Bonsai BIM’s inability to keep up to date with the current Blender production release.

KyOffSiteICFBuilder

Now that Blender 5.1 is official I am shocked, surprised, and very disappointed that Bonsai BIM is unable to keep your software up to date! These work arounds are unprofessional Bandaids at best and intolerable! This inhibits our ability to move the entire Blender/Bonsai BIM platform forward in the AEC industry . Surely the Bonsai Design Team have a close ongoing dialog with the Blender development team and saw this move coming long before this announcement. WHAT IS THE HOLD UP? WHAT IS THE ETA OF A FIX?.

theoryshaw

I understand the frustration—staying aligned with Blender releases is important for workflows.

That said, Bonsai isn’t a commercial product with a guaranteed release cycle. It’s a small, open source effort built on top of a very fast-moving dependency (Blender), and major version updates often require significant rework.

If this is critical for your work, there are a few ways to help move things forward:

• contribute development effort
• sponsor maintainers
• help test against newer Blender versions

Otherwise, the typical approach in open source is to stay on a supported Blender version until compatibility catches up.

There’s a good write-up on this dynamic here: Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing.

zoomer

I do not really understand the problem.
I first thought it is vice versa, that newest Bonsai versions do no more run on older Blender versions, which quite some users tend to keep for quite some time. In case of LTS or other reasons.

I use Bonsai always with latest Blender Alphas mainly and only switch back to Blender Beta or official version in very rare case of issues. But as with Blender, I also use the latest daily builds of Bonsai. The last time Blender was no more supported by Bonsai with v5.1 was because of the Python version switch of Blender. But from mentioning this here, to an additional build with updated Python it took AFAIR less than two weeks.

Are you using the latest official Bonsai with Blender 5.1 (also official) ?
Doesn't Bonsai offer an updated Python version for 0.84 official ?

Well, that is unfortunate of course.
(E.g. Microsoft Store may have update your Blender version automatically. Usually a great thing but maybe not in this case)
Maybe there are reasons, like needed adaptions to that meanwhile older version.

So I also understand the frustration from the user side.
But in this case I see valid workarounds.
As @theoryshaw mentioned, keeping an older Blender installation side by side and/or use all the latest bells and whistles versions - on both sides - Blender and Bonsai.

I also think there is nothing to demand from developers. We should more value and be thankful for everything we get from them. And to be fair, I find the stability of daily builds or ambition to fix bugs or add features of OSS like Blender or Bonsai - at least (!) as good as most of my other professional proprietary solutions.

semhustej

I think that for users who prefer stability and reliability using Bonsai beta with last LTS release of Blender should be recommended. I think this combination should be quite solid, shouldn't it?

Moult

G'day, we did a release a few days ago, so Bonsai's stable release has fully compatible with Blender's latest release since then: https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/bonsai/

If for some reason you experience otherwise, please file a bug report :)

Also note that the unstable release has also been compatible for quite some time now.

KyOffSiteICFBuilder

Thanks Moult! I get a little uptight When I see stuff like this! I am getting ready to drop millions in software development money on Blender & Bonsai BIM. I am gonna need a CTO, You would make an excellent candidate… interested in helping build a multi billion dollar company?

Moult

Any contributions to the IfcOpenShell budget will be much appreciated https://opencollective.com/opensourcebim - it will go a long way, especially in the current situation of AI-accelerated development. There are a number of considerations (this and this) that mean that the game is changing quite significantly now.

KyOffSiteICFBuilder

@theoryshaw said:
I understand the frustration—staying aligned with Blender releases is important for workflows.

That said, Bonsai isn’t a commercial product with a guaranteed release cycle. It’s a small, open source effort built on top of a very fast-moving dependency (Blender), and major version updates often require significant rework.

If this is critical for your work, there are a few ways to help move things forward:

• contribute development effort
• sponsor maintainers
• help test against newer Blender versions

Otherwise, the typical approach in open source is to stay on a supported Blender version until compatibility catches up.

