Blender Goes Open Source

Christoffer Green writes " This morning, the NaN shareholders have reached an agreement on the conditions for a new future for Blender. In general it means that the Blender Foundation can execute it plans, to continue developement as an open source project." Perhaps some ambitious soul will bolt a reasonable interface onto the 3D app.

Comments

Re:Reasonable Interface?! Have you used Blender?

[Bonker]

I agree with Taco, too. The interface of blender, when compared to other modeller's interfaces, sucks donkey balls.

It may be very quick for someone who takes the time to learn it and become one with the app, but as someone who's sat down with several modellers over time, yes, including candy-coated Bryce, it's almost unfathomable. The icons are meaningless, the tools are painful to use, and the vast array of options given to the user make absolutely no sense. It wouldn't be so bad, but understanding of all these is required to do anything at all in the modeller.

I've spent quite a bit of time with different modellers, but when I tried to do something so simple as to create a rendered sphere in Blender, it took me almost two hours to figure out that the reason my image was coming out blank was that Blender does not provide default lighting... like every other modeller out there does.

Blender can and has been used to create some fantastic graphics. I'm so glad that it's been open sourced so that development can continue. As a graphic artist, however, I strongly encourage the design team to *completely* revamp the interface. It may what programmers want, but it's definietely *NOT* what artists want.

Free as in speech but not beer

[JediTrainer]

At least, that's what it appears to be from the proposal. Looks like you'd have to pay to get a copy of the sources (but not necessarily binaries). I'm not sure if the GPL will be legal in the case that they're proposing. Nevertheless, it still seems like a great deal to me. I'd love to get my hands on that source code for the cost of a yearly membership.

And I quote:
Blender Foundation activities

To establish a solid revenue model, the Foundation will limit access to free services and free copies of Blender Creator. The web portal will be reorganised to serve this purpose. In general there will be four levels of access (or licenses) people can get.

The licenses can be defined to match standards for 'Free Software' or 'Open Source'. Key isue here is the right for Foundation Members to re-use or re-distribute the source codes, but strictly limited to projects that work within the (same) GPL structure. Challenge for the Foundation then is to establish a good services and management system, to provide a strong incentive for users and coders to regularly visit the web site, and participate in making Blender a better product.

A. Free (gratis) access
Limited parts of general user information (executables, tutorials, help files, discussion forums) will be accessible for free. The Foundation board can decide on the level and quality of free access , related to exploitation requirements.

B. Membership
For a reasonable fee, EUR 50 per year, you get access to the closed Membership area, which includes all user services, all executable versions, all source codes. The license for the executables and codes will be the 'copylefted GNU GPL' license, also known as 'GPL' for short. This allows Members to freely use and redistribute the code, but restricts building new applications with Blender codes to other GPLed software projects. Membership is personal and cannot be transferred. For companies or schools a Bulk Member license (10+ users) can be obtained for EU 495.