That to me implies that users are changing their pipeline to OSS, which in turn implies a viable product to switch to, which doesn’t exist, neither regarding Autodesk nor Adobe products. That’s what I don’t see happen.
By the way, I’m not going to say it needs to happen or that the BF should do this-and-that in order to make it happen. Blender has its share, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking OSS can “take over”. The necessary structures aren’t there and I don’t see them come from anywhere, either.
It can be done the same way that it is done for other major open-source packages that corporations rely on, like Linux: each company that feels it is important enough for them actually assigns one or a few of their own employees to work on coding for that project. That way the developer gets a paycheck from the company itself and has to follow the priorities that they dictate. Not a donation, not a support contract, but companies pooling resources together to build a mutually beneficial tool. (http://apcmag.com/linux-now-75-corporate.htm)
Imagine if the major CG studios got the message that they couldn’t rely on profit-driven corporations to develop the software on top of which they build their business in the long term, and started paying, say, one developer each, even part-time to contribute to an alternative open-source software? They wouldn’t need to abandon their commercial software immediately, but they could start planting the seeds that would allow them to have more control over their own future.
What’s going to happen is that people will jump ship from Autodesk to The Foundry and SideFX, which are far from being “megacorps” and whose VFX products are the core of their business, not some side-project.
From what I can tell, SideFX appears to be a small, privately-owned company (51-200 employees according to LinkedIn), however, The Foundry is owned by The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. Private equity firms are in the business of making big cash by buying companies, restructuring them, and then a few years later, selling those companies to the highest bidder to make the maximum profit. This is exactly what happened to Alias (creators of Maya): Alias was bought by a private equity firm in 2003, and sold to Autodesk in 2006, for over 3x the price (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alias_Systems_Corporation). Carlyle bought the Foundry in 2011. You do the math.
Why so negative about this ? I guess you would reply youre not being negative but realist.
One can also be a realist 12 years back; “working in-house on a a piece of software for 10 years and release it to the public for free ?” certainly this wont have any chance at all. It will fizzle out , it can’t be able to compete with a commercial software. I guess nobody saw that happening either…but it did happen didn’t it.
Certainly you’re free to not delude yourself.
By the way can you please explain these structures which are missing ?
Meanwhile I will be happily deluding myself,claiming that by version 3.5 Blender will be industry standard software in CG.
For what it’s worth, a lot of studios (small/mid-size ones… the biggies have their own deals) don’t often get direct support from the company developing the software, but instead get support through a vendor. They don’t often get “support” in terms of feature development or customization… in fact a large chunk of those support calls pertain to licensing servers, installation issues, hardware compatibility, integration, and perhaps some userland support… but often both userland and dev support are shuffled off to online resources provided by the software company (wiki, knowledge base, forums, etc.)
Blender doesn’t require a licensing server and doesn’t even really need to be installed to work… so those two are off the table for a potential “Blender vendor”. That leaves integration, hardware compatibility and maybe user/dev support. It might be argued that an enterprising company (perhaps something like BlenderSupport) could fill that niche while also offering more benefits such as more involved integration support, add-on development, and perhaps something I’m going to call “patch chaperoning” whereby they help develop and champion and end-customer’s feature addition to Blender with the aim of integrating it with trunk.
Regarding companies adopting Open source for their own benefit. This is the entire reason why Valve started contributing and developing on Linux… it wasn’t just because they were nice guys, they just saw the writing on the wall. The same for Google, most likely as defense against never ending patent wars.
I’m sorry this last comment is funny. Who do you think “owns” the regulators? This is the point exactly, it’s like taking off a bandage slowly or ripping it off, it has to happen some time. Governments and corporations are certainly not looking out for anyone’s best interests. Remember the Wall street bailouts?
I also wanted to add that regarding The Foundry, I doubt that Autodesk would feel compelled to spend the cash for it, both because there is no product that is a clear threat to their dominance (like there was with Softimage, especially when they revealed ICE), and because they appear to be in a tight financial situation right now, which is most likely what prompted them killing Softimage. What I was trying to point out is that you NEVER KNOW what is going to happen to commercial software that you invest all this time and money in. Some other terrible fate could await The Foundry, like being sold to Apple, or Adobe, for instance. Autodesk, Adobe, and Apple, the AAA software hell.
Can you imagine what CGTalk and the Modo forums would be like, dozens of pages of people wailing and gnashing their teeth at the prospect that the most promising of the alternative software has been bought out along with the discovery by users currently escaping to Modo are once again considered Autodesk customers.
On the flip side, just how much more momentum would we see in Blender development via new devs. and a growing developer fund if that did happen (providing that Lightwave’s recent development doesn’t suddenly catapult it into being a serious contender again)?
