Short history of Blender

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Short history of Blender .............................................................................................. 2

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Short history of Blender

The Dutch animation studio NeoGeo started to develop Blender as an in-house

application, and based on the timestamps for the first source files, January 2, 1994 is
considered to be Blender's birthday.[11] The version 1.00 was released in January
1995,[12] with the primary author being company co-owner and software developer
Ton Roosendaal. The name Blender was inspired by a song by the Swiss electronic
band Yello, from the album Baby which NeoGeo used in its showreel.[13][14] Some
of the design choices and experiences for Blender were carried over from an earlier
software called Traces, that Ton Roosendaal developed for NeoGeo on the
Commodore Amiga platform during the 1987–1991 period.[15]

On January 1, 1998, Blender was released publicly online as SGI freeware.[1] NeoGeo
was later dissolved and its client contracts were taken over by another company. After
NeoGeo's dissolution, Ton Roosendaal founded Not a Number Technologies (NaN) in
June 1998 to further develop Blender, initially distributing it as shareware until NaN
went bankrupt in 2002. This also meant, at the time, discontinuing the development of
Blender.[16]

In May 2002, Roosendaal started the non-profit Blender Foundation, with the first goal
to find a way to continue developing and promoting Blender as a community-based
open-source project. On July 18, 2002, Roosendaal started the "Free Blender"
campaign, a crowdfunding precursor.[17][18] The campaign aimed for open-sourcing
Blender for a one-time payment of €100,000 (US$100,670 at the time) collected from
the community.[19] On September 7, 2002, it was announced that they had collected
enough funds and would release the Blender source code. Today, Blender is free and
open-source software largely developed by its community, alongside 15 employees
employed by the Blender Institute.[20]

The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing, so that, in
addition to GPLv2, Blender would have been available also under the Blender License
that did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender
Foundation. However, they never exercised this option and suspended it indefinitely
in 2005.[21] Blender is solely available under "GNU GPLv2 or any later" and was not
updated to the GPLv3, as "no evident benefits" were seen.[22]

Suzanne as a 3D model
Suzanne, the "monkey" mascot
In January–February 2002 it was clear that NaN could not survive and would close its
doors in March. Nevertheless, they put out one more release, 2.25. As a sort-of easter
egg, and last personal tag, the artists and developers decided to add a 3D model of a
chimpanzee head, although it is called a "monkey" in the software. It was created by
Willem-Paul van Overbruggen (SLiD3), who named it Suzanne after the orangutan in
the Kevin Smith film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

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Suzanne is Blender's alternative to more common test models such as the Utah
Teapot and the Stanford Bunny. A low-polygon model with only 500 faces, Suzanne
is often used as a quick and easy way to test material, animation, rigs, texture, and
lighting setups and is also frequently used in joke images.[citation needed] Suzanne
is still included in Blender. The largest Blender contest gives out an award called the
Suzanne Award.

Picture 1: Blender logo