[Bf-committers] Eventually..

[Jean-Michel Smith]

On Monday 02 December 2002 12:55 pm, Kiernan J Holland wrote:

> What I'm saying is what do we have more confidence in here,
> its blender, we all have confidence in being able to use blender to
> get things done. so why not extend that confidence to having the
> entire configuration/compile system (including downloading the
> needed files for the compile) self-contained within the program
> itself, so that at the very least any blender user is capable of
> having the source code and the tools necessary to compile blender
> automagically.
>
> Imagine the ease of that, and the statement it could make about
> open source.

I think its enough to have blender easily compilable, with standard tools=
=20
(autoconf, gcc, etc.).  Blender is a 3d modelling/rendering/animation pro=
gram=20
and game engine, it is not a compiler.   One of the real strengths of fre=
e=20
software is that it is collection of small tools that do what they do ver=
y=20
well, rather than a collection of "be everything to everyone and do=20
everything poorly" software suites, as are common in the proprietary worl=
d.

Besides, once blender is building cleanly, if you run Debian or Gentoo, y=
ou=20
can do an 'apt-get source' (debian) or 'emerge blender' and have the sour=
ces=20
downloaded and compiled automatically, optimized for your local hardware =
and=20
software configuration, on the fly, on demand.  It doesn't get any better=
=20
than that (particularly with gentoo's portage system), and it doesn't req=
uire=20
taking time and energy away from developing blender into a better 3d=20
modelling, rendering, and animation tool and trying to tack on compiler=20
functionality as well.

Jean.