[Bf-committers] Add-ons in Blender for commercial services

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Hopefully this doesn't become a huge thread - I'd mainly like to get some feedback from frequent contributors.

Some companies have contacted me about the possibility of having an add-on in our releases that hook up Blender with their services. That's for example Shapeways, but also render farm providers.

Such addons would make it easier for users to submit 3d models to a 3d printing service (one click submit, costs feedback, etc). Or for submitting render jobs to a farm with some feedback mechanisms.

I'm still struggling with how or if we want this... I certainly don't want to open up Blender for crappy commercialization with logos, banners, etc. 

A workable proposal I formulated is below, for which I'd like some feedback.

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BF will accept add-ons in a release from commercial vendors/services under the following conditions:

1) Compliancy
The add-on should comply to the same quality/design rules as we do for regular add-ons. That includes license compliancy, but also to not include banners, logos or advertisement.
The add-on would default be not enabled, users have to activate it themselves.

2) Clear user benefit
The add-on should provide functionality to 3D artists that's useful to have inside Blender. It can't be for promotional usage of non-functional features (like linking to websites only, for tutorials, book stores, etc).

3) Developed and maintained well
The add-on is being created and maintained by the service provider (or a contracter managed by them).

4) Development Fund support
The service provider signs up for Diamond Sponsor level (250 euro per month). Cancelling a payment then also means we can drop the add-on. Any service that's not making this profits per month with an add-on, can be considered to be not interested to have such an add-on either.


-Ton-

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Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute
Entrepotdok 57A  -  1018AD Amsterdam  -  The Netherlands