
Hollywood gets its own open-source foundation - madmax108
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/10/hollywood-gets-its-own-open-source-foundation/
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madmax108
Having interned at DreamWorks, it was amazing to see how much the studio
depends on Open Source software... Right from having everyone use Redhat
systems across the board to massive use of Python for a lot of the pipelining
and processes and internal tools, DW is a strong company when it comes to Open
source usage (contributions as with most companies can be improved quite a
bit).

Strongly welcome this venture and hope the industry as a whole can move
forward because of it.:)

~~~
florabuzzword
Very cool.

Were there any projects outside of the VFX Platform (vfxplatform.com) you
could point out?

As mentioned in this article, it seems that the VFX studios, even the small
ones, are very siloed and protective. Of the studios with Github accounts, the
software they release is usually stuff they don’t use any longer.

~~~
wandersandwich
[https://research.dreamworks.com/open-source-
projects/](https://research.dreamworks.com/open-source-projects/)

In particular look at OpenVDB (volume database). It is a wide and shallow
volume format designed for performance around certain use cases. It also
includes good lib support for the common simulation functions.

A lot of the other open source offerings from the animation/vfx studios are
about common formats and pipelines and may be of less interest outside of the
industry.

~~~
florabuzzword
I think you’re right. I should have specified formats and pipeline components.
There are business reasons to not open source these things, but it couldn’t
hurt to ask.

OpenVDB was a crucial step. It’s hard to live without it these days.

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appleflaxen
Hollywood wants to make sure they don't get stung by the draconian copyright
laws they create, lobby, and pass.

Oppose them by

* boycotting hollywood movies

* making copyright liberalization a topic for your elected officials

* creating and distributing art under open licenses

~~~
olavk
How would you finance movies made under an open license? Movies are expensive
to produce.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Crowd funding is one example. You’re not going to crowd fund a $200m
blockbuster but I don’t see why we need to have those kinds of movies.
Copyright and intellectual property laws benefit a small minority of people at
the expense of the masses, and strike me as unfair. If a $200m movie is only
feasible with draconian copyright laws, perhaps such a movie is unnecessary?
I’d rather have the freedom to remix art and benefit from others doing so than
live subject to surveillance just so the state can be sure I’m not copying
movies that can be copied at no loss to others.

I don’t make movies but I have been working nights and weekends for nine
months on a robot design [1] that is CC0 licensed, which means no copyright
public domain.

The work can be a reward on its own, and work done by this kind of passion has
a character very different from a massively for profit movie. Personally I’d
enjoy the art more if we had no copyright. Then only those passionate about
the art would make it, and people would fund what they enjoy. I’d vastly
prefer that system.

[1] [https://youtu.be/DXPmqCd0r04](https://youtu.be/DXPmqCd0r04)

~~~
olavk
May I ask how you pay your rent and buy food?

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TaylorAlexander
I work a full time job.

~~~
olavk
Making professional movies _is_ a full time job.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Sure, and one whose economics could be supported without made up rules about
how to exchange information that can be copied for free. That is what I claim.

In other words, I believe artists and drug manufacturers alike would still
find ways to fund important work even without intellectual property law or
secrecy of information.

~~~
olavk
Yeah movies would be reduced to commercials. Commercials are free after all,
so that proves it is possible. So we would probably still have movies like
Transformers and Star Wars, so I guess geeks would be happy.

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rebuilder
Based on having attended a presentation on this at FMX this year, the main
practical goal at the moment seems to be to help maintain low-level open
source tools everyone relies on, like OpenEXR. It didn't sound like disrupting
the software ecosystem by funding open-source alternatives to current
"industry standard" tools was on the agenda, just making sure what is already
in use continues to work.

Overall, I got the impression this was a serious undertaking with a pragmatic
approach to solving problems for the VFX industry, so here's hoping it works
out.

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tjpnz
>The founding members include a number of high-powered media and tech
companies, including Animal Logic, Blue Sky Studios, Cisco, DreamWorks, Epic
Games, Google, Intel, SideFX, Walt Disney Studios and Weta Digital.

Having worked for one of these companies I'm a bit surprised to see ILM's
absence from the list. We were pretty big users of their OpenEXR image format.

~~~
CyberDildonics
ILM created OpenEXR.

~~~
mrec
Yes, that's what GP is saying.

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a-b
... with DRM & Hookers (c) Futurama

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gtaveras
Interesting. However, it was very confusing when reading a section which
attempted to link Nick Cannon - CTO of Disney, but instead linked towards Nick
(Scott) Cannon the enternainer.

~~~
fenwick67
TBH I thought they were one and the same when I read the article, but yeah
they're different people.

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BenoitP
Looking at the founding members, I am surprised there are no GPU vendors;
which Hollywood must make an extensive use of.

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xvilka
Good chance for GIMP to finish GTK+3 transition.

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thefounder
Should we expect movies released with open source av codecs anytime soon?

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confounded
It sounds like the emerging standard will be to streame/distribute via the
open-source AV1 codec... and then cover it in Widevine DRM.

Probably handled by the TPM they upsold you for security.

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thatgerhard
This looks like a pr stunt to try and put the mpaa in a better light after thy
sued everyone.

~~~
CyberDildonics
Is the MPAA a part of this? It seems like visual effects and animation
companies to me, who already rely heavily on the entire linux eco system.

~~~
matt-attack
No, this was an effort by the Aacademy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
Specifically, their Science and Technology Council.

