4 ms·

From my perspective, if a product is open source, it means I'm not at the whims of a company which might or might not go under or change models. I have huge amo

by blagie 5y ago

From my perspective, if a product is open source, it means I'm not at the whims of a company which might or might not go under or change models. I have huge amounts of content from decades ago locked up under no-longer-existing proprietary formats. The companies long went out of business, activation servers are gone, and in most cases, there's no way to find the .exe files. My LaTeX files still work. Open source doesn't mean I won't pay for it. Indeed, I'm more likely to pay for it. I think in the case of Resolv, if the bulk of the money is on software, open source is a huge risk. If it's on hardware, it's a nominal risk and a huge potential upside. To the extent there are cloud-based collaboration services, the risk also goes down, since that's what most businesses pay for. Even if the server is open-source, it's cheaper and more robust to pay BM than to hire a sys-admin to run it myself. I have an old Olympus AIR camera which is great hardware, now useless since Olympus discontinued the associated software, then got sold, and it's basically now dead. If Blackmagic were 100% open source, I'd know their hardware is forever. Perhaps the software won't continue to improve -- there are plenty of dead projects -- but SOME nerd will at least port the existing functionality to Ubuntu 32.04 or whatever comes out. If push comes to shove, I might even be that nerd.

filmgirlcw 5y ago
OK, but that doesn’t answer the question. That shows why you personally would feel better about it, but it says nothing about why a company should change a model that is working for them to a model that would require more work (it’s likely that Resolve contains components and libraries that would be very difficult to open source and would require rewrites — to say nothing of the general work required to make a project open source and accessible) for frankly very little gain. Again, given the various codec, driver, encoding, and other patent and license encumbered issues related to video stuff, I would seriously be surprised if this was something BMD could open source even if they wanted to. And for what? The 0.0001% of video professionals who insist on using an open source piece of software to use for their work? It works on Linux not for the free software crowd but because video professionals who are using specialized Linux servers for high-end editing workflows (using almost entirely proprietary software, I might add) requested it. As a side effect, desktop Linux users also have access to a pretty great editing suite. I like open source too. I think that it is generally a better development model. I also understand why specialty tools often aren’t open source and think that history has proven to us time and time again that the financial upside to OSS is not what people wish it would be. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice. But for Black Magic, I honestly see absolutely no compelling reason why it would be better for them to invest a bunch of money and resources into changing a model away from something that works to pacify an extremely small number of users who aren’t even their target audience.
- blagie 5y ago
  That does very directly answer the question of "why." You answered the opposite question: "why not." Neither of us know enough about BM's business model, plans, codebase, etc. to know whether open sourcing makes sense, and if so, how. I trust BM is doing something reasonable here. The only point is that the decision isn't obvious. In terms of 0.00001%, my experience is that bigger businesses care a lot about business continuity. I'm at a large organization, and it's cheaper to buy than build. At the same time, it's lower-risk to buy open-source. That's where things are trending.
gizajob 5y ago
Their hardware isn't "forever" though. The industry they cater to and the consumers that industry serves are constantly demanding higher resolutions, higher frame rates, more quality, and at the industry level, the ability to process the vast amount of data that generates in a workable way. BMD aren't in the business of supporting cameras or video recorders that are 20+ years behind the times, they're in the business of delivering higher-performance equipment that improves on a "Moore's Law" type trajectory. Resolve is a tool they use to help manage this hardware process. Open-Sourcing their Intellectual Property and investment where Resolve is concerned wouldn't confer much benefit, other than catering to a microscopic niche of people such as yourself who have the time and patience to make changes in a highly complex codebase. Businesses don't owe it to you to make their hardware "forever". You could equally be trying to make a case for demanding the VHDL that runs their FPGAs open source, which would no doubt be lovely while being commercially damaging, and harming their ability to pay the high wages of competent and focussed engineers that bring you such complex products at a price you can afford. P.S. Your text files will work better than your LaTex files in 50 years.
- blagie 5y ago
  There isn't a "the industry." There are multiple industries. Places where I've used AV equipment costing >$5k where lifespans were in decades: - Permanently mounted systems in lecture halls designed to record talks. - Machine vision systems in manufacturing processes. - Scientific instrumentation. My local CCTV station also has ancient, high-end equipment. What make BM cameras great is that they can embed in a lot of places like these. If "the industry" is limited to professional TV production, I agree with your point. However, the market for cameras is much greater than that, and those sorts of oddball segments are growing exponentially as costs fall, machine vision improves, etc. I don't demand anything from BM. I also have no intention of diving into their codebase. I do have a handful of C-mount and MFT cameras in different capacities, permanently mounted, for various needs. If BM is a better solution for me, I'll buy from them. If it's worse, I won't.

