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>But nobody is going to. Because it makes no business sense to do so. I've got Blender open on my desktop. Could you explain the business sense behind Blender

>But nobody is going to. Because it makes no business sense to do so. I've got Blender open on my desktop. Could you explain the business sense behind Blender exisiting?

tty2300 8y ago
Donations and free time.
rglullis 8y ago
Companies/Content producers that do not want to depend on a single vendor, or want to avoid the lock-in, and went on to support an open alternative? Makes perfect business sense.
- inflatableDodo 8y ago
  Well, they open sourced it as a bit of a gamble when it became apparent that they couldn't afford the programmers to run it profitably as a business, but if I squint I can see where you are coming from. OK, here's a harder one. Explain the business case for TempleOS.
  - rglullis 8y ago
    TempleOS was never a business, and it never was significant part of any kind of software market and completely irrelevant in terms of economic value. I guess you are hung up on the fact that OP used hyperbole to say that "nobody" is going to focus on local-first software and you are trying to win an argument by taking this statement literally. Can we be a little bit more charitable here, and actually argue the point of OP? Even though I am a die-hard Linux-on-desktop, Thunderbird-for-gmail, SaaS-averse gray-hairing dude who still is bent on spending countless nights and weekends setting up my own self-hosted services on my own bare-metal servers, I totally understand that the growing of SaaS-companies are due to economic reasons, not technical ones. It is not like people are going around saying "Gee, I made this software here and I wish people could run on their computers, but they can't so I will have to create a startup business that runs this software on the internet and I will collect subscriptions as a way to fund the operation".
    - inflatableDodo 8y ago
      >I guess you are hung up on the fact that OP used hyperbole to say that "nobody" is going to focus on local-first software and you are trying to win an argument by taking this statement literally. Well, I was mainly responding to the closing paragraph. >So yeah, sure, if you were to build a piece of desktop software from a clean sheet of paper today, this is a really good guide on how to do that. But nobody is going to. Because it makes no business sense to do so. I could be more charitable and invent other things that I think they meant to say rather than focus on what they said. You are not the first to suggest it is a failing of mine that I do not do this. Personally I think that if someone says say "But nobody is going to. Because it makes no business sense to do so.", it is reasonable to point out that there are plenty of motivations beyond 'business sense', and to point this out is fair comment, rather than getting hung up on anything.
      - rglullis 8y ago
        You just used 103 words (541 characters) to basically confirm that your reply is just one "Well, actually...". This makes a discussion forum extremely annoying and makes me regret wasting all this time writing for you. If I am not the first one to point out your failure of understanding the Principle of Charity, do us all a favor and focus on that before continuing discussion with others online.
        inflatableDodo 8y ago
        I understand the principle, I just think the principle of charity is more misused than not. Also, you didn't waste time writing for me. You probably did waste time counting the words in my reply though. Sorry to have annoyed you, perhaps you are taking me too literally and it might help if you imagined a version of what I said that is more pleasing.
        rglullis 8y ago
        If you truly think such a principle can be "misused", then you really haven't understood it.
snlacks 8y ago
Interest? Very few people care to build medical billing software or crms for free in their spare time. So you get products that aren't as good. Even with blender, there's far better paid tools because people need money to live, so they put their efforts into things that make money.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  I thought blender was used by commercial producers (3D modelling, animation, NLE), if there are better things, for them, then why do they use blender? You might say "price" but then that's part of being better "better excluding financial considerations" is quite a different notion.
  - snlacks 8y ago
    Companies weigh the benefit of open source for their needs against non open source products. A limited list of reasons they may use it include available talent (people often learn on free stuff), availability of support and consultants locally or at their price, specfic features of one tool need or not needed, availability of developers to contribute/fix bugs, desire to have input handled openly and open governed. They prefer the UI or APIs. Flexibility to integrate more openly. Desire to make a statement in support of FOSS or specific project. Reasons why they may not us FOSS, liability (someone to blame if there's an issue, spread insurance costs), privacy when dealing with issues, availability of consultants or training at the desired price, availability of talent (many people learn paid software at school), availability of managed server farms. They prefer the UI or APIs. Available APIs that have simple integrations. Etc.
- thedaemon 8y ago
  Blender Institute, the main source of programmers of Blender, is a non-profit organization that pays people real money. As a user of 3D software, your statement about "far better paid tools" is inaccurate this day and age.
  - snlacks 8y ago
    I read the example of Blender as an example of one of many open source solutions.