For hobbyist users though, a buyout from Autodesk wouldn’t affect them near as much, as they’re already being quickly priced out of Modo and may soon be facing a choice of the lower-end DAZ applications (which stoops to using suggestive content to sell their 3D apps.), (possibly) Lightwave (and it’s outdated multi-app approach), C4D prime (while being locked out of advanced features), and Blender (because these apps. would then be the only 3D software they can afford, though in Blender’s case it would at least allow them to continue using an equivalent of some of the advanced 3D technology they know and love)
I get the impression the users want to see some big company come along and hire loads of devs to make Blender amazing… (insert dream wishlist here) - anything else will be labeled insignificant… unimportant etc.
ok, so we dont have companies hiring teams of Blender devs to impliment your wishlists yet, even so - companies are funding developers from time to time, I expect this to increase gradually, as it has been over previous years (own observation).
Voodoo – Animation, Rigging, Matchmove, Crowds, Fur grooming, Computer Vision. Icy – Rotoscoping, Paint and Compositing. Wren – Renderer. Rampage – Environment projection system. Crom – Light Comp, Lighting Workflow and next generation VFX software platform. Eve – Multi-resolution, collaborative digital dailies and review system. Anvil – R&H’s oranizational tool for plugins for Crom (and potentially other software platforms). AHAB – Academy award winning fluid simulation technology. Ocean Tools – Proprietary tools for generating water and fluid effects. Jobtracker – Distributed production management system. Snarf – Global trouble ticketing. LoUIE – Global information distribution system. Merlin – Online media reference library and archive. Scheduler – Online room and video conference scheduling system. TaskTrack – Timesheet management system. HRIS – Human Resources Information System. Node/Asset System – Artist Workspace and digital asset system. Queue – Academy award winning render farm management software. Wired – Asset distribution technology. Unibrowser – Software to manage this asset system. PTS – Replicated production tracking database. PTSFS – Database driven POSIX-like global namespace. CacheFS – Proprietary version of CacheFS DDR/HSM – Custom storage system that contains all reviewable material submitted since 1996. Delorean – R&H version of time machine – backup system. Swamp – Proprietary storage system for 2K playback solution.
Contrary to that I’d like to inform you that there’s an entity called the FCC that monitors and sometimes denies mergers/ aquisitions of big players in their respective markets. Whether they do that job in a way that you and I agree with is a different topic.
I’m sorry, but 1000€/month is closer to what you’d earn working at McDonalds full-time. Unless we’re talking about low-income countries, you’re looking at least at 2-3x that amount, everything else is student labour, part-time labour, or labour-of-love. Then there’s also the issue of finding qualified people. You need people that already are familiar with the code, the BF can’t spend months “breaking people in”.
Anyway, I’m not criticizing the model, just don’t expect too much of it.
Well the numbers are only for explaining the model, i think last year or year before that Ton explained the donation/developer ratio clearly (I just don’t remember the exact number). But just so you know, dollar exchange rate for euro is 1.38 so any country which the exchange rate of euro or dollar is high you can find developers. In fact I know 3 developers who worked at that rate for 2 years in my country. They were fresh out of college but very talented. Of course your expectations might be high for full time employment. but this doesn’t change the fact that system does work and will work if people believe and support it. (well aside from people who think being ignorant is funny and use rabbits for avatars).
This news only make me worry for Blender.
In the past I have posted several threads about how remarkable Blender currently is. Blender is free…truly free! What that means is I don’t have to watch commercial to use the product, I don’t get any pop-ups, I don’t have the system installing malware on my system to track my internet usage, and I don’t have to fork over my personal information to use it.
When you pay for software it’s the worst hurt. You have to fork over personal information that can and will get distributed at will, you have to put up with protective features that’s often an inconvenience to you. For example, every 3 years I buy parts and build my own desktop. I purchase the latest release of Windows and load and I have a crap-ware free machine. transferring Blender is never a problem, transferring the licensed product is always a problem.
If Autodesk gobbles up Modo, or Lightwave …it’s over!!
I seriously worry for Blender, I truly wonder how long it will be free…truly free!
This ride could end in a number of ways…pop-ups, “free” subscription requirement to fleece your personal information. Or what would be today a normal upgrade and expansion of features in Blender…tomorrow you have instead…“paid-for-plug-ins”! This situation looms closer as Autodesk and the rest price the regular guy out of the industry!
I think you seriously need to spend some time figuring out what this ‘GPL license’ thingy means. I’ll give you one hint: It’s impossible for Blender to be unrevertably closed up or controlled in any way.
@blenderman75 - really don’t worry about this, Blender is GPL, if whoever manages Blender starts to add crappy pop-ups, Blender will get forked (or at least have a version available without such onerous rubbish).
Though I don’t really follow your logic that Autodesk does this… it means Blender would do something similar???
@Therahedwig - its possible for Blender to become closed (or at least future releases to become closed), just highly unlikely - discussed details about it last blender-podcast - http://blender-podcast.org/?p=582
I think the idea that plugin developers should be punished for wanting to sell their plugins is insulting to anyone who believes in getting paid for their hard work.
Aside from that point, I’m not sure what you’re getting at with pop ups and ads and malware. Have you ever actually USED a commercial 3D package?
