Re: [Bf-committers] Blender Addons Policy

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 07:19:48 -0700 

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 - t...@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@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 - t...@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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