> On the other hand, free software is (arguably) incompatible with being developer-respecting, as TFA demonstrates. Software needs to be developer-respecting to thrive as well.
I labored, happily, for free[0] on blender’s dodgy old code with virtually no documentation and the only way to figure out the really tricky bits was hope someone was on IRC who could point you in the right direction. Hell, with half the user features I’d have to read the code to figure out what a particular button did.
Frickin’ nightmare — did I mention happily?
I like to believe the time I spent was worth it because I mostly worked on filling out the python API so other people could write fancy extensions, this was right after the transition to python 3 so somebody had to put in the time as the old system was way too dodgy to be kept.
If I just didn’t work on the things I did because blender didn’t respect me (whatever that means) I can give you a bunch of examples that the users/artists were able to build which wouldn’t be possible because the core devs didn’t have the time to go poking all around and figure out there’s no reason <whatever> couldn’t work. Just needed someone to ask the question and someone else to go find the answer.
Oh, and last I looked blender is thriving. I wish I still had time to hack on it because I really like the abuse.
[0] I did get a hand-tracking doodad for free from the results of this and my name in the credits of one of the movies so not completely without compensation.
I labored, happily, for free[0] on blender’s dodgy old code with virtually no documentation and the only way to figure out the really tricky bits was hope someone was on IRC who could point you in the right direction. Hell, with half the user features I’d have to read the code to figure out what a particular button did.
Frickin’ nightmare — did I mention happily?
I like to believe the time I spent was worth it because I mostly worked on filling out the python API so other people could write fancy extensions, this was right after the transition to python 3 so somebody had to put in the time as the old system was way too dodgy to be kept.
If I just didn’t work on the things I did because blender didn’t respect me (whatever that means) I can give you a bunch of examples that the users/artists were able to build which wouldn’t be possible because the core devs didn’t have the time to go poking all around and figure out there’s no reason <whatever> couldn’t work. Just needed someone to ask the question and someone else to go find the answer.
Oh, and last I looked blender is thriving. I wish I still had time to hack on it because I really like the abuse.
[0] I did get a hand-tracking doodad for free from the results of this and my name in the credits of one of the movies so not completely without compensation.