<story><title>Blender Is Free Software</title><url>https://code.blender.org/2019/06/blender-is-free-software/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lozenge</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think using an API of a GPL software means your software &amp;quot;has to be&amp;quot; GPL. For example, not all software running on Linux using Linux APIs (syscalls) is GPL.</text></item><item><author>opencl</author><text>Somebody recently launched a new site &amp;quot;Blender Depot&amp;quot; which hosts a bunch of Blender add-ons and provides a batch install feature.&lt;p&gt;Some of the add-ons on this site are commercial plugins available for sale by their authors. All Blender plugins have to be GPL so this sort of redistribution is legal but some of these authors have been rather upset about it. So a large argument ensued on the Blender forums about the GPL, the ethics of software redistribution even when copyright law says it is okay, etc.</text></item><item><author>Jonnax</author><text>Can someone provide some context for this post?&lt;p&gt;Are there calls to change Blender&amp;#x27;s license?&lt;p&gt;Are add-on developers violating GPL? The post mentions that a bridge between open source and proprietary needs to be open source but the add-on itself doesn&amp;#x27;t?&lt;p&gt;Is it just a &amp;quot;how dare you sell products closed source products on top of blender?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The business model of providing support is all well and good but it&amp;#x27;s just one. If the software is super easy to use then why would you pay?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>javagram</author><text>Linux has an explicit exception in its license so that user space software doesn’t fall under GPL. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;torvalds&amp;#x2F;linux&amp;#x2F;blob&amp;#x2F;master&amp;#x2F;LICENSES&amp;#x2F;exceptions&amp;#x2F;Linux-syscall-note&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;torvalds&amp;#x2F;linux&amp;#x2F;blob&amp;#x2F;master&amp;#x2F;LICENSES&amp;#x2F;excep...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; NOTE! This copyright does &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; cover user programs that use kernel
 services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
 of the kernel, and does &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; fall under the heading of &amp;quot;derived work&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Blender Is Free Software</title><url>https://code.blender.org/2019/06/blender-is-free-software/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lozenge</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think using an API of a GPL software means your software &amp;quot;has to be&amp;quot; GPL. For example, not all software running on Linux using Linux APIs (syscalls) is GPL.</text></item><item><author>opencl</author><text>Somebody recently launched a new site &amp;quot;Blender Depot&amp;quot; which hosts a bunch of Blender add-ons and provides a batch install feature.&lt;p&gt;Some of the add-ons on this site are commercial plugins available for sale by their authors. All Blender plugins have to be GPL so this sort of redistribution is legal but some of these authors have been rather upset about it. So a large argument ensued on the Blender forums about the GPL, the ethics of software redistribution even when copyright law says it is okay, etc.</text></item><item><author>Jonnax</author><text>Can someone provide some context for this post?&lt;p&gt;Are there calls to change Blender&amp;#x27;s license?&lt;p&gt;Are add-on developers violating GPL? The post mentions that a bridge between open source and proprietary needs to be open source but the add-on itself doesn&amp;#x27;t?&lt;p&gt;Is it just a &amp;quot;how dare you sell products closed source products on top of blender?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The business model of providing support is all well and good but it&amp;#x27;s just one. If the software is super easy to use then why would you pay?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>opencl</author><text>Whether or not &amp;quot;using an API&amp;quot; requires your software to be GPL depends on how it&amp;#x27;s implemented.&lt;p&gt;Going by GNU&amp;#x27;s description of what does and does not extend the GPL requirement[1] and how Blender plugins works, to me at least it seems they very clearly have to be GPL. Unless someone took the route that is common in closed source Linux drivers of having a small open source module that communicates with a binary blob where the majority of the actual interesting code is, but I have not seen any Blender plugins like that.&lt;p&gt;The Linux kernel actually provides a specific license exemption[2] for the headers that makes software using syscalls not bound by the GPL.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;licenses&amp;#x2F;gpl-faq.en.html#GPLAndPlugins&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;licenses&amp;#x2F;gpl-faq.en.html#GPLAndPlugins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kernel.org&amp;#x2F;doc&amp;#x2F;html&amp;#x2F;v4.18&amp;#x2F;process&amp;#x2F;license-rules.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kernel.org&amp;#x2F;doc&amp;#x2F;html&amp;#x2F;v4.18&amp;#x2F;process&amp;#x2F;license-rules....&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>