[snlacks]

Interest? Very few people care to build medical billing software or crms for free in their spare time. So you get products that aren't as good. Even with blender, there's far better paid tools because people need money to live, so they put their efforts into things that make money.

[thedaemon]

Blender Institute, the main source of programmers of Blender, is a non-profit organization that pays people real money. As a user of 3D software, your statement about "far better paid tools" is inaccurate this day and age.

[snlacks]

I read the example of Blender as an example of one of many open source solutions.

[inflatableDodo]

I sort of meant the copy of blender I have open. But that's cool, it sort of illuminates the other weird discussion I am in. Unless I have put the sarcasm on with a trowel, I am otherwise usually pretty literal and often get confused by people telling me what I meant to say and what others meant to say. I'm not entirely sure this practice of projecting adjustments, while common, is all that well rooted in reality.

[thedaemon]

I too have issues with people grasping my language. I think it's a common thing these days. I feel like I have to be overly verbose for anyone to understand me. Else they just think I'm dumb or rude. I try to use winky faces ;) when sarcasm is text only. Perhaps we need a Font Typeface for sarcasm..?

[inflatableDodo]

This is the other reason to lay it on with a trowel. In speech I can be more subtle with sarcasm, online I hate the use of '/s' tags, so I flag it more by including surreal or ridiculous elements and making sharp changes in style.

[snlacks]

I am autistic. I tend to get stuck in reading something in the context I was already thinking in.

[inflatableDodo]

Fair, I do that a bit too. If people need me to focus, I then tend to change gears slowly. Some managers bizarrely see this as a training opportunity and like to switch what I am doing several times a day against my protestations that it is probably a bad idea if they want to get good work out of me.

[pbhjpbhj]

I thought blender was used by commercial producers (3D modelling, animation, NLE), if there are better things, for them, then why do they use blender?

You might say "price" but then that's part of being better "better excluding financial considerations" is quite a different notion.

[snlacks]

Companies weigh the benefit of open source for their needs against non open source products.

A limited list of reasons they may use it include available talent (people often learn on free stuff), availability of support and consultants locally or at their price, specfic features of one tool need or not needed, availability of developers to contribute/fix bugs, desire to have input handled openly and open governed. They prefer the UI or APIs. Flexibility to integrate more openly. Desire to make a statement in support of FOSS or specific project.

Reasons why they may not us FOSS, liability (someone to blame if there's an issue, spread insurance costs), privacy when dealing with issues, availability of consultants or training at the desired price, availability of talent (many people learn paid software at school), availability of managed server farms. They prefer the UI or APIs. Available APIs that have simple integrations. Etc.