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I wonder whether that has its downsides though - with Google, Apple etc. being involved in development I wonder whether that hollows out the core of participati

I wonder whether that has its downsides though - with Google, Apple etc. being involved in development I wonder whether that hollows out the core of participating developers and functionally makes the project dependent on paid employees.

therouwboat 4y ago
I dont think its downside that devs get paid, thats how it should be and I think Ton is handling blender foundation very well.
UncleEntity 4y ago
Blender has been dependent on paid employees for quite a while. Not 100% but the majority of the grunt work (stuff that isn’t all that much fun) is through devs funded by the Blender Institute/Foundation.
ramblerman 4y ago
Why would you conflate the benefits of open source with a requirement for the devs to not make money? My vision is completely the opposite, the more money we pump into open source the better. We have to get out of this idea that open source is only good (and pure) when it's some dev slaving away after hours.
- kiba 4y ago
  Open source was never about being against commercial activity anyway.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  > Why would you conflate the benefits of open source with a requirement for the devs to not make money? I don't think s/he meant that open source developers shouldn't make money. Just that sometime projects can be hijacked by those who pay the money. One genuine concern I can think of is if BigTech slowly pivots and slowly convert such projects into web applications that they can then rent as a service. Sure, one could fork it. But without the core developers to provide insights into the codebase, it would be a tough job. That is why AGPL license is very important for some of us.
  - mxkopy 4y ago
    > That is why AGPL license is very important for some of us. +1 on this (and maybe also forced-anonymous donations?). I'd like to think in the 21st century we have solutions to the "whoever holds the purse strings" paradigm. And maybe corporate strategy will begin to recognize the benefits in following them. Open tools for everyone means open (cheap) tools for businesses after all
dry_soup 4y ago
Corporations which contribute code to Blender have mostly contributed patches for supporting their hardware. AMD and Apple are the ones I know for sure have done that, Intel and NVidia may have done it as well. Ton Roosendaal also knows what he is doing. As he explained at the 2019 Blender conference keynote, the message to corporations is not "how can Blender help you" but "join us in Blender's mission". [1] [1] https://youtu.be/Jcl3--cbULk?t=397 https://youtu.be/Jcl3--cbULk?t=397

therouwboat 4y ago

I dont think its downside that devs get paid, thats how it should be and I think Ton is handling blender foundation very well.

UncleEntity 4y ago

Blender has been dependent on paid employees for quite a while. Not 100% but the majority of the grunt work (stuff that isn’t all that much fun) is through devs funded by the Blender Institute/Foundation.

ramblerman 4y ago

Why would you conflate the benefits of open source with a requirement for the devs to not make money? My vision is completely the opposite, the more money we pump into open source the better. We have to get out of this idea that open source is only good (and pure) when it's some dev slaving away after hours.

kiba 4y ago
Open source was never about being against commercial activity anyway.
webmobdev 4y ago
> Why would you conflate the benefits of open source with a requirement for the devs to not make money? I don't think s/he meant that open source developers shouldn't make money. Just that sometime projects can be hijacked by those who pay the money. One genuine concern I can think of is if BigTech slowly pivots and slowly convert such projects into web applications that they can then rent as a service. Sure, one could fork it. But without the core developers to provide insights into the codebase, it would be a tough job. That is why AGPL license is very important for some of us.
- mxkopy 4y ago
  > That is why AGPL license is very important for some of us. +1 on this (and maybe also forced-anonymous donations?). I'd like to think in the 21st century we have solutions to the "whoever holds the purse strings" paradigm. And maybe corporate strategy will begin to recognize the benefits in following them. Open tools for everyone means open (cheap) tools for businesses after all

dry_soup 4y ago

Corporations which contribute code to Blender have mostly contributed patches for supporting their hardware. AMD and Apple are the ones I know for sure have done that, Intel and NVidia may have done it as well. Ton Roosendaal also knows what he is doing. As he explained at the 2019 Blender conference keynote, the message to corporations is not "how can Blender help you" but "join us in Blender's mission". [1] [1] https://youtu.be/Jcl3--cbULk?t=397 https://youtu.be/Jcl3--cbULk?t=397