[Bf-committers] Microsoft dev support

[Joe Eagar]

BTW, blender is not licensed under GPL v3, it's licensed under the 
"version 2 or, at your option, any later version" clause.  So you can 
pick which license to use.

jonathan ferguson wrote:
> hi.
>
> On May 11, 2008, at 5:50 AM, Jean-Luc Peurière wrote:
>   
>> Le 11 mai 08 à 11:32, Ton Roosendaal a écrit :
>>
>>     
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I recently was contacted by Microsoft Development, they've assigned
>>> one
>>> of their people with the job to support open source projects better.
>>> Yep, I've immediately asked for free MSVC Pro licenses! :)
>>>
>>> They also like to know about file format support... which I really
>>> have
>>> no idea about. Are there files in the Windows universe you need to
>>> have
>>> a better Blender user experience?
>>>
>>> ----------------- quote -----------------
>>>
>>> With respect to Blender, what can you tell me about your community/
>>> user
>>> feedback that you have heard regarding file formats?  Specifically,
>>> Microsoft is slowly shifting toward a more open standards based
>>> approach to its file formats.  The ISO standard Office Open XML is an
>>> example of the direction we are moving towards.
>>>       
>> I would not touch that with a barge pole.
>>     
>
> Agreed, and a barge-pole might not be long enough. Microsoft's  
> lawyers are allergic to the GPL, so if you GPL your code, you're  
> pretty safe, but not totally safe, when Microsoft comes a-knocking. I  
> remind you all about how Microsoft has sought to crush OpenGL with  
> Direct3D (and the rest of DirectX). IIRC, the strategy was to make a  
> _proprietary_ 3D API that would kill OpenGL. Compare Workstation  
> (OpenGL 2.1) cards against a typical high-end OGL2.0/DirectX card  
> sometime. Remember, at Microsoft, Microsoft is The Standard. Would  
> Microsoft improve support of OpenGL on Windows if the Blender  
> developers requested it? I doubt it.
>
> Perhaps this is too much information, but I'll go ahead anyway:
>
> Regarding proprietary file formats for those suggesting direct  
> support in Blender, I worry that encoding content into Microsoft  
> media formats may eventually _require_ DRM crypto-keys in the future.  
> Obtaining such keys may also _require_ Non-Disclosure Agreements  
> (NDAs) or other such _make proprietary_ hoops. Obtaining such NDAs  
> goes against the spirit and intent of the GPL, especially the GPLv3,  
> under which Blender is currently licensed with the "or a later  
> version" clause. To this end, I also suggest avoiding such  
> proprietary formats. FFMPEG already supports WMV encoding and  
> playback. Finally, from a Free Software moral stance, DRM in a  
> content creation tool is the antithesis of the Free Software philosophy.
>
> Microsoft's ASF is such a DRMified format, as it is a container for  
> WMA and WMV etc. See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_DRM and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
> Windows_Media_Video#Digital_rights_management for a brief overview.
>
> Thanks to all on the awesomeness that Blender is, and has become!  
> Keep up the good work!
>
> have a day.yad
> jdpf
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>
>