by the way - The idea that because Ton is the-boss means he has full control is not quite right.
If Ton became a control freak and dictated what every dev did each day, working for the BlenderFoundation wouldnât be such a nice thing, I expect devs would leave and find better work elsewhere. (or fork Blender).
But Ton knows this, its not very efficient to employ people online that need this level of management anyway, so⌠Its not really worth worrying about.
From what I have read, Ton has no power in the same way a leader or celebrity has no real power. The power they have exists only because others allow them to have it.
Blender needs someone like Ton, not just because of his vision of Blender but for everything else he does too. All the boring stuff like HR, Servers, Audits, Fundraising, Legal, Taxes, PR, networking⌠He may not do all the work himself but he has hand in getting it done. I am very thankful we have a Ton, Blender would be far less without him.
On a personal note; I HATE it when I open up a software package and something has changed, like a button has moved and I cant find it. Having someone protect us from that sort of thing when its unnecessary is a good thing!
I have to ask why the spotlight is on the Blender development team and Ton all of a sudden?
It was already stated as a matter of opinion with a pretty big disclaimer as part of it, though that also encompases perspective and personal experience. He absolutely has been inconsistent from what I have seen him say and do over the years. He literally said âautodesk users can just walk on past blenderâ while implying those are not the users he wants using it. Further inquirey suggested that future blender users need to be blender users, not users of other software. That context was within the experiences and design opinions they bring with them. But hey, I was there in the channel reading such a conversation.
Perhaps you are right, a lot of it comes down to miscommunication or him saying things that cant be taken literally because they are so extreme. To pretend this doesnt exist though would be intellectually dishonest for those who have seen it first hand. It doesnt need to imply malicious intent, but rather something someone may not be aware of. This was also made pretty clear.
Perception is fairly important, it goes both ways but being aware of it or concious of how things can be percieved, both in the short term and long term, need to be considered. This includes myself as well.
Personally, I am not interested in a long & drawn out argument over the matter nor am I trying to impugn Tonâs character. Whether his use of âabsolutely powerlessâ was an exaggeration or not, Tonâs argument as presented in that talk was not a candid approach to how much power & influence he can (& does) wield over Blenderâs development direction. The room (correctly) answered the question he asked and he singled out someone to argue about the matter, still trying to tell us how little power his position held. that to me did not strike me as candid or sincere and, at the risk of the semantic hammer coming down on me, that is what âdisingenuousâ actually means.
There is nothing wrong with Ton being in a position of great power over Blender, just as there is nothing wrong with Linusâ similar position in regards to Linux. Having someone that is in a position to veto changes, guide development, and otherwise look after an open-source project by applying their significant influence over it is a good thing. No-one is saying otherwise.
Well, in regards to the focus on Ton himself, I reckon itâs got a lot to do with Project Gooseberryâs level of success and decisions made by him in that context. For what itâs worth, I have not noticed much talk about the development team in general though. Is there talk about them that Iâm missing?
I didnât bring this subject up (despite my previously stated strong opinion on the matter), so youâd have to ask the OP why they decided to ask the question⌠but I think it pretty obvious what recent event would bring Ton into the spotlight. Heâs the leader & figurehead of the Blender Foundation, he is trying to run a (huge) crowd-funding campaign that is not going as well as anyone hoped, and the forum has even changed the rules based on the discussions that have resulted from this. It doesnât really take Sherlock Holmes to solve that mystery 
You keep proposing this statement. Is it so difficult to understand it meant âi donât care about seducing Autod3sk users, i care about current users we haveâŚâ? Itâs quite different.
I have different visions compared to him, i donât agree about everything he says, but donât put in his mouth stuff you had not understand correctly.
What part of the disclaimer in my original post did you have trouble with? I understood exactly what he said, from my perspective. This is why the subject of miscommunication was brought up⌠perhaps you missed that. I can easily claim, with the same validity, that you dont understand what heâs saying correctly. Doesnt do us much good now does it? Thereâs no point in trying to argue it, nor will I try to outside of pointing to the disclaimer part of my post.
So itâs like with all dictators?
Personally I agree with margoG_ita about this sentence (Autodesk users),from my pov Ton is right about that.
First make happy Blender users,later(maybe,eventually),make happy also new users coming from outside.
If thereâs a perfectly reasonable interpretation consistent with what actually happens, and another inconsistent with it, then I wouldnât say both are equally valid.
No, countries canât be forked 
he doesnât have to be a control freak, what puzzling me is the maintainers and developers has the says.its like I work for you but I am the one who make the decision you just write the check. and if you say Code quality and design is important it is not why developers and maintainers are there.
I know developing and coding is hard if devs imposing their own will while recieving checks, if I am the one running the showâŚ
" I appreciate all the hard work youâve done and without you we have not gotten this far but we want people that can make things happen without having problem with Code quality and design thatâs why youre devs youre here to make it work, if this is a volunter work you are free and right to whine but if you receiving compensation even though not the same as other commercial work but this is what we agreed upon and you knew all about it and also for the spirit of opensource but since you want things your way and impeding and stalling the direction and vision were heading, then things have to change⌠donât let the door hit you. "
No, a dictator keeps his power through fear and force, a celebrity or leader keeps his power through continued approval.
@BTolputt
The discussion i was referring to in regard to the developers was in the âUser driven development crowd fundingâ thread.
