Ton Roosendaal, creator of the 3D modeling system Blender, ensured that Blender has been and will always be a free project, distributed under the copyleft GPL license and accessible without restrictions for any usage, including commercial applications. Ton emphasized that all developers of Blender and plugins using the internal API are required to share their code under the GPL, contributing to the common cause and agreeing from the start that by using the work of others, they allow their contributions to be used under the same terms.
The reminder about the free nature of the project was prompted by among many plugin developers regarding the emergence of a new service , which allows users to select their desired plugins for Blender and then download and install them all at once.
The problem is that despite the fact that all plugins for Blender are required to publish their code under the GPL license, it has recently become common practice for authors to sell plugins through the marketplace . Plugins are open-source, but their authors have the right to provide installation packages through a paid download service. The GPL does not prohibit such sales, which allow authors to receive funds for further development of their plugins.
Blender Depot uses existing GPL code of the extensions for free distribution, undermining the established business model. For example, the RetopoFlow extension is offered for download for $86, but is available absolutely free for installation via or manual code download from . Moreover, if desired, a paid service and sell packages bypassing the authors (for instance, commercial Linux distributions are engaged in similar product sales formed from GPL components).
From a legal standpoint, such practices are completely legitimate, as the GPL allows unrestricted distribution of the product. However, developers of paid extensions for Blender are dissatisfied with the actions of Blender Depot and etica creării de servicii pentru distribuirea gratuită a produselor GPL prin ocolirea canalelor de livrare plătite utilizate de autorii acestora, precum și oportunitatea de aplicare a GPL în proiect și posibilitatea utilizării unei licențe separate pentru API-l oferit. Conform opiniei unor dezvoltatori, anume capacitatea de a obține recompense a dus la crearea multor suplimente utile pentru Blender, iar apariția unor servicii precum Blender Depot ar putea duce la distrugerea ecosistemului existent.
Sursa: opennet.ro
