[Bf-committers] Blender 2.93 Released! (Bundled Add-on Credit & Online Add-on Repository Discussion)

[Ryan Inch]

After talking to Thomas Dinges in #blender-coders on blender.chat about 
this thread, Dalai Felinto responded there with answers to my questions 
posed in my last email.  I had hoped that he would also post them here 
to the mailing list, but since he hasn't, I'll re-post my questions here 
along with Dalai's answers for brevity.

Questions from my last email:
1. Is there a design task with ideas for the potential add-ons repository?
2. Are you hoping to have this repository up and running for the 3.0 
release?
3a. Would it be possible to update the credit gen script to include the 
add-ons repository?
3b. Is there a technical limitation I'm unaware of that has prevented 
add-ons from being included with the rest of the credits?
4a. In which bcon does the marketing team start looking through the wiki 
release notes to compile the fancy release notes?
4b. How long after that is the wiki monitored for updates?


Dalai's answers:
1. Nothing concrete
2. No.
3a. No, this wouldn't be approved I believe, even if someone from the 
community helped with the changes.
3b. Not really, though it would be extra work. That said, see 3a.
4a. bcon2 is feature freeze. Though sometimes "they" do it in bcon3. 
Nonetheless, the release notes should be updated shortly after a new 
feature is committed.
4b. No idea.


While these were not the answers I hoped for, at least everything is out 
in the open now.  I'm saddened that the 100s of commits from the 
dedicated developers of bundled add-ons will not get included on the 
credits page, and I hope that if the Blender Foundation does decide to 
go for a new online add-ons repository that they will include the 
community add-on developers in the conversation early on so that the 
best result for all parties is achieved.

If you wish to verify my reporting of Dalai's answers, here is a link to 
his message: 
https://blender.chat/channel/blender-coders?msg=4zG7EPiKCPsXvezCG
For those not logged in to rocket.chat, you can scroll back to August 
27th, 2021, at 4:30 AM EDT

Ryan

On 2021-07-08 06:00 AM, bf-committers-request at blender.org wrote:
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2021 01:17:28 -0400
> From: Ryan Inch<mythologylover75 at gmail.com>
> To:bf-committers at blender.org
> Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] Blender 2.93 Released!
> Message-ID:<03c07ca6-6ffd-b03a-68c0-19849cbafbfb at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> After thinking some more on this, I can see why this is appealing,
> however, Blender is in the unique position of including add-ons as an
> integral part.  This makes it more inclusive than other software and
> provides a good way to onboard new, Blender, developers.  An online
> repository for non-bundled, free add-ons and other things Blender
> related could be worth pursuing, and to this end I have a couple questions.
>
> Is there a design task with ideas for the potential add-ons repository?
> Are you hoping to have this repository up and running for the 3.0 release?
>
> And referring back to my initial inquiries:
> Unless the intention is to remove the bundled add-ons from Blender
> before the 3.0 release, would it be possible to update the credit gen
> script to include the add-ons repository?  After playing around with it
> for a bit, I was able to modify the script to include the add-ons
> repository fairly easily, but I'm not familiar with the entire process,
> so I'm wondering if there is a technical limitation I'm unaware of that
> has prevented add-ons from being included with the rest of the credits?
>
> In which bcon does the marketing team start looking through the wiki
> release notes to compile the fancy release notes and how long after that
> is the wiki monitored for updates?
>
> Thanks.
> Ryan
>
>
>
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