NaN Closes Shop, The End of Blender?

lowell writes "The shareholders and directors of NaN Holding BV, owners of Blender, have decided to terminate all activities of NaN Technologies BV and apply for its bankruptcy at the Amsterdam court. It means that effective today, all technology development and website activities around Blender will be frozen. " Nice app. Too bad really.

Comments

Floating point arithmetic improved!

[IainHere]

Wow! No more NaN errors - I've been waiting for the IEEE to fix FP arithmetic for years now.

Re:Floating point arithmetic improved!

[clearcache]

Right! NaN...seems like it described their cash flow, as well as their company...

mmmmm....

[cswiii]

"frozen"... "blender"...

Thanks a lot! It's not even noon, and now I've got a craving for a good margarita :P.

Please release the source under GPL

[BroadbandBradley]

because you kow if you do, blender will live on no matter what.

Then you can let users develop the app and stick to making money writing Blender Books.

I like Blender, anyone got any suggestions for alternatives for 3D animation on Linux?

Re:Please release the source under GPL

[FortKnox]

From the article:
But is there a future for Blender anyways?
Internally, and on the public discussion forums, a lot of time has been spent on that topic. There are a lot of believers and non-believers for every topic and scenario. But in general there's a unified feeling among everyone - users, employees and shareholders - that Blender still has a warm living heart, still alive, and worth being continued.
We will come back to everyone with news on the shortest possible term. Thank you all for your understanding,

Sounds like its a heavy possiblity of being opened up.

Good news for animators, bad news for those that paid for licenses.

Re:Please release the source under GPL

[torinth]

It's a good wish to get Blender ousted into the open-source domain, but unfortunately unlikely. If they are decalring bankruptcy, that means they have creditors that they owe. And if they owe money, they (usually - maybe not in Amsterdam?) will be encouranged to liquidate their assets, like Blender, to another company who will pay for the technology. So getting it open-sourced is probably not an option on the table.

-Andrew

Re:Please release the source under GPL

[geirt]

Anonymous Coward wrote:
>It's already GPLed, Einstien.

Wrong.

from Freshmeat:

Per the license: "You are hereby granted permission to copy and distribute the Software without written agreement from NaN, only for non-commercial purposes."

Other parts of the software, such as the blender render daemon, are fully Open Source and Free Software, released under the new BSD license.

Re:Please release the source under GPL

[Dan D.]

bad news for those that paid for licenses.

How so? I paid for a license (a while back now, so I haven't renewed any) and I'd be delighted in it being open sourced. I paid because I wanted NaN to be profitable and keep working on the product. I don't have time to work on a full 3d modeller myself, but I have plenty of use for one, so I'll pay someone else to work on it.

Of course now I feel guilty I didn't pay more, hope they do open it and hope someone with more time than I works on it.

Re:Please release the source under GPL

[4of12]

will be encouranged to liquidate their assets, like Blender, to another company who will pay for the technology. So getting it open-sourced is probably not an option on the table.

So, following up with a previous poster that commented that, despite having paid a license earlier, he would be willing to pay to have it open sourced under the GPL

Why don't Blender enthusiasts contribute to a fund with the express purpose of buying the Blender License so as to GPL the code?

If you get more money than you need in the bid at the auction, then consider using the extra to pay for some dedicated time by the author, etc.

Re:Please release the source under GPL

[Error27]

I personally like tooling around with k-3d.

As a non-animator I first installed Blender and immediately became deeply confused and gave up.

A while later, I installed k3d. There was no .deb available, but it was simple to install. On start up k3d offers a brilliant tutorial on animating. The tutorial moves the mouse around and shows you how to create new shapes, modify them, and move the camera around etc.

Within an hour I learned how to make animations with dancing deformed tea pots.

K3d is GPL. It's available under windows as well, but that's a massive pain in the butt to install.

Re:Blender?

[paRcat]

um, with all due respect, "a couple times" isn't enough to understand a 3D design app.

As any real blender user will tell you, once you learn the interface it's one of the fastest modelers out there.

Slashdot reaction to failed open source companies

[markov_chain]

Scenario: company Foo making app Bar figures out they cannot survive by selling free software

Slashdot: The great people at Foo, makers of Bar, are going to have to close their doors due to lack of $$$. Remember Bar? Nice app. Too bad, really. Yawn. Allright, where's that new DVD I ordered?

/me is sad

[EricKrout.com]

Effective today, all technology development and website activities around Blender will be frozen.

Are you implying that the classic Rob Malda films "Duckpins" and "Hamster Havoc" will be the last we see from this budding star in the animation business?

Surely you jest!

MONOLINUX :: Get Your GNU On

Re:/me is sad

[rho]

If I remember correctly, Duckpins and Hampster were done using Hash Animation Master. Hash is a good proggy--I've played with it a bit.

Blender is better in a lot of ways, but Hash is tough to beat for ease of use. Blender is tough to beat for difficulty of use. Until you learn the gestalt of it, you do a lot of guessing ("what does this button do....AAAAAGGGH!").

Lack of Apps.

[Picass0]

Owch. This is a bad day to be a Linux desktop user.

