Most assuredly, especially when you factor, 2.80 is not yet set in stone, heck, just ask Jerry Perkins how often his addons have to be updated just to keep up with nightly builds. Once the dust settles, those who only code when time permits will start digging in to update addons for 2.80. I also predict the new features in 2.80 will encourage people to expand existing functionality, just as has been done with BoxCutter & Hops.
Right now, it is possible an addon working today won’t be next week, I know speaking for myself, I be holding off until things were classed as “final”, no point swimming upstream if you don’t have to.
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To pay or not to pay? That’s the…
In the end it only depends if you like what you’re buying or not. If you don’t like it, no force in the universe is going to let you shed your money…
So…
Well, there’s another possibility; you’re using that thing for your work, for makin a living. Of course not paying in this case would simply be incredibly stupid. Like suiciding your job.
Let’s face it: 20-30 years ago, world economy was far better than today’s. And thats reflects on what people are willing to do for free or paid (20-30 years ago was easier to put food in the table than today). For instance, compare how much free/freeware projects were back then for windows (example) and how much of these are still free nowadays, or still exists.
Much of the old freeware was converted to shareware and/or are paid nowadays in some form or another. There’s no real free (as in free beer) projects nowadays unless it’s a hobby or just a coder doing something that he/she needs and share it just for the lulz or because they could use some helping hand. Somebody pays for them… Advertisements??, people working on projects because it’s their main job??, patreon?? whatever the method, that’s what it is nowadays… it’s not 1995 anymore, and it’s hard.
Blender is not exception. Ton did a fantastic work leading the project through hard times, getting funding as he could, giving coders a chance of getting paid for their efforts and building a community of people that wants to give money to get a better Blender.
I don’t see Blender itself becoming a paid app, but let’s face it: Most plugins will become commercial, open source or not. That’s how it is and we will need to adapt to it. Blender market already does this and for what i’ve seen, it has worked pretty well.
Look at the rest of the open source projects out there: Linux is developed by enterprises nowadays. Mozilla gives a free browser, but they are funded by search engines and very few developers (i believe 2 or 3) does contribute for free. The Freecad project developers have their day jobs and work on it on their spare time but still ask for money and they are evaluating joining an umbrella organization to make things easier to monetize the application while keeping the code open and giving out for free. The PS3 emulator out there is open source and free to download and use, but their developers relies on patreon to get funding, otherwise they couldn’t work on it.
The point is simple. There’s no free lunch anymore like it were in the 90’s or even first part of the 2000’s, and people need money to survive. And coders are no exception to that.
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I think this is misleading. There are still plenty of free addons out there. They lack the polish and sheen of the commercial apps, but there are lots of handy free addons. It’s also an easy way to encapsulate simple scripted behaviors for artists themselves.
I wrote an addon that exposed the border rendering dimensions to the UI to allow for easier manually tiled renders for high res renders:
I never released it, but if someone really wanted it, I would.
I also wrote an addon that sets a file path to a datestamped folder, and updates the text on a date object that gets composited into my renders:
This is an addon that is useful only to me, but it’s super useful, and it wasn’t that hard to code.
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Sorry, but it seems like some kind of demagogy. You can use other ways to earn money with open source. Use crowdfunding, paid support, patreon like subscription. And not just came to FOSS to make cash.
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And if you read what people have posted previously, they just don’t work, why? Well, again, you rely on people to show support, but again, as many posts show here, they simply don’t want to, they want FREE, period, no outlay whatsoever, the developer should do it out of some desire to ensure everyone else gets what they want at zero effort or outlay, regardless of the work and effort of the developer. As I say, it does rather tickle me the “corporations are greedy” view when clearly, folks seem to disassociate their own greed, (everything for nothing). Not much community spirit and “pay it forward”, “a better utpoia”, going on there.
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I know it seems that I insist on the philosophical concept of how FOSS works, the value of it is not in the cash, but in the common collaborative effort, which makes the whole community flourish.
If this concept is not understood there is a mental biasing that comes from other systems.
When blender will implement advanced CAD-CAM functions and precise modeling … and it will happen sooner or later …
You will see the advantages that come with it … when it begins to serially shape the material world and not only the intangible world of images …
Blender is an OMEGA,
a point of arrival of a world in progress.
And that is fine and dandy, BUT, someone, somewhere, has to put a huge amount of time and effort in to achieve that. In order to get what you percieve as ideal, for zero effort or outlay on your behalf, you are asking others to channel all that time and effort and resources, (electricity, hardware costs, software costs for the development software), but to do so “for the common good”. You feel it is THE way forward, but provided you do not have to expend any effort in the process, just reap the rewards.
Idealism is great, but it is often a disguise for people wanting something for nothing, so they can do what they want to do and rely on others to carry the weight. Me, I just call that greed and entitlement. You want a better place, get out there and practice what you preach, invest the time and money to produce something for the benefit of others in the community, be part of the solution you belive is needed.
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yes … it’s a transition … some bravely, years ago they started digging … then many more were added, and gold was discovered, some are now attracted to gold, but there is more to end of the tunnel …
And the more are intuitive and interested in coming to see what light is at the end of that tunnel …
Since GPL allows selling maybe GPL isn´t for people who dislike selling software?
