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Just as a counterpoint: in computational fluid dynamics there are many large commercial companies that use GPL softwares, and there are also commercial companie
by semi-extrinsic 6y ago
Just as a counterpoint: in computational fluid dynamics there are many large commercial companies that use GPL softwares, and there are also commercial companies that offer paid support contracts for those GPL tools. Once it catches on in the community that these tools are good quality, there is no legal risk, and there is good support if you want to pay for that, they tend to spread rapidly.
- dagmx 6y agoI think what you're saying is very much in line with my initial comment, if we skip out on extensibility for a second. If the Blender foundation offered paid support, such that studios used it like a black box (e.g like Maya etc), then the GPL part doesn't matter. They can get someone else to take on the burden and supply them with builds. Blender however doesn't offer that and I think it's a missed opportunity. However even if that were the case, extensibility is important. And unfortunately, blender doesn't have any API other than Python, and its API is GPL too. Studios need a C like API for performance reasons, and using the API shouldn't affect the licensing of their own code.