Comment by dagw

Unlike most open source projects, Blender started its life as a professional piece of software by and for artists who had to deliver commercial projects on a dead line. First as an in house tool for an animation studio, and later as a commercial software product. It only became open source later in its life cycle after the commercial Blender company went bankrupt. It has also been headed by the same lead developer from its earliest days as an in-house tool right up until today. All these things really shine through and make it quiet unique among open source applications.