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Op - To be honest, I find this mind boggling. I’ve only just started to dip my toes in 2.80 in the last few months, with a view to adding it to my workflow(or maybe eventually fully migrate) I’m a long time 3dsMax user.
You say you use Blender professionally, yet are complaining about spending $300 for all the plugins you need for a fully fledged toolkit…that you own 100%?
$300 is a pittance if you are using all these tools professionally. Have you any idea how expensive Max/Maya are…to RENT? And you have to give up your perpetual licence to stay onboard Adesk’s gravy train. And then you might spend another 500-1000 on plugins for Max.
The more I explore Blender and the fantastic addons available(many of them free or very cheap) the more I am amazed that Blender is 100% free. I don’t think you realise the gravity of this fact.
I have always supported lone devs and small teams making very innovative and important plugins. I’ve even bought them for programs that I don’t use, just to support the brilliant work that they’re doing. So what if Blender addons are not free. They are dirt cheap and the devs deserve to be paid for the work. If anything, people should be passionate about supporting these devs. They are often the creative heart of our industry.
Frankly, mate, I think your attitude is entitled and lousy.
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If someone is qualified to create an addon for Blender which is good enough to be sold, it is a very inefficient way for that person to make money! The time they invest will usually not be compensated with the money they made with it. I see a lot of passion and enthusiasm and very little gold.
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the beauty of this type of system is that gold can be discovered in various ways, in parallel and interconnected ways …
let’s look at the world of smart phones what did Google do?
who imagined it in 2010?
And you know one thing, I am convinced that if Google’s CEO had not observed the experience of selling the Blender source code to the internet, and if Ton and their guys hadn’t created the open movies and contributed to the growth of the various small initials blender revolutions … today we would be living in a totally different world …
I’m serious about this.
This system, crowd funding online,
… has been an inspiration for many …
I put in the pot, which also inspired the reconstruction campaign of the Notre Dame Cathedral … and in a few days it was a huge success, with a world show …
(but these are separate discussions)
what I want to say is that if you win people’s hearts, they are generous beyond measure. this is the secret.
Just wanting to put it here that this example is apples and oranges, as software such as Blender, and most CG art, is not deemed as critical to world history as Notre Dame is.
Like it or not, Blender is not exactly revolutionary in the global sense as only a very small percentage of the world’s population is even involved in the area of DCC software. Autodesk for instance makes far more money off of its CAD products than Max and Maya. The truth is that CG artists only make up a small fraction of the art community in general, and that will limit the pool of potential donors.
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Say it to Blender Development Fund.
People have posted previously that they can support devs of good addons even if they themselves don’t have much money. Give them convinient way to do crowdfund or subscription payment and not just a Market, and they will do it, I guess.
Nice trick, but maybe since in Blender community all code is open and free it is not for people who creates paid addons?
obviously not …
I was referring to the crowdfund system not to compare Blender with Notre Dame.
in fact Notre Dame crowdfund has collected over one billion euros in few days…
It’s still a very small percentage of Blender users though.
The rule of thumb is that you need to assume the majority of people will not pay anything if they don’t actually have to pay to use something like software, a lot of people prefer to try to save as much money as possible for others things for starters.
There is also an emerging issue that comes up when all of your favorite FOSS houses and artists start putting up accounts on Patreon and other crowdfunding services. Eventually, you need to make a choice as to just who you are going to support because it will add up quickly. Even if you just chose to give 5 dollars per-month for everyone you want to support, it’s not too hard for your final bill to be over 100 dollars a month due to the sheer number of said people or software.
Now of course, some will dream that one day, money will be obsolete, and because of technological advances, everyone will have everything they want at no cost. That type of dream can be quite risky and perhaps reckless, because why would you save up something you think will disappear? If the dream does not come true then you are hosed at the first emergency that needs a lot of money to resolve.
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Well, how many Blender users in the world? 10.000? More? Ton said millions, he probably knows best, but let’s keep it to 10.000 for this example. If each Blender user gives $5 a month (which is obviously a ridiculously low price for what Blender offers), the dev fund would already reach $50.000. But it’s not.
Let’s face the reality, we’re all human and behave the same way, when we can save money on free stuff, we do. The vast majority won’t give anything. The only way to get really paid, is to sell.
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Having bought addons in excess of $100 (and having gotten some of them shamefully cheap before prices went up(think I paid $30 in total for HardOps, Boxcutter and Asset management combined ;P)) I´m perfectly fine with paid addons, having seen how it motivates developers to improve on said addons.
Does paid addons demotivate blender devs from adding the same features in core Blender? Sure, but it´s not just paid addons. I´ve been shot down by devs for wanting a feature that was already available as a free addon.
I think all in all they´re happy with the growing eco-system fo Blender addons that frees up some of their work, and/or gives us access to features they´re not interested in adding to core Blender.
Their focus should be to work on a strong, stable core and improve python access to core functionality so that enthusiast can add features they´re missing, paid or not. Took me a while to realize, but here I am… That´s not to say I don´t think some things shouldn´t be core, but at least it´s possible to add them without having to learn c++…
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