Slashdot Mirror
European Union Contributes To Blender Development
kyknos.org writes "As officially announced yesterday, the European committee has granted 1.9 Million euro funding to Uni-verse. This three-year cooperation project around Verse, a 3d network protocol, intends to develop a networked open source 3D platform which includes collaborative tools, 3D rendering systems and acoustics simulation.
As partner in the Uni-verse consortium, the Blender Foundation has been granted 140.000 euro to finance further professionalizing services at blender.org, and enable long term research and development support for a next generation open source 3D tool. The consortium has been founded by the Stockholm Technical University (KTH), which also employs the original Verse developers Eskil Steenberg and Emil Brink. The other development partners are the Interactive Institute Sweden, the Helsinki University of Technology, the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics and the Blender Foundation. Application testing and content creation will be done by Paregos Mediadesign Sweden and MinusPlus architects in Hungary."
Yeah, because we all know that socialism is the way to go.
So sad that while you were trying to be sarcastic, what you said was absolutely true. Why else is it that the socialist Euro is rocketing in value while the capitalist US dollar plummets? Why is it that US programmers are being laid off and outsourced to India, while the EU software industry booms? Why is it that poor Americans can't afford medical care, while in socialist Europe everyone gets treated, and the rich still have the option of choosing a luxurious private hospital with the best care in the world?
Yup, socialism doesn't work, and Europe is a perfect example of that. Sure. Right. Yeah.
It would appear that you are intentionally misunderstanding the OP. When he says that this will benefit the whole world, he is referring to the fact that this is open source. He did not say that OSS is all it would take to make him patriotic. Please re-read his comment. As well, I should point out that his comments make sense: some of the EU countries are the best in the world for contributing to the world's overall well being. The US is pretty much always dead last. Of course, a statement like that should be backed up, so please read this study by the Washington station of the OECD: http://www.oecdwash.org/NEWS/LOCAL/oecdwash-apr200 2.pdf
My comments are not meant to reflect on Americans as individuals (many of who are remarkably generous) but on the US as a country.
(BTW, I am not American and not European.)