Hi all,
I'd like to bring some attention to a crowd funding campaign for
Blender. They're pushing for a feature-length film this time - which
will result in a lot of development of free software video production
tools (especially Blender), and hopefully recognition from the
industry that it's viable to use free software in production. Please
check it out!
Alex
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ton Roosendaal
Date: Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:39 AM
Subject: [Bf-committers] Gooseberry - the open animation film, why it matters
To: bf-blender developers
Hi all,
I can't express enough how important this Gooseberry project is, for
me personally and for a lot of people out there. There are so many
solutions for urgent issues coming together in Gooseberry - it is
really mind-blowing sometimes.
This is what Gooseberry is for me:
- Open Movies as a Blender development model.
Open Source software works very well as in-house software, as an
ongoing flexible development process. This is opposite to commercial
programs, these have a more distinct product life cycle.
Imagine: Gooseberry is going to be an 18 month animation-studio
simulation! With so many wonderful technical-creative challenges to
solve, and we can all be part of it.
- Raise the bar - make a feature animation film.
Every animator or artist who has done a couple of shorts before,
understands the excitement of the prospect doing a feature animation
film once. It's really a different medium, it's a new technical and
creative challenge - risky but rewarding. It's also a medium that
brings you a new and massive audience. This would be the ultimate
advertisement for Blender as well as for FOSS in general.
- Investigate using Cloud services and features for open source projects
Software is moving into the cloud, Adobe and Autodesk work hard on it.
They present this as "benefit for the users" but they actually just
pull up an Iron Curtain to safely hide their software behind. No more
piracy, no reverse engineering... total control!
I don't want to wait for us to lose this fight. We can find out
ourselves what the real user benefits are, but in openness and by
truly respecting user freedom. The Gooseberry teams will use Cloud,
for sharing and collaboration. With you too!
- Building the world's largest free/open 3d content & education repository
We shouldn't underestimate how much importance the open movies and the
open game had for education and training. Not only for its free data,
but especially for the tutorials, the making-of videos, the training
dvds we made with these teams. This massive dataset should be kept
around, renewed but also be kept updated and working.
- New business model for Blender Institute and Foundation
We can't keep selling paper and plastic with open/free data forever...
that did a lot for us, helped Blender to grow, hire developers and do
big projects. But the revenues are going down. Having a pile of DVDs
is nice on your bookshelf, but not to actually use. Online sharing -
in the cloud - is a much better solution for the data.
I believe in a future for subscription models for cool
content/training/data/services. Especially if that enables us to
become a media producer ourselves!
- Occupy Bay Area, Occupy Hollywood?
There's a real growing unrest out there about how a few greedy people
control this business - making their billions - while others lose
jobs in the same week their company has won an Oscar. Yep, Mark Z.
buys another toy for billions, which he makes by selling our digital
lives. And we nerds just line up for yet another Marvel super hero
movie again. Meanwhile the powers that be prepare for a segregated
internet - with fast and "free" commercial channels - and a slow,
expensive one for the remains of the open internet we loved.
I'm not fit for politics, nor do I feel much like protesting or mud
slinging. I'm a maker - I'm interested in finding solutions together
and doing experiments with taking back control over our digital lives,
our media, and especially get back ownership as creative people again
- and make a decent living with it.
So that's Gooseberry for me. An experiment, but with potential impact!
I know there's some skepticism out there, about the project concept
and about the slow funding start. But well - we're learning, and we're
developing well to get the message and the website to work optimally.
It's also inventing something new, and that you can only do by trying
it.
Key is that I'm having a vision, and the guts to live by that vision.
I'm not lead by polls, not by common opinions or what others think
might be more successful. I'm also not a billionaire. Not a movie
star. It's just me :) And one thing for sure, I cannot do this alone.
http://cloud.blender.org/gooseberry/
Thanks,
-Ton-
--------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal - ton@blender.org - www.blender.org
Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute
Entrepotdok 57A - 1018AD Amsterdam - The Netherlands
