And looking at https://www.blender.org/about/history/ https://www.blender.org/about/history/, I think Blender mostly owns its success to exactly the marketing a

And looking at https://www.blender.org/about/history/ https://www.blender.org/about/history/, I think Blender mostly owns its success to exactly the marketing approach and not any of the technical properties (its parent companies actually died twice before it was made free software and a base for community competitions). Which is exactly how I remember it as an outsider (I wasn't interested in 3D at the time).