NaN folding will strengthen the argument that there are not enough good desktop applications for Linux. It will also strengthen the claims that Linux users will not pay for software.

I doubt we will see OpenBlender. NaN may not be able to GPL Blender, as the code for that application is the only company assest they can leverage to pay off it's debt. We also don't know if they licensed any code from external contractors.

I have a strong interest in 3D animation, I am a Linux user, and Blender was it for me. There are no other 3d programs under Linux with it's level of sophistication. I hate dual booting to Windows to use Lightwave.

Loki is gone - no games. Blender is gone - no 3d.

This makes the siren's song of OSX go up a couple of decibles.

Re:Lack of Apps.

[bjq]

"There are no other 3d programs under Linux with it's level of sophistication."

Maya (possibly the preeminent 3D animation app) is available under Linux. It's just out of your freebie pricerange.

There's also a free "Personal Learning Edition" available, but it's only for WinNT/2k/XP or OSX. So contact Alias|Wavefront and tell them you want to see it for Linux.

Blender really isn't the end-all/be-all of 3d apps the Slashdot crowd makes it out to be.

Re:Lack of Apps.

[FreeUser]

Maya (possibly the preeminent 3D animation app) is available under Linux. It's just out of your freebie pricerange.

Freebie? You're making an unfair baseless assumption about me. I do buy software, and did support Blender financially.

You can get your first copy for a mere $5500 or so, you cheap GNU/Linux user you! :-)

I agree. I've payed for plenty of apps under Linux, including Applix, various games, etc. But Maya's pricetag puts it well out of any hobbiests price range ... and comes with the same uncertainty as blender: if and when the app disappears, or changes and becomes unsupported, what happens to the hours of animation work I've done? Am I forced to spend another $5k for an upgrade I can't afford or, even worse, left with no recourse (and useless, may-as-well-be-randomized data)?

I will do all my future animation work only under GPLed or BSDed software, even if that means writing modules myself to do what I need. The time I saved by using Blender I just lost, big time, with compounded interest. The animations I've done will grow less and less useful with time, ultimately (in a year or two) becoming worthless as it becomes more and more difficult to get the aging Blender binary I have (the latest version prior to their disappearance) running against current libraries and software versions.

RMS and the Free Software Foundation were right all along, and I, in my "pragmatism," was very shortsighted and very wrong.

Never again will I make that mistake.

Blender Bitching

[Craig Maloney]

Y'know, I'm a little tired of the people slamming this application. Honestly I think it was, and is a very good 3D application. Sure it wasn't the fastest, or the most intuitive, and it didn't have the bells and whistles of the competition, but it did have some very good and unique ideas. How many other 3D applications had a game engine built into it? The trouble with Blender is it was the first to truly put a 3D plugin of any value into a web browser, and it was one of the first to create a fully 3D game construction set. Being the first as a fledgling company doesn't translate to much, except when the finger pointing comes into play when you fail.

Thank you Ton and company for the many hours of rewarding 3D creation. Maybe someday the finger-pointers will wake up and realize what they've lost.

Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

A company makes an innovative software product, and can't remain afloat, thanks in part to the pathological cheapness of the Linux crowd.

The company goes into bankruptcy and there are already numerous suggestions on /. that the company GPL the source code, with no mention of the possibility that the company could reorganize and become viable.

Am I the only one who sees how poisonous this attitude is? "Why the hell should we pay for it? If we don't pay then the company will go out of business and we'll get it for free, anyway." Normally you have to deal with professional politicians to see that level of shortsightedness and arrogance.

Keep it up, cheapskates, and Linux will never grow (in the desktop market) beyond being a hacker toy. You're the ones who all but completely destroyed the Linux book market, sent Mandrake into begging mode, and did who knows what other damage to your own cause and other businesses. I hope you're happy; I'm sure Bill Gates is delighted by how savagely you treat your own.

Re:Figures

[AxelBoldt]

You got it backwards. People like you, who applaud every commercial app on Linux and want Linux to "succeed in the marketplace", are shortsighted. Every commercial app is built on sand; the company dies, gets bought out or decides to discontinue the product, and it's over. There is never any security unless you have a decent free software license in hand. That's the lesson of the Blender fiasco. Never use nor support non-free software.

Re:Figures

[Synn]

I love how when 100 windows oriented companies go down the drain each day it's because of bad business practices.

But when a company goes down and happens to make a Linux port on the side, why then it went under because the Linux crowd is a bunch of cheap bastards.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

The lesson of the "Blender fiasco" is not that commercial software is wrong or "built on sand". Although the original poster who spoke of cheap Linux users was a bit harsh, he was a bit closer to the truth. The major strengths of Linux are its open source nature and the fact that it is free. There is a plethora of good, free software, but it sometimes lacks a certain polish. The people who write open source software have other jobs and don't always have the time and resources to dedicate to a software project. The GIMP is pretty cool, but Adobe spends millions of dollars and a ridiculous number of man hours from a dedicated team, while the GIMP is a hobbyist project (if skillfully conceived and rendered) where free time after work or class is spent working on it, not the entire work week. The problem is, you have a professional, well made piece of software like Blender released for Linux how do you manage to make make sure that quality is high, generate a profit, and make it attractive to users who rarely have to pay for software? Open source is wonderful; it ensures that software lives on and it allows for user level changes to be implemented, but people who spend all of their waking hours working on quality software should be entitled to some compensation for their efforts from the end users who find their product to be useful. There really needs to be strides made in the Linux community to find a happy medium when it comes to the open source vs. commercial holy wars.

