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Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 12:39 am
by heyvern
I can't program.

Tiger "source" code is worthless to me.

"summer of code" is meaningless.

Open source to me is downloading a free application and using it to do stuff. Beyond that the concept is lost on me. I can't make improvements, add features. I have to wait for "others" to do this.

I know where Mac OSX came from. Apple was required to release portions of the source code since it is DERIVED from open source... part of the "ULA".

They don't do it to be "nice".

Microsoft wants to own the world. They didn't make their "open format" open just because of a burning desire to help the world. they did it because down the road it makes them big money to "own" the "portable document" standard.

Quite honestly I have no idea what google is upto... I don't think they actually are making profits yet are they? I think the stock is good. ;)

-vern

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 3:14 am
by pyrokenx
heyvern wrote: I know where Mac OSX came from. Apple was required to release portions of the source code since it is DERIVED from open source... part of the "ULA".
Just a quick tidbit, the BSD license is closeable, its the GNU GPL that isnt. OS X is BSD, they could close it at any point they wish. :)

Crazy how people try to debate when they dont do their homework or even understand what they are debating.

as an example, claiming OSX is not open source, being proven that they are wrong, then totally retracting their previous incorrect statement as if it never existed, then to yet again make another statement about something they obviously didnt have knowledge on the first time they debated it, also wrong. Research next time.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 4:13 am
by heyvern
Oops!

Sorry for my mistake. I didn't do any homework to be honest. Like I said... I know nothing about open source. I know less about free BSD. All I know is a few things I read about it back when OSX came out. There was a bit of a stink from some purists as I recall.

Uh... still... Apple is not an "open source" company. MS definately is NOT open source... Google is... well... I have no idea.

I still don't "get" open source. I don't "get" how Mike Clifton could make more money giving away Moho... uh... AS... then charging $199 or $49 or whatever.

Judging from all the new "AS" users here lately in the forum... I think he and e-frontier may be on to something.

Name 1 other company or individual who became rich and successful after releasing something as open source?

-vern

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 4:37 am
by MikeHart
Turning a former commercial product into open source and then making money from it because you did so is like winning the jackpot in a lottery. People are cheap and they don't pay if it is for free. It is as simple as that. I experienced it personally. Well, I didn't make it open source but freeware. From around 200 users, how much donated? 3! I am thankful for that, but it exactly shows how many people are willing to give, when something is for free.

Talking about Blender: If NAN never had to go that road, means they would have been successfull, then Blender would be still closed source.

Imho AS is just perfectly fine. If you don't like to pay, go for freeware. Simple as that. Look on Sourceforge. I'm sure you will find stuff there.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 4:50 am
by pyrokenx
heyvern wrote:Oops!

Sorry for my mistake. I didn't do any homework to be honest. Like I said... I know nothing about open source. I know less about free BSD. All I know is a few things I read about it back when OSX came out. There was a bit of a stink from some purists as I recall.

Uh... still... Apple is not an "open source" company. MS definately is NOT open source... Google is... well... I have no idea.

I still don't "get" open source. I don't "get" how Mike Clifton could make more money giving away Moho... uh... AS... then charging $199 or $49 or whatever.

Judging from all the new "AS" users here lately in the forum... I think he and e-frontier may be on to something.

Name 1 other company or individual who became rich and successful after releasing something as open source?

-vern
Well it depends on the threshold you consider to be rich and successful, I listed the top beneficiaries to open source software, Google, Apple, Microsoft, there are hundred who I would conisder 'sucessful', by that I mean, generating enough profit to hold 70 emplloyees or more comfortably. Perhaps not as giant as the three beforementioned, but who is?

Anyhow, sorry for me getting bent out of shape (and being a little bit of a prick in general), I dont care if AS is open or not as I previously stated.. so I suppose we have gotten a little off topic.

I will support AS on linux regardless of it's licensing and source availability, simply because I expect it to be a fine program for animation, I await eagerly

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 4:54 am
by pyrokenx
MikeHart wrote:Turning a former commercial product into open source and then making money from it because you did so is like winning the jackpot in a lottery. People are cheap and they don't pay if it is for free. It is as simple as that. I experienced it personally. Well, I didn't make it open source but freeware. From around 200 users, how much donated? 3! I am thankful for that, but it exactly shows how many people are willing to give, when something is for free.

Talking about Blender: If NAN never had to go that road, means they would have been successfull, then Blender would be still closed source.

Imho AS is just perfectly fine. If you don't like to pay, go for freeware. Simple as that. Look on Sourceforge. I'm sure you will find stuff there.
I am more running the argument on not really generating money from the free application itself (despite that would be nice), but by gaining users for your product and turning that community base into a profit in one way or another, thats the typical method developers use to make money on it. Example, Ubuntu sells their development for various solutions and they provide paid for tech support. Other examples above. Sometimes people wont even try your product vs another if they need to pay for it anyways. If you can make twice the amount of people try out your product, your chances of lasting impressions are greater. This can be used to your advanatage as a software developer. It's a different spin on how you use open source. Also, if your product is just freeware, nobody can submit patches to fix or enhance your product, comparing freeware to openware is almost comparing apples to oranges. Freeware leaves a bad taste in alot of people's mouths, what comes to mind is gator searchbar, bonzai buddy, kazaa, sony rootkit.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:40 am
by Fazek
Open source is not equal to freeware (for example, see Apple). But AS is going to the opposite direction, since it has no free demo version anymore and its price is doubled. It is a relatively short time to see, but are these changes successful?

