Here is a link to the blog post from Blender.
For an end-user tool like Blender that gives the best protection to ensure the program remains available in a 100% free and open domain.
I guess that's a good thing...
Your thoughts! I hope this in some way lets AMD get their stuff aligned and allow me to use my GPU to render!
It was open source before... but now it's been relicensed under the Apache license, which is more permissive than the GPL.
I think this is pretty cool still. I generally license my own code with Apache as well. It pretty much says "I hope you find this useful." along with a little bit of "Give all the contributors credit."
https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html
Blender Cycles is so far behind on OpenCL development that they can't catch up anymore, and since it's a relatively popular application being the default renderer (although also one of the worst renderers) for Blender, they have now changed the license from the "normal" GNU/GPL open source license, which means anyone can use it for anything but has to give credit to the creators, to Apache 2.0, which is the "commercial" open source license, which means anyone can use the code, change the name, make it closed source, charge money for it, without having to do more than provide a non-specific "credits" list somewhere in a dark corner.
It's the only thing that they could do, so that a commercial company can steal the code, invest in the product, bring it up to modern OpenCL standards, and sell it, because Blender Cycles is one of the worst OpenCL implementations out there, it's a disgrace for a project like Blender. But the end result will be that the change of license will be abused by the likes of nVidia to turn Cycles into a showpiece for CUDA 6, which is another half arsed OpenCL implementation that makes no sense any more. Commerce and prostitution are sometimes very close to one another. AL 2.0 is a honey trap, it gives the impression to developers that they have a bigger chance at making a buck, but in reality, licensing under MIT/AL2.0 is like writing a blanc cheque and giving it to the industry, or like volunteering for getting mugged in a back alley, from a legal point of view it makes no sense at all, because it's pretty much a guarantee that the creator will never make a buck, but some company will, with his creation, and without paying a penny. GNU/GPL and variants, also collectively known as "WTFPL" is the only open source license that makes sense and assures the creator of not being ripped off, because it forces anyone that uses the code to keep the resulting product open source, and if a company violates the license by using it for a closed source product (which happens regularly), the creator can go to court and get proper damages. That's how it goes. You can only fight fire with fire.
I like how one of the commenters in the original thread put it.
With GPL, they had zero chance of getting companies to contribute back to the project, because no company wants to touch the GPL.
With Apache, they at least have a slim chance of some companies contributing back, even if most keep any changes in-house. Even then, it makes more sense for companies to contribute whatever they can that is useful, because it potentially reduces the amount of work for them to keep their local patches in sync with upstream sources.
Overall it is a net gain, not a loss for the project. The developers of the project understood this, that is why every single one of them agreed to change to the Apache license.
I'd also like to add that a developer who licenses their code under permissive licenses such as BSD/MIT/Apache is not being *ripped off* when someone sells a product based on their code without releasing their modifications. The point of the license is simply to ensure the contributors receive credit for the work they have done, not to force anyone who puts their own work into changes to share their modifications. If you choose such a license, you should probably get some sort of warm fuzzy feeling whenever someone uses your work. If you feel ripped off, you chose the wrong license and have nobody to blame but yourself.
The people who really should feel ripped off are all the people with GPL licensed code that gets used left and right in clear violation of the licensing terms.