Re:This is frustrating

[Zurk]

Version 2.23 can be downloaded from here :
http://www.download.blender.pl/mirror/versions/ 2.2 3/
I think version 2.25 was the latest but it got wiped before they could release it to the public and the mirrors could catch up.
real pity -- i really like blender.

Re:Blender?

[AndyChrist]

Yah, and Dvorak is faster than Qwerty. Big deal. If the learning curve is too steep, it doesn't make any difference, it won't catch on. Except that Blender isn't just trying to win over people already used to something else, it IS genuinely less intuitive.

It took me virtually no time at all to get used to the traditional 3 or 4 port view in other modellers. I tried poking around with blender for at least an hour without getting anywhere.

With the traditional interface, you don't have to learn much to get started. This was apparantly not the case at least with early versions of Blender. And you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Blender was Fantastic

[FreeUser]

As any real blender user will tell you, once you learn the interface it's one of the fastest modelers out there.

That is absolutely correct.

I've been working on a film project using blender for some time, and have tried other 3d animation products on other platforms and blender was, hands down, the best at nearly everything one needs to do to make good, high quality animations. There were, of course, failings, and some things for which one would choose to use another tool, but for the vast majority of tasks it was excellent and, as you say, once you learn the interface, the most intuitive without sacrificing power and features.

This is really tragic. I really, really hope they GPL the source so that the project may live on, but I have a feeling this is going to be an example where the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman's much maligned stance of "avoid proprietary software at all costs, you'll pay in the end if you don't" may very well be vindicated, in the form of hundreds of hours of animation work that will become less and less usable as the existing binaries age and become more and more difficult to get running (as glibc and other libraries change with time).

If anyone from NaN is reading, please, please, please GPL the blender code.

As an aside I am surprised they didn't go with the "you pay for the release today, or wait 12 months and get the features in the GPLed version." Many would have paid, and the delayed, GPLed version would have been insurance against this kind of thing happening. Oh well, twenty-twenty hindsight and all that ...

:-(

Re:This is frustrating

[SquadBoy]

I'm not sure if it is the latest or if it plays well with Nvidia, mostly because it has been ~6 months since I last had time to play with it but Debian has a package for 2.23. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/blend er.html

Yes there is an Opensource Alternative...

[Wolfier]

Let's pull some resources to port it.

http://www.openfx.org

A Sad Day ....

[jest3r]

Alot of people here bashing blender. Blender is a FREE and POWERFUL 3D app. It may have a very 'different' interface but after using it for a while it becomes second nature. In fact I thought the interface was the best part .. Blender also has a great online community generating massive amounts of step by step tutorials to help the novice get started. Blender gives you the ability to create work that previously would have required a $3000+ investment in software. All this for FREE .. basically available on any platform .. I hope they can get some funding or find some way to keep it alive ....

---
Blender supports multiple cameras and lighting, which can be used to create very lifelike images, especially when scenes incorporate realistic surfaces. The program even has a plug-in facility that will accept new surfaces and features created by third parties.

Animation is one of Blender's most impressive features. Not only can objects move along paths, but their attributes can change along the way. For example, lighting effects can increase, decrease, or change color. We were even able to introduce lens flares and motion blurs. Another animation enhancement is particle support, which allows multiple objects to be created and animated based on procedures that can simulate natural laws.

Blender even handles postproduction jobs that utilize images or videos from other sources. For example, Blender can be used to add an animated, walking lamp, complete with its own shadow, to a video using masking and animation features.

The printed documentation is definitely worth the price. It's far more extensive than the free, downloadable version and is packed with useful details. The manual sports many colorful examples, even if the font is so small it practically requires a magnifying glass to read. While the documentation adequately covers the program's numerous keystrokes, menus, and mouse actions, a reference card would be nice.

Whether you need a production-quality 3D system or just some basic 3D scenes for a presentation, Blender fits the bill. If you're prepared to spend some time learning how to use it, the results will be well worth your effort. This is one of the best 3D packages on any platform.

(Taken from LinuxMag review)

Re:and i was going to...

[mark-t]

Am I like the inverse of midas? whatever i touch goes out of business... that really really sucks.

I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but can you please start using Windows more?

ask ILM or Henson Associates

[brokeninside]

Of course, I have no idea why they ported XSI to Linux anyway. How many Linux users can afford an $8000 piece of software (for the light version, no less)?

Because powerhouse graphic workshops like ILM and Henson Associates like Linux. And they can afford $8,000 pieces of software. Of course just because it's built doesn't mean they will come. Henson's Creature Shop is rumored to be quite fond of Maya on Linux.

Regards,

Lee Irenæus Malatesta