[Bf-committers] Blender 2.93 Released!

Sybren A. Stüvel sybren at blender.org
Thu Jun 17 10:41:00 CEST 2021


On Thu, 17 Jun 2021 at 07:51, Ryan Inch via Bf-committers <
bf-committers at blender.org> wrote:

> Bundling does make a difference because it marks the add-ons as
> officially endorsed by Blender, they are available to every blender user
> and these add-ons are universally recognized and frequently mentioned in
> tutorials.


I agree.

Furthermore, moving add-ons to an online repository would
> negatively affect Blender users, invalidating many tutorials, and
> decreasing the attainability of tools that users have relied upon for
> years.


I disagree here. Having an online repository would:

   - make updating add-ons easier, allowing add-on developers to push
   updates faster than once per Blender release,
   - provide a unified way for add-ons to be published and made available
   in Blender, making more add-ons available with the same ease as the bundled
   ones,
   - make the base download of Blender smaller (by a small fraction, but
   still), and
   - given that it would still be possible to bundle add-ons together and
   provide them as one downloadable package, still allow for private/offline
   installs.


Blender is made for artists and other users, and not for the benefit of
tutorial makers. Tutorials can be updated, and new ones are made all the
time.


> Add-ons, plugins, mods, these are what make great enduring
> applications and vibrant, thriving, user communities, and it is to
> everyone's benefit to showcase and include them.
>

I agree, to the point that having easy updating, a publishing platform
that's available to more people, and that can include things like ratings,
reviews, a bug reporting system, etc. would benefit the people &
communities around Blender.


> As to UI/UX design, add-ons use mostly Blender widgets, so their UIs are
> almost 100% compatible with the rest of blender, and each add-on must be
> reviewed before being included with Blender, and therefore, if their UX
> was incompatible, they wouldn't be accepted.
>

Having a curated list of add-ons is tangential to the way these add-ons are
distributed. This curation work could still happen for an online repository
as well. Might be an easier process too, and might make it more visible for
developers how to get your add-ons in there.


> All Blender devs, regardless of whether they are working on "core"
> Blender or an add-on, are required to provide documentation for the
> features they develop, and are generally expected to continue to develop
> and help maintain the area of their choice.  Since add-on developers put
> in similar work and their add-ons are distributed with Blender and
> provide part of its functionality, it seems natural that they should
> receive the same marketing, and that denying them that will only hurt
> Blender as a whole.


I agree that it would be nice for a page with "this is the new stuff you'll
get when you download this version of Blender" to also include some add-on
highlights.

Having said that, I don't think that it's a matter of "denying them [the
same marketing]". There is so much work done (also in the marketing
department) by so few people, that the lack of something could easily be
attributed to a lack of time. Where in the community is there a "changelog"
or "release notes" page that can be copied to the official fancy Blender
release notes? Who is taking it up themselves to do this work, to not only
keep track of what's changing, but also to cherry-pick the most important
changes, and to contact artists to show these off in some visually pleasing
way?

Only after the above has been done, and things are presented in a way that
is as nice (or maybe even better) than the current fancy release notes, and
then the offer to include that in the official release notes is still
denied, THEN you can talk about denying. Otherwise I would just see it as
"work not done" instead.


> This was written before your latest email, but I feel it still has many
> good points.  One of the things consistent in both emails is your desire
> for add-ons to be moved to an online repository, however, there are
> already several online repositories that feature add-ons (one of which
> is the Blender Market) and it seems obvious to me that adding another
> into the mix is far less valuable than bundling them with Blender.
>

There is a difference between a paid-for online repository (like Blender
Market) vs. a Blender Foundation run (or backed) free repository that's
used by Blender by default. I think the latter would still be attractive,
regardless of the fact that there are other online add-on repositories out
there.

Cheers,
Sybren


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