[April Fools] LEGO acquires LDraw.org Parts Library

[Tim Gould]

LEGO Group Acquisition of LDraw.org Parts Library Announced

LDraw.org and LEGO System A/S jointly announced today that LDraw.org has agreed to sell its rights in the development of the LDraw Parts Library to the LEGO Group, the publisher of the virtual building software LEGO Digital Designer (LDD), for $5.35 million. The LDraw.org Steering Committee members have been offered employment by the LEGO Group, who will continue software development and operations from the former LEGO Universe studio in Louisville, Colorado.

“We’re excited about the integration of the LDraw Parts Library to fill the gaps of old virtual LEGO parts currently missing in LDD, but re-engineered by the fans and are happy to have the core of the community officially join the LEGO team,” said Søren Askildson, Senior Executive Vice President at the LEGO Software Engineering; Development Department. “This acquisition demonstrates our commitment both to the ongoing success of LEGO Digital Designer and to an overall strategy to expand our brand online.”

“LDraw.org’s focus is developing a solid easy-to-use library on an open document file format, and publishing the next generation of virtual building CAD systems,” said Willy Tschager, Member of the LDraw.org Steering Committee . “We’re proud of the library our community built, and are certain that it has a bright future. The transition of members of our team to the LEGO Group enables us to focus completely on internally-published, free-to-play software businesses.”

LEGO System A/S entered into a free-data-for-advisory relationship with LDraw.org as to build LEGO Universe in 2006. The acquisition of the rights to the library and the ability to transition members of the team to continue work on the library follows the fulfillment of the LEGO Universe development contract.

LDD as a virtual building experience attracts several million people each year to build a huge range of amazing creations. The LDraw System of Tools is a popular system of free software tools for modeling LEGO creations in 3D on a computer. The parts library that is central to the programs is under continuous maintenance and extension by the LDraw community since 1997.

From http://www.ldraw.org/Article609.html

[MoonMan]

Can someone exlain what this means. This sounds very criminal to me. The value of LDraw is something that was built up for free by the efforts of Lego fans everyewhere, and now it's sold off to a corporation for a lot of money. This happened notably to IMDb and the Huffington Post as well. The Huffington Post bloggers had a huge class action lawsuit for this reason.

Why does Lego want this? The article says they want it in order to fill the gaps for the parts in LDD. I must be misunderstanding something because Lego has secret rendering software and a full parts library of their own that they use to make all their instruction sets. LDD is an absolutely terrible program. Is Lego's real goal to corrupt or shut down this project? Maybe they want to fill it up with advertizing?

[Allen Smith]

I shall be expecting a cheque* in the post forthwith!

Allen

* Austrailian spelling in honour of the festivities.

[Daniel Goerner]

Check your calendar.

[Orion Pobursky]

I might add here that I only agreed to the new position on the condition that LEGO bought the house next to the Jessimans and moved me from the US to Aus so that I could be in a place of inspiration. 

[Roland Melkert]

I'm thinking this is a date thing

[MoonMan]

It would have been nice to wait until April 1st to post this, NOT March 31st.

Yes, yes, I feel very foolish anyway.

[Tim Gould]

I was hoping noone would make me pull out the "there's more than one timezone than the one you're in" line out. But you just did. See the world, see how it's big and round. That makes a lot of timezones. You live in just one of them.

Tim

[Orion Pobursky]

Actually, as long as you're posting on Mar 31st it's April 1st somewhere due to the international date line (assuming, of course, that you don't live in Tokelau)

[Tim Gould]

True. But I only have two hours grace.

[Willy Tschager]

Guys,

I was deeply touched by your commitment to LDraw and how much you care about our hobby. We would never sell a single part of the library - 'til we find a way to get around the CA an the rest of the legal stuff, promise ;-)

w.

[Chris Dee]

Although few were fooled here, there was more reaction at The Brothers Brick, who picked upon this.

[Tim Gould]

Although few were fooled here, there was more reaction at The Brothers Brick, who picked upon this.

Maybe I'm misreading, but it reads like you may not realise that gambort is me. That's why TBB actually has decent coverage of CAD and LDraw

Tim

[Chris Dee]

No I didn't - well done.

[Orion Pobursky]

It's a shame since I was really looking forward to moving to Australia

[Jaco van der Molen]

LOL

[Willy Tschager]

I guess at this point THEY know:

http://messageboards.lego.com/en-US/show...ID=5343587

w.

[Tim Gould]

Hahahahahahaha. Just goes to show that the most fun to be had is where you least expect it.

Awesome. Nice find.

Tim

[Willy Tschager]

Some more finds:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.ph...opic=68014

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.ph...&p=1243498

http://www.brickuniverse.net/site/forums...ts-library

and the one I commissioned myself for my Italian friends:

http://www.itlug.org/forum/index.php/top...ml#msg7666

I'm astonished by the fact how quickly things spread and how people react! Philo, I would love to hear what you really think of the deal we made :-)

w.

[Philippe Hurbain]

A pretty good deal
Here's the French link to add to your list:
http://forum-freelug-discussion-generale...l#a3874819

Philo