There’s a good write-up on this dynamic here: Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing.

I thought the whole point of building as a Blender add-on was to isolate the add-on program from major rewrites… guess not! > @Moult said:

G'day, we did a release a few days ago, so Bonsai's stable release has fully compatible with Blender's latest release since then: https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/bonsai/

If for some reason you experience otherwise, please file a bug report :)

Also note that the unstable release has also been compatible for quite some time now.

@Moult said:
G'day, we did a release a few days ago, so Bonsai's stable release has fully compatible with Blender's latest release since then: https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/bonsai/

If for some reason you experience otherwise, please file a bug report :)

Also note that the unstable release has also been compatible for quite some time now.

Thanks Moult. I get a little excited when things like this happen I am getting ready to spend Millions on software development on Blender and Bonsai BIM I am gonna be looking fir a CTO you would make a great candi> @zoomer said:

I do not really understand the problem.
I first thought it is vice versa, that newest Bonsai versions do no more run on older Blender versions, which quite some users tend to keep for quite some time. In case of LTS or other reasons.

I use Bonsai always with latest Blender Alphas mainly and only switch back to Blender Beta or official version in very rare case of issues. But as with Blender, I also use the latest daily builds of Bonsai. The last time Blender was no more supported by Bonsai with v5.1 was because of the Python version switch of Blender. But from mentioning this here, to an additional build with updated Python it took AFAIR less than two weeks.

Are you using the latest official Bonsai with Blender 5.1 (also official) ?
Doesn't Bonsai offer an updated Python version for 0.84 official ?

Well, that is unfortunate of course.
(E.g. Microsoft Store may have update your Blender version automatically. Usually a great thing but maybe not in this case)
Maybe there are reasons, like needed adaptions to that meanwhile older version.

So I also understand the frustration from the user side.
But in this case I see valid workarounds.
As @theoryshaw mentioned, keeping an older Blender installation side by side and/or use all the latest bells and whistles versions - on both sides - Blender and Bonsai.

I also think there is nothing to demand from developers. We should more value and be thankful for everything we get from them. And to be fair, I find the stability of daily builds or ambition to fix bugs or add features of OSS like Blender or Bonsai - at least (!) as good as most of my other professional proprietary solutions.

@zoomer said:
I do not really understand the problem.
I first thought it is vice versa, that newest Bonsai versions do no more run on older Blender versions, which quite some users tend to keep for quite some time. In case of LTS or other reasons.

I use Bonsai always with latest Blender Alphas mainly and only switch back to Blender Beta or official version in very rare case of issues. But as with Blender, I also use the latest daily builds of Bonsai. The last time Blender was no more supported by Bonsai with v5.1 was because of the Python version switch of Blender. But from mentioning this here, to an additional build with updated Python it took AFAIR less than two weeks.

Are you using the latest official Bonsai with Blender 5.1 (also official) ?
Doesn't Bonsai offer an updated Python version for 0.84 official ?

Well, that is unfortunate of course.
(E.g. Microsoft Store may have update your Blender version automatically. Usually a great thing but maybe not in this case)
Maybe there are reasons, like needed adaptions to that meanwhile older version.

So I also understand the frustration from the user side.
But in this case I see valid workarounds.
As @theoryshaw mentioned, keeping an older Blender installation side by side and/or use all the latest bells and whistles versions - on both sides - Blender and Bonsai.

I also think there is nothing to demand from developers. We should more value and be thankful for everything we get from them. And to be fair, I find the stability of daily builds or ambition to fix bugs or add features of OSS like Blender or Bonsai - at least (!) as good as most of my other professional proprietary solutions.

@Moult said:
Any contributions to the IfcOpenShell budget will be much appreciated https://opencollective.com/opensourcebim - it will go a long way, especially in the current situation of AI-accelerated development. There are a number of considerations (this and this) that mean that the game is changing quite significantly now.

Going to send you an email Moult

theoryshaw

@KyOffSiteICFBuilder your thread above, got caught in the spam queue, for whatever reason.