[Development] Distributing 3rd party closed source libs

[Sean Harmer]

Hi,

On 05/11/2016 02:34, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Sean Harmer wrote:
>> Yeah, trouble with that approach is we are always chasing feature
>> support and we'd rather focus efforts elsewhere.
>
> And just running Blender's Python FBX converter
> (https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/Autodesk_FBX)
> as is and then working with the Blender format is not an option?

No, the whole point is to have support for a format that is efficient at 
runtime. Blender's format is designed for allowing editing, not runtime 
efficiency. Also as I mentioned before we would always be lacking full 
support. In an ideal world the format would be open and documented. But 
it isn't, and the reality is that users want to use this format. We have 
some support via assimp but like Blender's importer it is incomplete.

>
> As a Fedora packager, I can say that the proprietary FBX SDK will never be
> in Fedora, so either you use the Blender code or Qt 3D will not be built
> with FBX support in Fedora, no matter how you ship it.

That's your prerogative of course but if we ship the source or have a 
plugin that dlopen's the fbx libs then Fedora users still have the 
option to use this format if they wish, they just won't be able to do it 
via your package manager.

(And if you ship part
> of the SDK in the Qt 3D source tarball, we will really hate you because it
> would force us to respin your tarball with the proprietary code/binaries
> removed. So please don't do that, ever.)

Nobody is suggesting bundling the FBX SDK at all. In fact it's not 
allowed by the Autodesk licensing terms.

Cheers,

Sean

-- 
Dr Sean Harmer | sean.harmer at kdab.com | Managing Director UK
KDAB (UK) Ltd, a KDAB Group company
Tel. +44 (0)1625 809908; Sweden (HQ) +46-563-540090
Mobile: +44 (0)7545 140604
KDAB - Qt Experts