Since 2002 dozens – maybe even hundreds – of people have devoted years of their life to making Blender open and free to use for everyone. I expect that all add-on developers recognize and respect this concept. Live, and let live.Īnd if you think you ‘suffer from piracy’ or find it hard to do business with Free Software? Just distinguish yourselves with the proven successful free/open source business model: provide docs, training, content, frequent updates and support. But I also won’t accept proprietary business to pollute our open domain. I’m not going to blame proprietary programs for not opening up. I’ve always interpreted Free Software and the GNU GPL as a means, not a goal. Your freedom as a user and developer is guaranteed.

And as with any other Blender feature that means – it has to be free, free and free forever! Paying for an add-on can only mean access to the add-on download service… offering it to you as GNU GPL. Blender add-ons work, look and feel like Blender features. But also: what an incredible API these C developers made for Blender!īlender’s scripting API is an integral part of the software. We’ve all seen fantastic & powerful scripts doing amazing things. In the past years, developing and selling Blender add-ons grew into quite a big market. The closed software such bridges lead to can not be bundled, it’s up to your own – or the user’s – concern to connect it. The bridges (if using Blender code) have to be fully GPL compatible. This is how Blender can work with other proprietary tools or engines. You can create bridges between the domains. And really, both domains can live well together. Best is to keep the public and open domain entirely separated from your private proprietary domain.

Proprietary code is infectious in ways too (try to use proprietary code in your work and face the consequences). I think that’s a negative and misleading frame. You can keep all rights of your own work, but if you publish or sell or share Blender code, you do it under the same conditions, just as Free as Blender is. If you decide to contribute to Blender, whether as Python script or as C++ code, you are required to agree on this freedom. That protects users as well as everyone who contribute to Blender. The license simply prevents anyone to put restrictions on Blender. This freedom is what makes the GNU GPL license so powerful and it is why it’s much more than “open source”. Blender is free to share with others, it is free to study Blender’s sources and free to make new versions. Free to use for any purpose, also commercially.

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