I understand what you are saying about the crowd funding campaign, but I still see it as âwrongâ to start questioning the inner workings of Blender, just because its not going as well as it could. I just feel like there is a little bit of blood in the water, for the first time Tonâs shield of invulnerability is down and some are going in for a punch and stab. Just because you can does not mean you should.
Iâm not saying thatâs what you are doing, but some on the forum seem to have that mentality.
Ton is a project manager and an executive of a Foundation. You must have leadership in an open-source project; otherwise, well: âopinions are like noses â everyone has one, but you donât always want to see what comes out of it.â Everyone would be so busy quabbling to get their opinion implemented (this is just human nature, folks, and we know it), that the project would be wallowing about in the ocean having neither rudder nor sail.
My cursory opinion of Ton, furthermore, having of course never met the man but observing the results of how he works, is that he is a very good manager and executive, who is passionate about Blender. I suggest therefore that you should make it a point to express sincere gratitude for having such a man in such a position. Itâs lonely at the top, and there must be âa top.â Especially(!) with open source. Accept executive leadership, and work within it and to uphold it, for this is how projects succeed (or fail). I have certainly seen both outcomes. âYou have it good right now ⌠very good.â
Yes, like the Gimp deciding to remove the option of saving to png and calling it exporting. I know that they are formally right, as png doesnât support layers, but Iâm confused each time!
First of all, I really like the noses expression, I never heard it before! Second, I agree with your observations about Ton. Having no leadership in an open source project is bad and we could do a hell of a lot worse than Ton. Ton gets the job done and is actually a nice guy, and I have actually met the man! Somewhere in this thread (or another gooseberry thread, I cannot keep them apart anymore) somebody made the comparison with Torvalds. I think that on the level of communication, Ton compares extremely favourable to Torvalds. He doesnât seem to be a nice guy to work with at all. I think it makes more sense to compare Ton to Guido van Rossum. And Iâm not just saying because theâre both Dutch, they are both pleasant people who have lead important open source projects.
Donât know why people are against this feature, I find itâs great that they have separated the working document from the output file.
One thing I donât get though is why software (especially OSS) donât allow more user preferences for this type of thing where user interaction is considered. Is it a maintenance problem or what, including options?
For example the new input method in Blender, some like the new method, other like the old method⌠or coloured wires/pre-selection highlighting so many users would love⌠why not just an option in the preferences?
Itâs only user interaction, not functionality of the program.
I have heard software projects rejecting options because it is supposedly too confusing for the user if the preferences editor is too long⌠rofl
What is soo bad with options, especially when the features they enable are kinda self contained like pre-selection highlighting or input?
In my case it is because 1) I usually use gimp for very simple things, so I actually mostly donât save with layers. 2) I use two version of gimp at the same time, one is the stock version in ubuntu 13.04 and one in 12.04. This means I never get used to it. This is ofcourse my own stupid fault.
Others seem to be able to do it quite effectively via Cult of Personality, but this discussion is already getting dangerously close to Godwinâs Law territory.
Maybe these are cultural differences but to me, BTolputtâs assessment seems spot on. Blender certainly needs a project leader and overall Ton is doing a fine job. Itâs just a bit grating when someone who clearly does have great influence over something starts claiming that they donât, even if it is for rhetorical purposes.
Donât know if thereâs even Blender today if it were not for Ton Roosendaalâs leadership. Iâve bought and studied mid-end 3d apps like Hexagon, Carrara, Amapi, TrueSpace, Silo, not to mention apps like Vue. I bought every version that came out. Where are they today? Itâs as if itâs easy to steer a 3d appâs future to make it timeless. The only 3d app I bought that is still in circulation is Modo. And it was sold to another company already.
Yeah, there are one or two people who might be doing that, but youâd have to admit that the people who are copping the most flak on it are not the ones that have waited until Project Gooseberryâs lack of runaway success to state their opinion. SaintHaven isnât some shrinking violet when it comes to expressing his disagreement, Iâve stated my opinion on this before (within days of the linked talk), and so on.
FWIW, I think it a good thing that people are seeing Tonâs âshield of invulnerabilityâ come down myself. Not because I want to lay into Ton. Not because I want others to. Simply because the less cult of personality around the man, the more objective discussion about his decisions can be. Whenever people disagree with Tonâs decisions on these forums, there is always a large chorus of support for Ton personally used as a rebuttal against those just trying to discuss the decision itself. A bit of that is good, pages of that gets in the way of being able to objectively discuss any issue Ton has personally put out an opinion on (witness UI Debate & Project Gooseberry threads for recent examples)⌠and that kind of thing isnât good for anyone.
That last paragraph is starting to veer off-topic though, so Iâll leave it at that.
Blender wouldnt be where it is today, if there was no Ton. A man with a vision steering the ship. Somebody with a good look over the big picture.
I donât understand the goal of this thread. Is it to learn a little bit more about how much Ton is affecting development or how?
If there was no Ton, there wouldnât be a blenderartist forum on which we would be discussing Ton. Nor Blender.
As simple as that.
Blender is open source. Nobody controls it. That is the beauty of it. Nobody can buy it, or discontinue it (like Softimage). Ton doesnât control Blender. Ton controls the Blender foundation- the people who are pushing to improve blender every year. It you want to learn more about what he does, check the goosberry project, check the previous projects of BF. Get involved more.
