"Money doesn't interest me" - Ton Roosendaal 2017 Interview
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as the best account of Blender's history and its user-focused approach as a free software success story.
What it is
A long interview by Blender Guru with Ton Roosendaal, creator of Blender. They cover Blender's origins, the move to open source, why Ton is not driven by money, Autodesk, and what sets Blender apart from other open source projects.
Recommended by 7 HN commenters across 8 different months, 2018 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec halirutan · 2019-04 · on “Why Wolfram Tech Isn’t Open Source”
Your last sentence reminded me of an interview with the Ton Rosendaal, the creator of Blender. He talks extensively about how Blender became OSS and not abandonware. I highly encourage to watch the whole interview (you need at least 5 mins to get used to his accent), but the important part starts around minute 14 [this video]
Strong rec greshario · 2021-05 · on “Blender Foundation Annual Report 2020 [pdf]”
I reccomend watching this interview with him - at least the parts where he talks about money. It's incredibly refreshing to hear someone at the top of their game in the tech sphere say they're not interested in money except as a tool to help them create. [this video]
Strong rec solarkraft · 2022-05 · on “Gimp 3 Beta Released”
The Blender story is quite an impressive one of iterative development. Ton Rosensaal very explicitly doesn't want technology for its own sake and wants to "get it out of the door", but does it all while keeping an eye on it being usable for creatives (now more than before, but the ground work was laid long ago, see everything being animatable) Great interview with Blender Guru: [this video]
Strong rec solarkraft · 2022-12 · on “Ask HN: What was the best software that you used during 2022?”
IIRC Ton Rosendaal, Blender's creator, still leads the project, but while listening very closely to its users and their pains and a very interesting approach to software development. The interview with BlenderGuru is great one: [this video] The last major redesign was started by a vision shared by the interviewer, who seems to be one of the many deeply invested artists. (This is all very much "IIRC", based on stuff I've peripherally heard or seen years ago)
Strong rec solarkraft · 2025-09 · on “Ton Roosendaal to step down as Blender chairman and CEO”
Blender is one of those shining FOSS successes we should all learn from. I loved watching the BlenderGuru interview: [this video] Thank you, Ton!
Strong rec invader · 2025-09 · on “Ton Roosendaal to step down as Blender chairman and CEO”
Ton is a legend and a personal hero of mine. He is a great innovator and an open-source superstar who disrupted the entire industry, traditionally dominated by big corporations. The entire Blender story is captivating - from modeler and raytracer prototypes on Amiga to the Internet bubble startup to the famous crowdfunding campaign to free Blender... It is a story that deserves a movie. For anyone interested in open-source history who is not familiar with the Blender story, I would highly recommend Ton's interview with Blender Guru, where he reflects on his journey - [this video]
Recommends dustinmoorenet · 2018-03 · on “Blender’s Prehistory – Traces on Commodore Amiga (1987-1991)”
The history of Bender was pretty well explained in a long interview with Ton Roosendaal by Andrew Price of Blender Guru. [this video]
Recommends dorena · 2019-06 · on “Blender Is Free Software”
I‘m using blender every day and absolutely love it. the fact that it’s run by such a genuine and inspirational guy like Ton makes me like blender even more :) if you want to know more about him and his plan for Blender watch this interview [this video] or the tour of their new office (it’s really funny) [LINK]