Questions about the fundraising drive

Who is organizing and collecting the donation money?

The fundraising drive is being organized by:

Todd McIntosh
Resonance Media and Design
Toronto, Ontario Canada

Email: todd [at] resonancemedia [dot] ca

In order to keep the fundraising organized, the money collected by ChipIn.com will be transferred to my business's Paypal account. Once the donation goal is met, I will be paying the developer to complete the project of porting the Ocean Sim to a Blender 2.5 branch.

Why do I have to pay for this, isn't Blender development free?

The benefits of much of the Blender development work appears to happen for free, but in reality, most of the developers are paid, either by the Blender Institute, or on an on-contract basis with a studio usually (to create a custom tool in a blender branch).

However, in addition to this, there are a number of talented developers out there who put a lot of time and effort - without being paid - into creating new features and patchs that may or may not make it into the main Blender release trunk.

The reason why we are paying for this port is that it is not a priority for most blender users/developers, and we would like to see the port happen sooner rather than later (if at all).

How do I contribute to this project?

We are using the ChipIn.com website to facilitate the donations. Please use the widget at the top of the page to do this.

Has this type of community-sponsored development happened before?

I believe it's fairly unusual. Normally, blender projects are done on a contract basis with a studio, by direction of the Blender Foundation, or by unpaid and dedicated developers who are passionate about a new feature or toolset.

It should be mentioned however that this type of thing is not undprecendented in Blender's history, as the original codebase was purchased from the NAN investors using funds generated by online community support!