[nkallen]

> So external contributors can only provide patches without being able to test themselves I suppose.

My intention is that if you buy a license for plasticity, you can then build locally and test locally. You can contribute back or not depending on your interest.

Think of it like this. There will be a typescript/javascript wrapper around a limited version of the c3d kernel. this is the plasticity api. You will call plasticity.Enable(license_key) at the top of your program and you will be good to go. You buy a license key from me.

Although I do hope people will contribute the plasticity's development, my main goal with it being open source is that people will write plugins that they can then give away or sell themselves.

I have used commercial software that I pay for -- like Fusion 360 and MoI3d -- where I ran into bugs that I could have fixed for myself if only I had the code. I'm still happy to pay for them. Instead I literally waited 2 years for Fusion to fix a bug I cared about.

[wakeupcall]

I'd be raising both eyebrows if c3d allowed this. That would be a very non-conventional licensing model.

[nkallen]

It is for sure a murky area where I'm working out the details. You don't have the full kernel. But you can think of it a bit like a scripting API on top of the kernel, which is not uncommon in CAD apps, like OnShape's FeatureScript or something.