Blender, the free and open source 3D creation software has pulled in another major supporter, with Netflix now funding future development.
Announced on the official Blender website, the Blender team noted it will go towards general core development, to continuously improved content creation and tooling for individuals and teams working in media and entertainment-related workflows. Everyone benefits from this since Blender is completely free - awesome news.
Netflix have joined as Corporate Patron, the highest level membership for companies. This means at a minimum Netflix will provide Blender with €240k a year.
That’s the lovely thing about open source: if this ruins blender, the community at large can pivot and fork blender to allow it to thrive in the way the community wants it. In small projects this type of pivot can ruin the momentum of a project, but in large-scale projects they are a lot safer.