what will happen in future

[Joat]

Open source pretty much quarantees it will be free forever. The source code is available for everyone.

[animking]

Open source pretty much quarantees it will be free forever. The source code is available for everyone.

COOL, and then what about the improvement? If it's free do u think we can get same kind of progress of this software in future also? All of the proffessionals (who have taken care to devolope Blender) give the same kiind of effort always? :surprised

[jrs100000]

Its been advancing at a remarkable rate recently and should continue to do so. If you want it to advance even further in a specific area, start coding the features you want (or hire someone to do it for you). Blender's future is in the hands of its users, so as long as there is interest in the program it will continue to improve.

[toontje]

Recurring developers are getting better and better at it. New initiatives like Google Summer of Code opened the floodgates for a new set of programmers. That has an effect of attracting new users because of an ever increasing expanding feature set. It's snowballing. A few years back I would declare anyone insane if they thought that Blender could catch up with any of the commercial packages. But now, seeing how the trend keep developing, I'd say it is definitely possible to surpass the biggest players in terms of ammount of high-end features.

[calilifestyle]

Not sure if open source means free for ever. this was free

http://www.aptana.com/

now they have 2 version. ones free ones not. so not sure maybe one day blender will have a pro version.

[chewedon]

. . .pro version . . .?

Blender started off as an enterprise software (in-house tool developed by developers for the artist in their own company).

. . or did you just wanted to advertise that aptana thing ?

[Joat]

If there ever will be another, closed branch of Blender, the opensource version will still continue to exist and mature. As long as there's people who think it's worth developing.

[toontje]

. . .pro version . . .?

Blender started off as an enterprise software (in-house tool developed by developers for the artist in their own company).

. . or did you just wanted to advertise that aptana thing ?

Ton's mantra is that he wants to enable 3D for everyone. That pretty much sounds like that Blender would stay free forever.
I don't know GPL that well, but I think it is pretty much useless to close the source. That would mean that from the point of closure onward, there is a OSS branch and a commercial branch. I don't think that the Blender foundation has that kind of financial power to attract enough programmers to out run the pace of development on the OSS branch.

[jrs100000]

The only way they could close the source would be to get every person who ever contributed code to agree to the change...and thats just not going to happen. If any piece of the program remains under GPL it infects everything else and provides a legal requirement for the full source code to be made available.

Edit: Even if every contributor agreed to the change, the core of Blender and all of Ton's contributions to date (I believe, since he is payed by them) are owned by the Blender Foundation, a public benifit company that recieves tax money, and could not just convert into a for profit corporation overnight.

[harkyman]

Actually, even if every dev agreed to assign the copyright to another entity, as did the Foundation itself, the current status of the codebase would remain available under the GPLv2. It cannot be rescinded. It's forever. Further development done on the closed base would not be available under the GPL, but anyone who wanted to could pick up the GPLv2 version and start coding.

[chewedon]

Ton's mantra is that he wants to enable 3D for everyone. That pretty much sounds like that Blender would stay free forever.
I don't know GPL that well, but I think it is pretty much useless to close the source. That would mean that from the point of closure onward, there is a OSS branch and a commercial branch. I don't think that the Blender foundation has that kind of financial power to attract enough programmers to out run the pace of development on the OSS branch.

You quote the wrong guy dude !

Quote the guy I quoted !

I only wanted to bring to his attention that Blender started off as an enterprise (close sourced) software and that there wouldn't be a pro version that you had to pay for. If there was a pro version, then Blender wouldn't went open source in the first place.

[lukasdesign]

In CG and in a computer world in general there is no future proof. Back at University I learned Alias StudioTools, light years ahead of any competitor. Look where it stays now? So you see, even a closed source doesn't mean that you would not be forced to change somewhere.
BUT: Switching from one application to the other isn't a big deal once you now one app by heart. So even if blender's superb community will stop developing the program, you can switch to Maya 2060....

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