LuxCoreRender
Place addon on Blender Extentions platform
Hi Guys Folks at blender now have a new way to manage addons called Extentions. It is currently possible to submit Blendluxcore too so it is available there : https://extensions.blender.org/ This Video explain it : https://youtu.be/tf6RCzl4OfA?t=368
Hi Guys Folks at blender now have a new way to manage addons called Extentions. It is currently possible to submit Blendluxcore too so it is available there : https://extensions.blender.org/ This Video explain it : https://youtu.be/tf6RCzl4OfA?t=368
Hi. As the addon not cored with Python only we cannot just upload build over and over and also it cannot be comfortable to put on Extensions platform for developing side
Am I right in thinking that this wouldn't be possible because of the current license of Luxcore?
Extensions require GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
Luxcore's license is Apache Public License v2.0
If the extension was only updated every major release, this would be less of an upkeep, if the license thing could be worked around.
If licensing remains an unchangeable issue, I would suggest that the most pressing issue in terms of getting Luxcore out there is ease of donation.
If donation is easily available and dedicated users donate, that money could be used for adverts for example on 3d modelling and blender subreddits, showcasing Luxcore's amazing rendering capabilities. That, in turn, could lead to more donations, which could, in turn, lead to better funded development.
The license is not an issue.
Apache 2.0 Only applies to "LuxCore", i.e. the core engine.
The Blender addon "BlendLuxCore" is under GPL (it must be due to the use of bpy).
However, we have another non-compliance at the moment: BlendLuxCore is not self-contained.
What this means is that the core engine - in the form of pyluxcore and its dependencies, are downloaded during installation via pip, rather than being bundled int he zip file. One motivation for this is that pyluxcore + dependencies are very large. Furthermore, this way there is only one download of BlendLuxCore for all operating systems.
All other extensions I so far checked on Blenders platform are much smaller, so this is mostly not an issue.
Might be possible to discuss this at some point with someone from Blender.
About donations, I am currently reading into the topic of registering with a fiscal host, or trying to see what other platforms might be viable. If you have personal experience with projects like this, any insight is appreciated.
I wonder if Superhive market (formerly blender market) would be a potential option. You have to set a minimum price of $1.00 unless you pay for the monthly pro subscription, which allows you to make your products free. Unfortunately, this subscription costs $49 a month.
I think superhive market allows you to attach any kind of file for download for your product. But the cost of making it free is quite expensive.
I don't have any insights or experience with registering with a fiscal host, but it would be interesting to look into. Is the main attraction there that you can handle distribution of the money in a more structured way, rather than just collecting money from an eternal GoFundMe and manually distributing it? Or would using a gofundme fall into certain legal restrictions or something? I'm not clued up on laws around this sort of thing.
Update on the extensions platform publication, regarding our violation of the self-containment: There is an option described here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/extensions/creating_repository/static_repository.html which allows to create a custom repository. Users still have to add this manually, but then BlendLuxCore becomes available for installation and will feature the update functionality that Blender provides.
Other developers (of other extensions) have already noted to Blender that this really only provides an up-, not downgrade functionality, which might sometimes be useful.
Anyways, it seems worth checking out.