Blender 2.71 Pro+

Hello. First of all I would like to say, do not vote, or stick around in this thread if you are not optimistic about a totally new blender interface, and adding a Pay version of Blender.
In this thread, I will be talking negative about blender, but I would ask for respect from the community, as this is my opinion.
If you disagree, please share your own opinion in the comments.

I have been using blender for 1 year now, but as I gain more experience, I find it harder and harder to learn more about blender. I thought this issue was purely due to lack of experience, but I recently saw a video that described why the blender interface needs a rework.
If you think that a new blender interface could be a good Idea, please take your time to watch the following videos, and make up your own opinion;


This videos shows features that I would love to see as default, but as blender is a free software, we could all understand that expecting lots of rework, and improving the current system fast is not relevant.
The reason to why I’m making this video is to ask the community if you would pay for a Blender Pro version, containing features like this. If the developments gain a fair income, they can invest more resources and time in improving blender, not just now, but in the future.
The way I’m thinking of this is having a free version, and also a pro version, where only those will gain access to the newest features, and available functions. However I still think that blender should keep their reputation as “freeware”, so making Pro features available to the Free version of blender is probably essential, but make a release delay for the Free version to give people a reason to upgrade to Pro.

My question would be, would you Pay money for a Blender Pro version, and if so, How much would you pay?
By paying a fair price, the developments can invest more time and resources in improving the software!

Personally I think this seems like a fair deal;
$19,99 – Blender Pluss
$29,99 – Blender Pro
$49,99 – Blender Pro+

This… will not end well. Just FYI, those videos have been discussed to death on here. Nevermind they actually have some really good points, people will still rant on about Andrew´s failed attempt at a solution… Anyhoo, good luck with this thread.

I´m currently taking bets on how long it takes for it to be closed - takers?

Well, (as far as I understand open-source licensing) that’s impossible to realise. The whole Blender code is open-sourced, mostly GPL, which means that if you distribute a Blender version that contains anything GPL’d, you have to distribute the source code as well. That’s reasonable, since most open-source developers don’t like the idea of anybody selling their work.
In my opinion, the best and most reasonable choice is to either donate to the Blender Foundation, or (if you really, really want the money to go into UI work) raise money to hire a developer for working on the UI, which is perfectly okay as long as the resulting code is published as open-source again. However, IMO its unlikely that a big UI revolution would be accepted since opinions on the UI are quite different for everyone (I’m fine with the current UI, for example). The most likely outcome is a fork of Blender that would need to be maintained and kept up-to-date, which is quite a lot of work.

There’s already somebody selling Blender under the name 3DMagix for $47.

Given that we had a major UI overhaul with v2.5, it’s unlikely anybody at BF would want to change it now.

Steve

There has actually been some progress since then on improving the UI and Blender usability in general, some have mentioned that Blender 2.73 will even have a new keymap that will adhere closer to industry standards.

So it’s not like there has been no progress at all, it’s just that it’s not going to directly copy Andrew’s design.

Regardless, I imagine this thread is going to go off the rails in a ball of flames and continue to 10-15 pages of unconstructive debate, anyone who has some constructive points to say should do it now.

Well, yes, selling it is allowed, but you have to grant your customers all the right you received, including the right to freely access the source code and distribute it again. So, if a Blender Pro existed, everybody would have the right to just grab the source and publish it for free again.
As far as I know, 3DMagix removed the credits and license info and therefore is illegal.

Yaawwwnnn

You missed out the fourth video in which Andrew explains the actual problems with his own UI proposals he’d outlined in the those videos

I think you need to think this idea through a bit more after you’ve done a bit of research in reading the countless discussions that have already taken place over the last few years.

What are you expecting to do with the results of this pole ? If it come out favourable that a ‘Pro’ version (what does pro mean in this case) is wanted by some people what are you proposing to do about it ? What’s the point of a pole if it leads to no outcome ?

I don’t think he was wrong, and I don’t think he thinks it either, at least not 100%. What I think is that the naysayers at BF and ‘oldtimer’ riots brought fourth the situation where it was easier for him to ‘acknowledge’ that his proposal is wrong, than to defend it. I would do it also in his place, since he has better things to do than try to turn the tides. Blender will eventually come real close to the UI features he proposed, as more and more people use it, but it will take more time than a dedicated project.

He doesn’t come across to me as someone who’s views collapse in front of a little criticism. I’m sure with a little of his marketing doublespeak he could sell his ideas to anyone who may be a stick in the mud oldtimer. I’m sure some significant UI design changes will be made in the future for the better (sure can need it) but decisions shouldn’t be made using polls

I just think he weighted for and against further work/discussion on the topic of the UI and dropped it in favor of his business endeavors. I could be wrong.

About the pool, I agree.

why do you beat this old horse again? :smiley:

I think blendermarket is an example of blender content being monetized well.

Blender devs have already taken steps in improving the interface

Yeah… I’m going to go ahead and shut this down. If another mod wants to jump in and reopen that’s up to them, but there are already dozens of other threads on this exact same topic. No need for another thread every time someone sees Andrew’s videos for the first time.

At the moment there probably isn’t a big enough of a market to employ people fulltime,
but someone could sell support, (good support, where you can get issues resolved, bugs fixed etc).

Such a business could have their own builds, for their customers so I guess you could call that a pro version.

However users get almost this already (for free), with the buildbot and bug tracker, only real advantage you have as a paying customer is you could get your own problems prioritized.

(of course improvements would get into official blender.org releases too).

See: CentOS/Redhat business model.

Of the developers I know, I doubt any are really interested in providing support, so… I don’t expect this any time soon.
Just to say I don’t think its a bad business model or a problem for Blender if it happens.