I’ve known about Blender, the open-source 3D software for a while. Today I went onto the site with the intention of giving Blender a download and play around with. But instead what I was caught up in was reading about Blender’s history and how it came to be.
What was really compelling to me about Blender’s history is how it shared in detail it’s rough early transitions. Blender started off being created from a VC funded company. Because of the company’s inability to meet financial expectations, it eventually shut down. This led to a discontinued development of Blender.
But the story doesn’t end there. Eventually money was raised to purchase the source code and the IP rights of Blender from the investors of the company where Blender was born from.
I’m not sure if this sort of story is unique in the open source community, but I found it really refreshing that the community and the maintainers of Blender shared its story. In a world where we often only celebrate victories, I really enjoyed that Blender decided to highlight the ups and downs. I thought this really made the software even more compelling to check out and use.