[Bf-docboard] First draft of "Blender's History" ready for review..
Jason Oppel
bf-docboard@blender.org
Mon, 23 Dec 2002 11:30:27 -0500
"Stefano Selleri" <selleri@det.unifi.it> wrote:=20
> By browsing the mailing list it is apparent that
>
> Jason <Pato> Volunteered for Blender history
>
> Do all of you confirm your intentions?
Sure do ;-) Below is the section I volunteered for.
Everyone please comment w/any improvements. Especially appreciated would b=
e infomation about Traces or ancient Blender history that as I wasn't a p=
art of the Blender community at that time.
Blend on!
-Jason <Pato>
<section>
<title>Blender's History</title>
<para>In 1988 Ton Roosendaal co-founded the Dutch animation studio
<emphasis>NeoGeo</emphasis>. NeoGeo quickly became the largest 3D animati=
on
house in the Netherlands and one of the leading animation houses in Europ=
e.
NeoGeo created award winning productions (European Corporate Video Awards
1993 & 1995) for large corporate clients such as multi-national
electronics company Philips. Within NeoGeo Ton was responsible for both a=
rt
direction and internal software development. After careful deliberation T=
on
decided that the current in-house 3D toolset for NeoGeo was too old and
cumbersome to maintain and upgrade and needed to be rewritten from scratc=
h.
In 1995 this rewrite began and was destined to become the 3D software
creation suite we all now know and love as <emphasis>Blender</emphasis>. =
As
NeoGeo continued to refine and improve Blender it became apparent to Ton
that Blender could be used as a tool for other artists outside of NeoGeo.=
</para>
<para>In 1998, Ton decided to found a new company called Not a Number (Na=
N)
as a spin-off of NeoGeo to further market and develop Blender. At the cor=
e
of NaN was a desire to create and distribute a compact, cross platform 3D
creation suite for free. At the time this was a revolutionary concept as
most commercial modelers cost several thousands of (US) dollars. NaN hope=
d
to bring professional level 3D modeling and animation tools within the re=
ach
of the general computing public. NaN's business model involved provid=
ing
commercial products and services around Blender. In 1999 NaN attended
it's first Siggraph conference in an effort to more widely promote
Blender. Blender's first 1999 Siggraph convention was a huge success =
and
gathered a tremendous amount of interest from both the press and attendee=
s.
Blender was a hit and it's huge potential confirmed!</para>
<para>On the wings of a successful Siggraph in early 2000, NaN secured
financing of 4.5 million EUR from venture capitalists. This large in flow=
of
cash enabled NaN to rapidly expand their operations. Soon NaN boasted as
many as fifty employees working around the world trying to improve and
promote Blender. In the summer of 2000, Blender v2.0 was released. This
version of Blender added the integration of a game engine to the 3D suite=
.
By the end of 2000, the number users registered on the NaN website surpas=
sed
250,000.</para>
<para>Unfortunately, NaN's ambitions and opportunities didn't mat=
ch
the company's capabilities and the market realities of the time. This
over extension resulted in restarting NaN with new investor funding and a
smaller company in April 2001. Six months later NaN's first commercia=
l
software product, <emphasis>Blender Publisher</emphasis> was launched. Th=
is
product was targeted at the emerging market of interactive web based 3D
media. Due to disappointing sales and the ongoing difficult economical
climate, the new investors decided shut down all NaN operations. The
shutdown also included discontinuing the development of Blender. Although
there were clearly shortcomings in the current version of Blender, with a
complex internal software architecture, unfinished features and a
non-standard way of providing the GUI, enthusiastic support from the user
community and customers who had purchased Blender Publisher in the past T=
on
couldn't justify leaving Blender to disappear into oblivion. Since
restarting a company with a sufficiently large team of developers wasn=
9;t
feasible, in March 2002 Ton Roosendaal founded the non-profit organizatio=
n
<emphasis>Blender Foundation</emphasis>.</para>
<para>The Blender Foundation's primary goal was to find a way to
continue developing and promoting Blender as a community based <ulink
url=3D"http://www.opensource.org/">Open Source</ulink> project. In July 2=
002,
Ton managed to get the NaN investors to agree to a unique Blender Foundat=
ion
plan to attempt to open source Blender. The "Free Blender" campai=
gn
sought to raise 100,000 EUR so that the Foundation could buy the rights t=
o
the Blender source code and intellectual property rights from the NaN
investors and subsequently open source Blender. With an enthusiastic grou=
p
of volunteers, among them several ex-NaN employees, a fund raising campai=
gn
was launched to "Free Blender." To everyone's surprise and
delight the campaign reached the 100,000 EUR goal in only seven short wee=
ks.
On Sunday Oct 13, 2002, Blender was released to the world under the under
the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Blender development
continues to this day driven by a team of far flung dedicated volunteers
from around the world led by Blender's original creator, Ton Roosenda=
al.</para>
</section>