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:25 am
by slowtiger
If I checked correctly, efrontier isn't offering any free demo download of AS in the moment like Lostmarble did with Moho before. IMO this is a major marketing flaw. Last week at an animator's meeting in Berlin there were again several people interested in trying AS, of which I bet 50% would get hooked up immediately.

Nobody is going to buy a program, may it be as cheap as 50 cent, without knowing what it is capable of - at least no animator (they are notoriously poor) will spend any money for something he couldn't see in action. From lots of bad experience I say: animation software must be tested, never bought just by the blurbs. If efrontier doesn't react to this, people will start sharing old Moho installers.

(Maybe we start a Moho/AS user group in Berlin soon - could be something between 10 and 20 people just for a start.)

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:27 am
by The400th
But AS is going to the opposite direction, since it has no free demo version anymore and its price is doubled. It is a relatively short time to see, but are these changes successful?
I would imagine they're ironing out the problems with AS before they go "wide" with it. At the moment they have the perfect opportunity to catch any bugs with the eagle-eyed Moho userbase upgrading and comparing.

Once a free demo goes out, they'll be swamped with new users.

I have a theory about the "delay" with the Linux version - the way LM used to sell Moho, he didn't know whether it was a Linux, Mac or PC version. Now, by seeing how many people actually upgrade to the PC and Mac versions of AS, EFrontier can work out how big the paying Linux market really is.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:37 am
by Rasheed
slowtiger wrote:Nobody is going to buy a program, may it be as cheap as 50 cent, without knowing what it is capable of - at least no animator (they are notoriously poor) will spend any money for something he couldn't see in action. From lots of bad experience I say: animation software must be tested, never bought just by the blurbs. If efrontier doesn't react to this, people will start sharing old Moho installers.
Good point, slowtiger. This discussion seems to be fired by the fact that AS has become a lot more expensive than Moho used to be. I understand why AS costs a lot more (see note **). I also understand why the high cost could be an obstacle for beginning or unemployed animators.

Turning Moho into open source would be a big gamble, because it is very unsure how many programmers and developers would be willing to contribute to the source code for a long time. Animation authoring software has a rather small niche and I guess many good programmers who contribute to an open source project do so, because they want to add that to their resume. I also guess having Moho as a project on your resume will not impress many future employers. I could be wrong, of course.

Perhaps the developer of Moho/AS is more interested in animation studios, because they have the money to buy copies of AS. AFAIK animation studios primarily use Flash MX for web and television animation. They are still not aware that AS exists and what the potentials are for new types of animation. This market strategy makes sense to me.



** Note: The development of Moho had come to a grinding halt because of lack of time of the developer and a bigger, more costly, business was needed to ensure future development.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:10 am
by The400th
Why don't we wait to see how Synfig gets on now it is OSS - if it does well, then we can re-open this discussion.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:16 am
by slowtiger
Even with the doubled price compared to the Lostmarble price I think AS is a damn cheap peace of useful software - and I'm not going to ever use any piece of the content which it is bunlded with right now.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:24 am
by Patmals
The400th wrote:Why don't we wait to see how Synfig gets on now it is OSS - if it does well, then we can re-open this discussion.
I agree..this is getting topic is getting a little stale now.. as the full commercial software is out there and still in it's infancy.

Guest, please check out Synfig. it's probably going in the direction you want for open source animation software, or even k-toons.

both are still in early stages though..but..open source is supposed to grow, as you mentioned before.. lets hope.

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 2:12 pm
by idragosani
Patmals wrote:
The400th wrote:Why don't we wait to see how Synfig gets on now it is OSS - if it does well, then we can re-open this discussion.
I agree..this is getting topic is getting a little stale now.. as the full commercial software is out there and still in it's infancy.

Guest, please check out Synfig. it's probably going in the direction you want for open source animation software, or even k-toons.

both are still in early stages though..but..open source is supposed to grow, as you mentioned before.. lets hope.
The Gimp has an animation package also (known as GAP -- Gimp Animation Package :-) ), which is good if you like to draw and scan in traditional cel animation for coloring and compositing on a computer, or if you want to do FX animation like light flares, smoke, fire, etc.

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 2:50 am
by poetbeware
Well, not to beat a dead horse, but there are some facts I'd like to throw out.

FACT #1: Much of Moho is ALREADY open-source. You can confirm this by clicking "Help / About Anime Studio Pro". You'll see a list of software components and their copyrights. All of those components are open-source. That you are able to enjoy a complex software package such as Moho for such a low prices is because so much open-source software was already available.

FACT #2: If Moho was 100% open-source, it would already have a Bezier curve tool, because I would have written it by now.

FACT #3: For those who complain that open-source software is never easy to use, I'd like to just point out that the forum software you are now using is open-source.

Still, it probably doesn't make economic sense for eFrontiers to open-source Anime Studio, at least, not yet. I can easily see a scenario where a competitor (Adobe, maybe) gets a decent bone/rigging system, and then Anime Studio is no longer profitable enough to eFrontiers. In that case I would hope they open-sourced it, so existing users could continue to use it. (And so I could write a damn Bezier curve tool for it already.)