tool into Blender, tough luck).
Well, there are a couple of countries one can move to if they desire perfect equality in income and standard of living.
Spoiler alert; Everyone is poor but the leaders are rich. What if the poor could have opportunities where they can sell a product or service and start climbing the economic ladder, it does exist and I think it is called capitalism.
And again, I reiterate the point that more paid addons can in fact lead to more revenue to the BF.
Do you know what the little red hearts are, it is a sign that the addon sellers are donating some of their income to the Blender foundation so we can all have a better tool for free.
Selling addons is actually a way to simply “make it happen”.
Huge addons might require years of coding, and i wish devs could be able to live from water and air, but in the end of the day, got bills and so on.
We all dream of a better solution, but until then, unfortunately you’ll have to pay.
i don’t mind paid addons but there is one thing i sometimes worry about.
let’s say one of the paid blender developers like campbell barton has ideas for improving blender modelling he would like to work on. but then he notices that his new features would be very similar to an addon like boxcutter for example. would he hesitate and then decide to stop working it because it could destroy the boxcutter developer’s business or wouldn’t he care about it?
I’m not worried about paid addons. Paying a few euro here and there motivated the devs to write them in the first place, and to keep them updated. Personally I’ve bought quite a few, and I’m quite happy with them.
If ever the situation gets out of hand however, because Blender is GPL, so are all addons (or at least the scripts are). As long as the addons don’t contain integral copyrightable assets, it’s perfectly legal to make a nice addon pack and distribute it to all your friends.
Since the Blender Foundation itself does not sell addons, there is no such conflict of interest.
So there’s nothing stopping core Blender developers from replicating functionality or somehow overlapping with addons inside of Blender proper, if they are deemed a good fit. This has most likely already happened several times simply by chance.
That said, the core Blender developers overall have a somewhat different focus than addon developers.
The core developers worry more about the overall experience in terms of performance, flexibility and fundamental power in things like nodes and shaders, rather than always adding bells and whistles. Generally speaking this means lots of lower level ground work that cannot be done well as an addon.
At some point we are not ADSK making big money from addons, so yes anybody may share gpl code, but as addon user, ask yourself if you want a better soft or even if you are able to support / enhance it yourself in the future ?
If you want to keep it within that hyper-bubble of consideration yes.
But in reality no. Because Blender can only exist within the current economic system. Just like we all do. For better or for worse.
Blender relies on a corporate capitalist system in order to thrive - or to be blunt and honest - eek out a parasite existence. Feeding off of the backbone of a worldwide capitalist society, for the benefit of those who can not, will not or would rather not pay for software.
That’s if you want to be honest and realistic. Open source software is a multi billion dollar industry. Many of the largest companies that produce free open source libraries and apps it are capitalist entities on the stock market trade. Or at the very least, rely on this system in order to live, make money and not to mention produce anything at all.
Blender sails along happily within these capitalist waters without which - in reality and within this current world - it could not exist.
I say be thankful for that. And be very very careful about what you wish for.
Only problem is, by this definition, you are asking developers to have inequity. Why should we the users be the only ones who get to experience equality? While some developers are allowed to be paid handsomely to produce Blender and all others are to be expected to work for free?
I don’t think that is fair at all.
We can’t have it one way or the other. And to expect all developers to work for free would kill Blender so we can’t have it that way.
you don’t understand what I write …
I am not in opposition to you, I am not in opposition to capitalism, I try to observe systemic patterns in the long run … I do not know how it will be in 40-50 years, but I am sure of one thing, the open source system between 40- 50 years will still exist, while financial capitalism, especially the speculative one, will no longer exist.
