********************* The Blender Community ********************* Being freely available from the start, even while closed source, helped considerably for Blender's adoption by the community. A large, stable, and active community of users has gathered around Blender since 1998. The community showed its support for Blender in 2002 when they helped raise €100,000 in seven weeks to enable Blender to go Open Source under the `GNU GPL License `__. Independent Sites ================= There are `several independent websites `__ such as forums, blogs, news, and tutorial sites dedicated to Blender. One of the largest community forums is `Blender Artists `__, where Blender users gather to show off their creations, get feedback, ask and offer help and, in general, discuss Blender. Getting Support =============== Blender's community is one of its greatest features, so apart from this user manual, there are many different ways to get support from other users, such as :ref:`IRC ` and `Stack Exchange `__. There are also more official sources of support, such as `Certified Trainers `__ and the `Blender Cloud `__. If you think you have found an issue with Blender, you can easily `report a bug `__. More details about support can be found on the `support page `__. Development =========== Being open source, most of Blender's development is done solely by volunteers. Communication between developers is done mostly through three platforms: - The `developer.blender.org `__ system - Various `mailing lists `__ - The #blendercoders IRC channel (see below) If you are interested in helping develop Blender, see the `Get Involved `__ page. .. _irc-channels: IRC Channels ============ For real-time discussion, there are some Blender IRC channels on the Freenode network. You can join these with your favorite IRC client: - `#blender `__ For getting answers from the community. - `#blenderchat `__ For general discussion or off topic chat. - `#blendercoders `__ For developers to discuss Blender development. - `#blenderpython `__ For support for developers using the Python API. - `#gameblender `__ For discussion on issues related to game creation with the GE. - `#blenderwiki `__ For discussion related to Blender's documentation. .. note:: If you do not have an IRC client, you can access IRC using `webchat `__. There also several more Blender-related channels not listed here (e.g. channels for speakers of a particular language). We recommend you search Freenode to see them all. Other Useful Links ================== - `Blender FAQ `__ (Can I use Blender commercially? What is GPL/GNU? ...) - `Demo and benchmark files `__ - Developers `Ask Us Anything! `__