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Disney Switches To Linux For Animation

Posted by timothy on from the intuhlectual-property dept.

EEEthan writes: "It looks like Linux is really the next big thing for movie graphics houses. The New York Times is reporting that Disney has switched over to Linux-based HP workstations for animation. Although Disney has historically been known for their hand-drawn animation, this is a big move to Linux for what might be the world's most famous producer of animated films."

5 of 489 comments (clear)

  1. Their Software by jmu1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    is great. I saw it in action when I went to Disney World for my honeymoon in May. I asked several questions about the software and about GNU/Linux and they seemed to be quite enthusiastic about it in general. It makes sense really. They write all of their own software, so why not have an OS that they can completely manipulate, without paying extra for the code!

    1. Re:Their Software by jmu1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's one of their tours at MGM/Disney Studios. They have a Q&A session towards the end and you get to see lots of the stuff in action behind great big glass walls. I was(of course) plastered to them most of the time trying to get a glimpse(they were using SGI machines for the most part).

  2. Steve Jobs tried before by mr100percent · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Steve Jobs once flew to LA to meet Disney's head of feature films, Jeffrey Katzenberg. He tried to sell them some top-of the line NeXT workstations, running Pixar's software for 3D movies.

    Jeffrey cut Steve off when the animation was being demoed. "This is art. I own animation, and nobody's going to get it. It's as if someone comes to date my daughter. I have a shotgun. If someone tries to take this away, I'll blow his balls off." -The Second Coming of Steve Jobs

    Apparently Disney felt seriously threatened that Pixar could make full-length animated movies, which could smash Disney's monopoly. They didn't buy the software, and threatened to crush Pixar, until they hired them for a movie, Toy Story. Funny how it seems so different now.

  3. Irony by Target+Drone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find it rather ironic that a company that tries to squeeze every last cent out of people for the IP it creates is using an OS created by people who have freely donated their IP.

  4. Add DMCA waiver clause to open source licences by bwt · · Score: 5, Interesting


    What if we added a clause to the GPL and all other OSI licences that said "by accepting possession of this software, you agree to grant technological protection measure access rights that otherwise would be reserved under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to any software developer who releases the resulting software under this licence (or any other OSI approved licence) in a way that does not otherwise infringe the copyright"?

    Such a clause would immunize open source software developers from DMCA claims by corporations that use *any* open source software. That sounds like a fair trade to me: we work for free to build software for them in return for the right to not be sued under the DMCA.