[Bf-committers] EU have a dream? Blender in 2012!

Ton Roosendaal ton at blender.org
Sun Feb 4 13:08:36 CET 2007


Hi devs,

The European Union has 54 billion euros (thats over 70 billion dollars)  
for research/development projects available. Verse for example has  
received such a grant in 2003. Now, do we want this money again, and  
how?

I do have some insight now in this subsidy bizz, and I'm extremely  
reluctant in accepting a role for another EU project. An exception  
could be if we can define such a project to be 100% Blender related, or  
100% "free and open source 3D creation tool" based. Lead by the Blender  
Foundation, for example.

The conditions to get accepted are varied, but the 'consortium' model  
might work best:

- Form a consortium, consisting of at minimum 3 legal entities in 2 EU  
countries
- Other consortium partners can be outside of EU too (limited list of  
countries, but Australia, USA and Argentina are allowed)
- Make a research/development plan for 3-4 years.

Financial compensations are based on a load of variables, but to  
summarize;
- universities can get 100% of costs funded
- companies 50% (but some direct costs 100%)

Now I'm well aware of the dangers of accepting money and committing to  
long term plans. Dangers are for example:
- accepting responsibility for work you don't believe in anymore
- accepting work on topics you find out is useless
- losing involvement/commitment from user communities
- accept enormous administration overheads
- yes, money corrupts in general!

On the other hand, I know the dangers and we only now (deadline May 8)  
have the opportunity, a next EU subsidy round might be in 4-5 years.  
What could work is:

- define a flexible and feasible project for where Blender should be in  
2012
- find the natural partners for this; i.e. universities, institutes,  
companies or studios that already contribute to Blender development
- find a way for how these contributors don't (have to) make up Blender  
itself, but participate within the blender.org community projects as  
equal members.

This can also enable or support a series of (or permantently  
established) "Orange" projects. Content driven projects to make  
animation movies (or games).

OK, enough dreaming! I think we need first two things;
- who is interested to *work* on such plans (not only interested to get  
money!).
- can we write a 2012 Blender design without blocking innovation or  
alienating our user/development community?

-Ton-


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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org  
http://www.blender.org



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