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

[Lorenzo Pierfederici]

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 4:38 PM, Diego B <bdiego at gmail.com> wrote:

> Please stop the fight on this thread, there is no point to talk about
> LGPL, Maya, the good support or whatever.
>
> Ton already say that the possibility to re-licensing with LGPL is near
> zero, so we need focus on "ways to get end-user level useful
> extensions possible."
> and this mean no more talk about change the license from GPL to LGPL!
>
> So please, focus on that topic and if you don't have any other
> solution that change the GPL to LGPL wait until somebody come back
> with an alternative!
>

I'm sorry if the fight is my fault! I didn't mean to.
Maybe I should have stated my opinions more clearly:
- I don't have any strong feeling about GPL vs LGPL, nor any real competence
about them
- I agree that the point is: "ways to get end-user level useful extensions
possible."
- I think it might be useful for bf-committers to hear informed opinions
about:
     - why a stable interface for addons and plugins would benefit Blender
     - how allowing proprietary addons and plugins could benefit Blender
- I trust Ton, the Foundation and the cor devs with this issues



On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Leo Sutic <leo.sutic at gmail.com> wrote:

> Seems like you got your solution right there.
>
> Why aren't you just going with Maya?
>
>
no worries, guys! Actually it is a good and sensible question and I'll try
to answer without going too much off topic.
I'm a strong supporter of the open source way, and in all the places where I
worked I tried (with varying degrees of success) to present the advantages
of openness to managers, colleagues, etc. At the same time I've always tried
to learn everything I could from the tools I got in touch with.

Why do I do my best to get people introduced to Blender in the places where
I happen to work? Because when you use an open source tool you "own" it. You
can use it any way you see fit without needing permission, it doesn't lock
you in, you can study it, you can improve it, and if you think it's useful
for you you can give it to someone else. I know that this things are obvious
for anyone who has read the GPL, but these concepts apply extremely well to
how software tools are used in CG studios, and are not so obvious for many
studio owners and managers!

The benefits are especially important in CG-deprived countries like the one
I come from (and that I care very much for), where many economic and
political factors let very promising startups starve and fail. This is not
so much true in the place where I live now, but the CG industry is getting
more globalized every day...

All that said, my contribution to Blender is still microscopic, and so is
the weight of my opinion. :)

So why did I brought up another 3d software for comparison?
Eh! What can I do? I want the things I love to grow, learn, improve, and in
the end express themselves at their best, don't you?