>But nobody is going to. Because it makes no business sense to do so. I've got Blender open on my desktop. Could you explain the business sense behind Blender exisiting?

tty2300 8y ago

Donations and free time.

rglullis 8y ago

Companies/Content producers that do not want to depend on a single vendor, or want to avoid the lock-in, and went on to support an open alternative? Makes perfect business sense.

inflatableDodo 8y ago
Well, they open sourced it as a bit of a gamble when it became apparent that they couldn't afford the programmers to run it profitably as a business, but if I squint I can see where you are coming from. OK, here's a harder one. Explain the business case for TempleOS.
- rglullis 8y ago
  TempleOS was never a business, and it never was significant part of any kind of software market and completely irrelevant in terms of economic value. I guess you are hung up on the fact that OP used hyperbole to say that "nobody" is going to focus on local-first software and you are trying to win an argument by taking this statement literally. Can we be a little bit more charitable here, and actually argue the point of OP? Even though I am a die-hard Linux-on-desktop, Thunderbird-for-gmail, SaaS-averse gray-hairing dude who still is bent on spending countless nights and weekends setting up my own self-hosted services on my own bare-metal servers, I totally understand that the growing of SaaS-companies are due to economic reasons, not technical ones. It is not like people are going around saying "Gee, I made this software here and I wish people could run on their computers, but they can't so I will have to create a startup business that runs this software on the internet and I will collect subscriptions as a way to fund the operation".
  - inflatableDodo 8y ago
    >I guess you are hung up on the fact that OP used hyperbole to say that "nobody" is going to focus on local-first software and you are trying to win an argument by taking this statement literally. Well, I was mainly responding to the closing paragraph. >So yeah, sure, if you were to build a piece of desktop software from a clean sheet of paper today, this is a really good guide on how to do that. But nobody is going to. Because it makes no business sense to do so. I could be more charitable and invent other things that I think they meant to say rather than focus on what they said. You are not the first to suggest it is a failing of mine that I do not do this. Personally I think that if someone says say "But nobody is going to. Because it makes no business sense to do so.", it is reasonable to point out that there are plenty of motivations beyond 'business sense', and to point this out is fair comment, rather than getting hung up on anything.
    - rglullis 8y ago
      You just used 103 words (541 characters) to basically confirm that your reply is just one "Well, actually...". This makes a discussion forum extremely annoying and makes me regret wasting all this time writing for you. If I am not the first one to point out your failure of understanding the Principle of Charity, do us all a favor and focus on that before continuing discussion with others online.
      - inflatableDodo 8y ago
        I understand the principle, I just think the principle of charity is more misused than not. Also, you didn't waste time writing for me. You probably did waste time counting the words in my reply though. Sorry to have annoyed you, perhaps you are taking me too literally and it might help if you imagined a version of what I said that is more pleasing.
        rglullis 8y ago
        If you truly think such a principle can be "misused", then you really haven't understood it.

snlacks 8y ago

Interest? Very few people care to build medical billing software or crms for free in their spare time. So you get products that aren't as good. Even with blender, there's far better paid tools because people need money to live, so they put their efforts into things that make money.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
I thought blender was used by commercial producers (3D modelling, animation, NLE), if there are better things, for them, then why do they use blender? You might say "price" but then that's part of being better "better excluding financial considerations" is quite a different notion.
- snlacks 8y ago
  Companies weigh the benefit of open source for their needs against non open source products. A limited list of reasons they may use it include available talent (people often learn on free stuff), availability of support and consultants locally or at their price, specfic features of one tool need or not needed, availability of developers to contribute/fix bugs, desire to have input handled openly and open governed. They prefer the UI or APIs. Flexibility to integrate more openly. Desire to make a statement in support of FOSS or specific project. Reasons why they may not us FOSS, liability (someone to blame if there's an issue, spread insurance costs), privacy when dealing with issues, availability of consultants or training at the desired price, availability of talent (many people learn paid software at school), availability of managed server farms. They prefer the UI or APIs. Available APIs that have simple integrations. Etc.
thedaemon 8y ago
Blender Institute, the main source of programmers of Blender, is a non-profit organization that pays people real money. As a user of 3D software, your statement about "far better paid tools" is inaccurate this day and age.
- snlacks 8y ago
  I read the example of Blender as an example of one of many open source solutions.