Slashdot Mirror
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.
"Perhaps some ambitious soul will bolt a reasonable interface onto the 3D app."
Maybe if you have ever used Blender for any length of time, you would realize that the interface is extremely intuitive and easy to use. In fact, after having learned the full interface, I had a full blown introduction to my home movies completed in three hours.
I would be the first to admit that the learning curve is steep, but once you are there, the program is a breeze to use.
Now that I am off of my soapbox, I am pumped by this announcement. There is a huge community out there that has been gunning for this, and now that it is done, it can only go up!
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
This is pretty good news for me. I started a tutorial for blender a while back. The interface at first looks daunting, but after using it for a few hours you realize that everything makes a lot of sense. It's probably as opposite as you can get to something like Bryce in terms of the interface. Not pretty, but powerful. Though there are many rt apps for Linux, none of the friendliest ones are open.
The press release and proposal are both lcated here.
Congratulations Ton and everyone. This will be a great addition to the OSS community. Once the 95k USD is scrapped together.
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
I know there is going to be alot of cracks about it's goofy interface.
But to be honest, it is not all that bad. I went and bought the official blender book to learn how to do everything, and it was pretty straight forward. I was doing some things I never thought I would be able to do in a matter of hours. I still use Blender to do some artwork when I'm kinda bored. More of a part-time hobby then anything else, so Blender being free software was nice.
The Official Blender Guide was a really well written book. Lots of great looking shots showing off what blender can do, and putting alot of what I've seen people do in Maya to shame. I'd reccomend the book to anyone really interested in doing something with Blender. Also has a CD with updated versions of Blender, and all the pictures and animations done in the examples.
Just my two cents, I'm just happy to see that Blender isn't dead quite yet.
Blender is the vi of 3D modelling applications. Like vi, Blender uses lots of single-keystroke commands. Blender is a modal editor (use TAB to switch modes between object editing and scene editing). The interface is based on the concept of having one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the mouse, with most of the work being done by the keyboard hand.
I just wonder how the open source people are going to be able to come up with the 100000 Euro that the property holders want for the Blender source code.
My other first post is car post.
It's like buying a JCB and complaining that you don't know what all the levers do. It's harder to drive than a car with cruise control and automatic gears, but then again it's designed to do a lot of things. And you need to *work* to learn how to use it.
Not everything in life is just a couple of mouse-clicks away.
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.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.