[Bf-committers] Importing Assets: FBX VS Collada

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

I've investigated the FBX SDK license 2-3 years ago, and it is inappropriate to use for many reasons. Just the main reasons:

1) Autodesk wants every user to register at their site, and we are held responsible for that.

2) For libre/open source projects, the end user license is restricted to be for evaluation purpose or education only.

3) It is not GPL compliant software anyway.

I am not going to check their licenses each year, they are huge and very complex to read. But I can tell you one thing - Autodesk is not interested in getting FBX or Collada to work outside their user domain. That's our job then.


-Ton-

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



On 28 Apr, 2014, at 10:48, Chad Fraleigh wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 11:29 PM, Toni Alatalo <toni at playsign.net> wrote:
> 
>> @Chad yes that is possible, it was discussed on IRC the other day and
>> Ton dismissed (I think sanely) due to it being too difficult for
>> people to install the separate converter (for FBX for example) due to
>> the licenses preventing the distribution of the FBX SDK together with
>> Blender.
>> 
> 
> So it isn't possible/not trivial to have an automatic installer that (upon
> initiation by the user) downloads and installs the convertor and does the
> SDK license acceptance and downloads and installs that also? And would
> there be any GPL conflicts with having that bootstrap download/installer
> script bundled with blender that does it on request (maybe just a pseudo
> add-on that does when "enabled").
> 
> One of my pre-installed computers did that where Skype (and I think so
> other software) wasn't installed by default, but there was a program menu
> item that would install the first time it was used. And as far as those
> users having to accept a license.. that isn't really any different than
> accepting their OS license or other apps, as long as it is not directly
> linked to any GPL code (or GPL code linked to it -- the converter being
> BSD/MIT based or something).
> 
> It's just from some of the messages in the list, I got the feeling that
> collada might had some issues (on long term support, or data mappings).
> Maybe the external SDK route could [potentially] just be a usable stop-gap
> solution while collada work is being refined, and/or enough RE'd FBX
> knowledge is gained that it could be done well directly. It might even help
> the RE effort, since then the SDK output of blender data could be more
> quickly/easily inspected.
> 
> 
> -Chad
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