The Blender Community Would Benefit from More Business
In the last twelve years Blender, and the community behind it, have come a very long ways in it’s appeal and in it’s capability. It’s come from the edge of obscurity to to a positively recognized CG software and open source project.
It’s relationship with business, though, is another story.
When I started learning Blender I often kept my software preferences to myself in order to not set off a self-inflicted flame war or belittlement fest. Admittedly, this was before I felt confident enough to let my portfolio do the talking. The general sentiment towards Blender in many creative corners was one of disdain.
Today? It’s a very different story. Blender is not only well recognized but seen by many as a good choice for artists, both in and out of the VFX and Game Development industries. Perhaps one of the most notable nods to Blender in recent months was Pixar launching a non-commercial verison of it’s famous RenderMan engine with official support for Blender.
What does this have to do with business you might ask? Everything.
There’s a sentiment in the Blender Community (and many other open source communities), that open source and business are incompatible. For the record, this is a sentiment that I find absolutely ridiculous.
Even though it’s a very popular sentiment to demean or disregard business, the vast majority of businesses are well meaning and driven by good people just trying to create a little slice of prosperity for themselves and their family.
Those people with the hostile business sentiments tend to express a fear of Blender becoming “commercialized”. This fear too, in my opinion, is ridiculous. For one, Blender wouldn’t even exist today if it weren’t for business. Blender was originally created as an in-house animation package and later sold as a commercial software by Not a Number.
Getting back to the point, the concern most often raised with this sentiment is the paywall effect. Essentially: What does Blender become when all the good tools cost money?
I find this concern to be mostly caused by fear of the unknown. The launch of the Blender Market fueled a lot of these concerns, specifically that all of the good tools would be placed behind a paywall and that no one would release free tools or resources anymore (after all, what would be the incentive?)
I think it’s fair to say that this fear has been proven unfounded. If you’re under the impression that there’s no good tools or resources being released for free anymore then you’re simply not paying attention.
But that’s not what I’d like to address. The point I’d like to make is this: the ability to contribute hours on end to a project, simply for the love of the project, with no expectation of a return, is a luxury.
We as users are more than happy to utilize free software day in and day out, but how many of us actually take a moment to think about (much less contribute to) the well-being of those who created it? Are they being supported for their efforts?
Many people, myself included, enjoy releasing work for free, to be used as the community sees fit. However, this is a luxury, and one that is not afforded to everyone. As a community, I believe we should be doing more to support those that help make this community and the software what it is. I believe we need more, not less businesses, creating resources and services around the artists and developers of this community, in such a way that it benefits themselves, their family, the community, and the open source nature of Blender.
Business is not the only solution for creating prosperity within the community, but it is one of them and it‘s value should not be discounted.
