[Bf-committers] A practical proposal for the task of re-licensing Blender

[Knapp]

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Alex Combas <blenderwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org> wrote:
>> Hi Alex,
>>
>> Based on feedback from key developers, the likelyhood there's a
>> relicense to LGPL happing is near zero. Let's focus on ways to get end-
>> user level useful extensions possible.
>>
>> -Ton-
>>
>
> Ton I think you know full well the potential which is being thrown away.
> So if you feel we should not pursue this, then I will agree with you.
>
> But I'm disappointed, as far as freedom goes no one would even notice
> the difference between GPL and LGPL except for people who want to earn
> a living writing software.
>
> LGPL is the best of both worlds.
>
> I guess the message is if you want to feed your family, then do not waste
> your time with open source unless you want to have a hobby, because
> open source doesn't care if you starve.

Looking at this as a Blender hobby user, I keep thinking this. If it
goes to LGPL then companies will write really cool extension that I
can't buy because if I do my family will starve. Other will not write
free extensions that are the same because they are already written.
Yes, I am a  hobby Blender person that makes my living doing other
things. I would have to drop my really cool blender hobby, if I had to
start paying big bucks for comical blender stuff.

Also, should I want to start up a comical blender based company, I
would not want to have to pay the big bucks ether. I would also be
happy to contribute free work to blender because of all the free work
that was done before by blender people that let me make my company
based off of blender.

On the practical side, how many companies do we know of that want
Blender to go LGPL? It seems to me that we are doing a lot of talking
about something I have yet to see the real solid demand for. On the
other hand I am all for keeping blender flexible as a tool.

-- 
Douglas E Knapp

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