Don't want to see articles from a certain category? When logged in, go to your User Settings and adjust your feed in the Content Preferences section where you can block tags!
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

It feels like FOSS is on a roll lately, with more and more great open source applications seeing funding from big names. Blender is back in the spotlight again, with backing from Microsoft.

Announced by the Blender team today, July 29 2020, Microsoft has joined them as a 'Gold' level Corporate Member. This means Microsoft will be giving the Blender Foundation at least €30K a year, which the Blender team say pays for half a year of developer time to improve Blender. The statement from the Blender Foundation Chairman was short and sweet:

We at Blender are very proud of this support statement, it’s another important signal that the industry migrates to open source and finds ways to contribute to it.

This follows a string of other major companies throwing their backing behind Blender. Over the last year we've seen Embark Studios, AMD, Adidas, NVIDIA, Ubisoft and Epic Games all pledge monies towards it. There's plenty more that already contribute like Google, Ubuntu developer Canonical, Valve and more.

Looking over their funding page, they're currently getting about €94,175 a month across 41 corporate sponsors and 4,601 individuals. Sounds nice on the surface but that's not much when split between a few developers. Hopefully this level of funding keeps up and they manage to pull in more as Blender is such a fantastic bit of open source software.

Also, it's worth noting that the Blender team have some open job positions right now including a back-end developer, a writer to blog about what they're doing and a community coordinator.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
16 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
29 comments
Page: «3/3
  Go to:

Purple Library Guy Jul 30, 2020
Quoting: Creak
Quoting: tmtvl
Quotethat's not much when split between a few developers

90,000 Euros is not much when split between a few devs? You could hire 30 devs off that. Maybe 20 after taxes, but still.
Depends on the developers you'd like to have. A senior programmer with decades of experience in 3D graphics could easily cost 10K€/mo (considering all the taxes).
Have there been decades of 3D graphics?
Creak Jul 30, 2020
Quoting: Purple Library GuyHave there been decades of 3D graphics?
Well, Matrix in 1999, the PS1 appeared in 1997, and even Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which started in 1993.

I'm pretty sure we can find something in the 80's quite easily 😉
rustybroomhandle Jul 30, 2020
Quoting: Creak
Quoting: Purple Library GuyHave there been decades of 3D graphics?
Well, Matrix in 1999, the PS1 appeared in 1997, and even Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which started in 1993.

I'm pretty sure we can find something in the 80's quite easily 😉

1987
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpt_3D

1982
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron
Philadelphus Jul 30, 2020
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: LinuxwarperWhat's their intentions with funding Blender?
Primarily it's marketing: they get a good PR boost for peanuts - much less than the cost of an advertising campaign.
[…]
Thanks for the explanation, I was sitting here thinking "That's cool that Microsoft is contributing to Blender, but what do they stand to get out of it? This isn't like Pixar or some other company that would obviously stand to gain from a 3D-modeling program." (And yes, I know Blender can do much more, I'm just saying it didn't seem immediately obvious that Microsoft would have any use for it. )
Philadelphus Jul 30, 2020
Quoting: GuestIf you follow the link to the announcement, you would know that Microsoft use Blender for creating synthetic models for use in training AI. There are certain advantages in using a 3D model of a person rather than a photo, such as being able to more clearly (and automatically) label what is a leg, hand, head, etc, and also being able to control the data variation (shape of a person, posture, clothing, skin tone, etc).

Here's an example of a very recent paper on the matter:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2020/07/high_fidelity_face_synthetics.pdf

And yes, it's explicitly stated that Blender is being used.
Oh interesting, thanks for sharing that. :)
Thetargos Jul 30, 2020
Quoting: Creak
Quoting: Purple Library GuyHave there been decades of 3D graphics?
I'm pretty sure we can find something in the 80's quite easily 😉
Remember Pixar and Luxo Jr. Saw the light in 1986
Creak Jul 30, 2020
Also, I wanted to precise that Open Source is not just about companies giving money to a foundation. It is more generally about companies contributing to the software itself, whether it is by giving money or by writing code, documentation, tutorials, etc.

So, while I very much appreciate all these companies giving money to our beloved Blender, I'm afraid some of them still don't understand the FOSS fundamentals...
elmapul Jul 30, 2020
Quoting: Patola
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: Patola
Quoting: pete910Like others have said, I still don't trust them as far as I could throw mount Everest.
None of us techies seem to trust Microsoft, but somehow this does not matter. Almost all companies seem to blindly trust this corporation which has one of the dirtiest track records ever. Every crappy Microsoft product no matter how disfunctional, every suspicious deal no matter how disadvantageous, they swallow up and get entangled in its terms like if it was one of the Great Wonders. It's close to incomprehensible and deeply frustrating in a professional setting.
because microsoft dont back slash then most of the times.(...)
No, they don't. The teams which are forced to use their software endure very bad times and clear productivity loss. Their support is not good and most of the issues are design issues of their software, so they're never resolved. As I said, "no matter how disfunctional", and no matter how disadvantageous, it simple seems to not matter. It's like they arranged a way for bad design, bad support, bad functionality and loss of productivity to not have any measure or consequence for them. This is the mystery.

i'm not talking about their tools.
the fact is, if you develop for windows, then you only have to be afraid of the competition, its very unlikely that microsoft thenselves will try to compete against you or destroy you somehow.
your chances of surviving in the market developing for windows are much greater than not doing so.
that is why their partners are happy.

sure, the programmers may not like their tools, but that dont matter for their boss, as long as the company is making money, they are fine with it.

so TL:DR
developing for windows you have an high chance of making money and an small chance of facing microsoft as an competition.
not developing for windows you have an lower chance of making money, and if your product has any chance of stealing away marketshare from microsoft, then its very likely that they will try to destroy it.
chr Aug 3, 2020
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: LinuxwarperWhat's their intentions with funding Blender?

Primarily it's marketing: they get a good PR boost for peanuts - much less than the cost of an advertising campaign.

However, there's also the concept of "commoditise your complements." That means that all of the things that people use with your product, that you can't control directly, should have lots of competitors that people can also use with your product. If you sell cars you want there to be lots of petrol companies whose petrol your customers can use: you wouldn't want to be dependent on a single massive petrol company who might eventually produce their own car to be used with their petrol.

It doesn't have to be nefarious, it's just a standard business decision. You can see the same thing with Valve's Linux support: they don't want to be dependent on Microsoft, so they're investing in ways to make the OS a commodity that their customers can swap out as they see fit.

Thanks for the great insight.

I've also heard that one aspect of the PR boost is additionally legitimizing giant corporations and capitalism in general. Same what billionaires do (intentionally or not). By donating a very tiny fraction of your wealth obtained in an (according to some people) unethical system, you will calm some of the opposition to the unfair distribution of resources. "See, billionaires/giant_corporation take an interest in society and help others". Meanwhile they get to keep their pools filled with gold coins and 12 private jets.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.