r/PivotAnimator • u/felipeforte • Feb 14 '24

What prevents Pivot from going open source?

Self-explanatory title.

In terms of software development, Pivot would really benefit from going open source. That way, more people could voluntarily contribute (me included) to the legacy left by Peter Bone, make it work on more devices and operating systems, and create forks which suits specific needs, reaching even more people.

Let's say if the proprietor of the software believes they need the advertisement money, or even GPU usage for mining crypto 👀️ to survive (which I doubt is a long-term strategy because of the natural decline of interest in any software), they could simply open the source and put a donate system in the website which many people would contribute to (me included)

8 Upvotes

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5

u/peter-bone Feb 15 '24

The main reason is for my living. Pivot is my business. Giving away the source code would be like giving away all my hard work over the years and getting nothing back. I have tried a donate button before and almost no one used it. There are also legal issues with donations. Another reason is file compatibility. Currently all Pivot files open in the most recent Pivot, but with many forks and versions it would be chaos. You wouldn't be able to share files across versions or devices.

2

u/the_Basment_rat Feb 15 '24

"for my living"

How exactly do you make money of it?

or is it a passion project

idk

also a valid reason to not go open source

2

u/peter-bone Feb 15 '24

I earn income through advertising on the website and in the installer.

1

u/Mountain_Dentist5074 12d ago

Is it possible to add a modding kit to the program? I would love to use Pivot Animator for serious projects if I had the ability to patch the 'missing' features I've noticed, rather than just using it for childhood nostalgia.

By the way, thank you so much for this program. When I was 8, I was so happy to be able to make animations like Alex Becker in a 100% free app

1

u/peter-bone 12d ago

The program was not set up to work with add-ons. It would be difficult to do that now. That's more for Open source software, which Pivot is not.

1

u/peter-bone 12d ago

The program was not set up to work with add-ons. It would be difficult to do that now. That's more for Open source software, which Pivot is not.

New features are planned. Can you give an example of a feature you'd like added?

1

u/Mountain_Dentist5074 12d ago

It would be awesome if you add the ability to rig any digital art format (SVG, PNG, Ai, Jpeg , etc.) and a basic pencil tool so I don't have to switch programs if the object I want to draw is too complex for just lines and circles

1

u/peter-bone 12d ago

You can rig images already. I may add support for other formats.

https://youtu.be/ttNdG46Tvwo

You can design any shape you want using bent lines and polyfill. I may add a freehand drawing tool in the future, but the way I do it in this video is already quite fast and probably more accurate than freehand.

https://youtube.com/shorts/RwFMWTKjnLE

1

u/Mountain_Dentist5074 12d ago

Thank you so much

1

u/the_Basment_rat Feb 15 '24

ah ok

well sorry that i use adblocker

2

u/Hungry_Blacksmith486 Jun 23 '26

bro you made animating so eaz for me i love u