[Bf-committers] Blender Addons Policy

Tue Jun 22 16:19:11 CEST 2021

Hi,

The discussion is about which addons get bundled in a release. That 
addons can also be sold is well aligned with GPL and not related to this 
discussion.

All addons that are useful features for Blender users can be submitted 
to the addon module for review to be included in releases. We prefer 
addons that are well supported and maintained.

Here are the guidelines for addons:
https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Process/Addons

In the past we also included addons that link to external web services 
(outside blender.org). The proposal we discuss is to not bundle with 
such addons anymore. We also won't bundle with addons linking to 
non-free modules or binaries.

Another topic is that we investigate having an online addon manager to 
allow fixes/updates to be managed more efficiently. That is for me 
outside of the scope of this thread.

-Ton-

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal - ton at blender.org - www.blender.org
Chairman Blender Foundation, CEO Blender Institute / Studio
Buikslotermeerplein 161, 1025 ET Amsterdam, the Netherlands

On 22/06/2021 13:19, stephen leger via Bf-committers wrote:
> Hello Ton,
>
> As addon dev i first made choice to release my addon in blender for 
> free and try your recommended donation method to raise funds, but 
> unfortunately it never worked for me, so in order to further develop 
> my addon, i had to adopt a little more agressive method to raise funds.
>
> I consider sharing a year of work and keeping addons up to date a 
> great contribution to blender.
>
> Addons devs are raising money using different ways than the blender 
> fundation, with some success, in order to simply be able to provide 
> users with solutions, but to be fair, blender fundation actually make 
> 135k a month, and to me it looks like we all are looking for the same 
> thing, creating a better software, the only difference lie in the way 
> projects get funding.
>
> So what's the point ?
>
>
> By the way
>
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
>
> Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge 
> as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to 
> make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems 
> surprising to you, please read on.
>
> The word “free” has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer 
> either to freedom or to price. When we speak of “free software”, we're 
> talking about freedom, not price. (Think of “free speech”, not “free 
> beer”.) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, 
> study and change the program, and redistribute the program with or 
> without changes.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Stephen.
>
>
> Le 22.06.21 à 12:52, Zack Brown via Bf-committers a écrit :
>> Hello Ton,
>>
>> Businesses are selling forks of blender? It would be interesting to 
>> see a
>> list of those source trees. Is anyone tracking them?
>>
>> There's a Quora answer on this topic from 2017, but it doesn't seem to
>> contain anything significant:
>> https://www.quora.com/What-different-forks-for-Blender-3D-modeling-software-exists 
>>
>>
>> Be well,
>> Zack
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 22, 2021 at 11:27 AM Ton Roosendaal via Bf-committers <
>> bf-committers at blender.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Lechu,
>>>
>>>> 1. Does this mean that Blender 3.0 and all the future versions won't
>>> include any commercial addons such as Archipack, Blendkit, 
>>> Bsurfaces, etc?
>>>
>>> We only had your add-on and Sketchfab's add-on listed as "addon linking
>>> to commercial services".
>>>
>>> The bottom line for an add-on being distributed by Blender or via
>>> blender.org is that it should add to Blender's mission - to contribute
>>> to the user's freedom to have a free/open source creation environment.
>>> Each add-on will be reviewed equally to be of user benefit and to be 
>>> GPL
>>> compatible.
>>>
>>> Add-ons linking to commercial webservices or add-ons offering a bridge
>>> to closed (non GPL) software, are not contributing to our core mission
>>> and therefore will not be offered on blender.org.
>>>
>>>> 2. Will there be any new guidelines to the Community Addons linking
>>> directly to the creator's private sites and portfolios? Examples are
>>> Oscurant Tools, Amaranth, etc? Or do you need to be signed up for a 
>>> Diamond
>>> Sponsor level just like with the commercial addons?
>>>
>>> I am not aware of this. No bundled add-on was allowed to use their
>>> add-on as advertisement or offer direct linking to websites outside of
>>> blender.org. The only possible option is a small credit. Documentation
>>> should be on blender.org. If in the course of the past years these
>>> guidelines have been slipping away, I will make sure it gets 
>>> reconfirmed
>>> and applied.
>>>
>>>> 3. Does this mean there won't be Community Addons linking directly to
>>> commercial applications like Nuke, Autodesk software, Unreal Engine, 
>>> etc?
>>> Not on blender.org.
>>>
>>> For independent websites (such as BlenderMarket) I will have to find a
>>> way to help them to more clearly communicate the Free Software
>>> guidelines for offering addons or bundling Blender with products there.
>>>
>>> We have been lax on these practices in the past, flexibility is 
>>> suitable
>>> when you work with people and communities. However, reality changes.
>>> Nowadays we talk to businesses making 100s of thousands of dollars
>>> selling Blender addons or forks. It's only fair to remind them that the
>>> fair-play rules for Blender also apply to them.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> -Ton-
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Ton Roosendaal - ton at blender.org - www.blender.org
>>> Chairman Blender Foundation, CEO Blender Institute / Studio
>>> Buikslotermeerplein 161, 1025 ET Amsterdam, the Netherlands
>>>
>>>
>>> On 18/06/2021 13:14, Lechu Sokolowski via Bf-committers wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I was informed that "When it comes to bundling add-ons with 
>>>> Blender, the
>>> policy is changing for the upcoming release."
>>>> I was asked to ask the following questions here:
>>>> 1. Does this mean that Blender 3.0 and all the future versions won't
>>> include any commercial addons such as Archipack, Blendkit, 
>>> Bsurfaces, etc?
>>>> 2. Will there be any new guidelines to the Community Addons linking
>>> directly to the creator's private sites and portfolios? Examples are
>>> Oscurant Tools, Amaranth, etc? Or do you need to be signed up for a 
>>> Diamond
>>> Sponsor level just like with the commercial addons?
>>>> 3. Does this mean there won't be Community Addons linking directly to
>>> commercial applications like Nuke, Autodesk software, Unreal Engine, 
>>> etc?
>>>> -- 
>>>> Lech Sokolowski
>>>> chocofur.com
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>>