by blagie 5y ago

filmgirlcw 5y ago

OK, but that doesn’t answer the question. That shows why you personally would feel better about it, but it says nothing about why a company should change a model that is working for them to a model that would require more work (it’s likely that Resolve contains components and libraries that would be very difficult to open source and would require rewrites — to say nothing of the general work required to make a project open source and accessible) for frankly very little gain. Again, given the various codec, driver, encoding, and other patent and license encumbered issues related to video stuff, I would seriously be surprised if this was something BMD could open source even if they wanted to. And for what? The 0.0001% of video professionals who insist on using an open source piece of software to use for their work? It works on Linux not for the free software crowd but because video professionals who are using specialized Linux servers for high-end editing workflows (using almost entirely proprietary software, I might add) requested it. As a side effect, desktop Linux users also have access to a pretty great editing suite. I like open source too. I think that it is generally a better development model. I also understand why specialty tools often aren’t open source and think that history has proven to us time and time again that the financial upside to OSS is not what people wish it would be. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice. But for Black Magic, I honestly see absolutely no compelling reason why it would be better for them to invest a bunch of money and resources into changing a model away from something that works to pacify an extremely small number of users who aren’t even their target audience.

blagie 5y ago
That does very directly answer the question of "why." You answered the opposite question: "why not." Neither of us know enough about BM's business model, plans, codebase, etc. to know whether open sourcing makes sense, and if so, how. I trust BM is doing something reasonable here. The only point is that the decision isn't obvious. In terms of 0.00001%, my experience is that bigger businesses care a lot about business continuity. I'm at a large organization, and it's cheaper to buy than build. At the same time, it's lower-risk to buy open-source. That's where things are trending.

gizajob 5y ago

Their hardware isn't "forever" though. The industry they cater to and the consumers that industry serves are constantly demanding higher resolutions, higher frame rates, more quality, and at the industry level, the ability to process the vast amount of data that generates in a workable way. BMD aren't in the business of supporting cameras or video recorders that are 20+ years behind the times, they're in the business of delivering higher-performance equipment that improves on a "Moore's Law" type trajectory. Resolve is a tool they use to help manage this hardware process. Open-Sourcing their Intellectual Property and investment where Resolve is concerned wouldn't confer much benefit, other than catering to a microscopic niche of people such as yourself who have the time and patience to make changes in a highly complex codebase. Businesses don't owe it to you to make their hardware "forever". You could equally be trying to make a case for demanding the VHDL that runs their FPGAs open source, which would no doubt be lovely while being commercially damaging, and harming their ability to pay the high wages of competent and focussed engineers that bring you such complex products at a price you can afford. P.S. Your text files will work better than your LaTex files in 50 years.

blagie 5y ago
There isn't a "the industry." There are multiple industries. Places where I've used AV equipment costing >$5k where lifespans were in decades: - Permanently mounted systems in lecture halls designed to record talks. - Machine vision systems in manufacturing processes. - Scientific instrumentation. My local CCTV station also has ancient, high-end equipment. What make BM cameras great is that they can embed in a lot of places like these. If "the industry" is limited to professional TV production, I agree with your point. However, the market for cameras is much greater than that, and those sorts of oddball segments are growing exponentially as costs fall, machine vision improves, etc. I don't demand anything from BM. I also have no intention of diving into their codebase. I do have a handful of C-mount and MFT cameras in different capacities, permanently mounted, for various needs. If BM is a better solution for me, I'll buy from them. If it's worse, I won't.