i want to start becoming an expert in motion design and i want to invest my time learning Natron but it seems Natron is kinda half dead and future is not clear. what is your problem? do you not have enough money? why there is no donation or patron then? i don’t understand. if you need money to hire developers why you don’t ask for help? most people would happily help instead of paying money to adobe why not give a portion of that to Natron and make all people able to have a awesome tool? if it is the case i suggest you to see https://krita.org they have a good society of donators and supporters. also Natron’s website in not so welcoming and there is no clear way to contact directly. i really love Natron and it really hurts me to see it die.
Natron is still alive, we had a release not that long ago. A project don’t need to do releases every day to be current. The future is what it is, Natron is maintained by a very small group of people in their spare time, we try to fix bugs and keep the project alive, that’s about it.
No problem really, Natron has always had a small team.
Money can’t fix everything. People have a day job, they can’t drop that to work on Natron. Accepting donations etc will not help that situation.
Can’t hire professional developers with random donations etc. This is a community project, any developer can join and help (for free).
That may be, but it’s not an priority (from my point of view).
I think we need a pinned post explaining the Natron funding and development situation.
it seems you have hard time understanding what you are saying!
so let me say what you said!
yo saying that donations are not going to be enough for developers to work full time on Natron! so yes we have Money Problem.
and it means Natron is going to become a zombie Project like Scribus and lots of other projects.
we don’t have right to demand others to work for us i am greatly thankful of Natron and it is good as it is and usable for some years to come and for small projects, but PLEASE be clear.
Can you please clarify, which projects you mean and why?
A crowdfunding site doesn’t automatically solve the problems or else every project would’ve done that already.
You point to krita but discount the fact that it has taken years and years of unpaid, hard work to get to where they are now.
Also the tone of your posta, @low_elo_chess is pretty terrible. Please try harder.
well i just look at Natron GitHub and it doesn’t seem a constantly growing project. it is not my first time to see a opensource project die! yes they add to code incrementally but it is clear it is in zombie faze.
Ex:
WordPress is a live project
Drupal is a zombie
Uh… No. Not true at all.
Also no.
well i’m not sugar coating words, it is better be harsh and clear than playing with people time, money and life.
Say The Truth 
or at least don’t jump on those that are saying it!
You can be nice, say the truth, and not sound like an entitled child, all at the same time. It actually isn’t that hard. Please try it out.
Nope, maybe you misunderstood me.
I didn’t say that, what I said was that the current maintainers have a job, they can’t just drop their existing job for Natron.
In the past when the founding was running out that might have been a possibility, but people have moved on. We now maintain the project in our limited spare time. Development usually happens around vacations (speaking for myself).
Not a zombie, more like a turtle 
(as said, it’s in maintenance mode).
I would not call Scribus a zombie, it’s a mature (and good) project.
As said, we do things when we get the time. If things are moving to slowly for you, then contribute, or find devs that want to contribute.
Correction: Maintenance mode
i think topic made clear lots of things on Natron’s current situation. i think people have right to have enough information to make best choice for themselves, personally i can and will use Natron since my project is just some simple vector motion and all i need is probably already there. i just wanted to make situation more clear for myself and others.
i hope things change for better.
but it would be probably better if natron site had a donation part and patron or something. since probably something is better than nothing or maybe not who knows.
Best Regards
you can use some of your own advice since your the harshest person here! or you can delete my post, topic and user. i don’t really care, and stop bullying and abusing you authority.
earth is round
best regards
I think it’s really about approaching and framing your question in a way so as to get a clear answer. We don’t mind frankness, but we do ask for a reasonable level of civility.
Spending some time reading the history of the project would probably have revealed where things currently are and might help understand just how hard the F/OSS funding and support model is to get right. It’s tough to stand up against some of the stars of this world (Krita and Blender for instance). It’s also important to keep in mind this history of those projects before they became what they are now.
Throwing money at a project doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll advance it in any meaningful way.
Really what the project can use is more developers and people willing to step up into roles that they are going to stay with and own.
Good news, though, is that Natron isn’t dying, it’s just in maintenance mode until they can start getting more contributors and owners to step up and help carry the project forward.
@paperdigits is hardly abusing authority when asking for civility. Just asking that you remember we’re all here because we like these projects and want to see them succeed. 
since when calling some one “entitled child” is asking for civility?
it is clear you emotions and bios is in way of your judgment.
I don’t think there is any reason to do so.
If you’re going to say these kinds of things, you need to back them up as proof. I’ve never abused my authority here, and when I act as a moderator, it is clear.
Asking you to communicate with some care is not bullying, and this tattic of argument is not tolerated here.
They often are.
We also sometimes have a hard time understanding tone in text (whither the sarcasm mark for the love of pete?!).
On that note - would you like to step into a role for Natron and support something? If you don’t like the website currently maybe you could take a moment and make a detailed list of what you think is poor and why? (They can use that to help guide any refresh of the website).
Maybe if you know a friend or two that can program and have similar interests you can reach out to them and see if they’d be willing to help the project? They can’t really move forward faster without more hands willing to help and support.
Oh, you could maybe record tutorials to accomplish what you’re doing with Natron to help teach and guide others? That way you can increase visibility in some way that might help draw others that could provide help also? (This is a good way to help grow the community and interest!)
It is this that makes you sound like an entitled child:
“I want to become an expert so please project work more to enable what I want” - this doesn’t sound good.
i can use for free cracked version of nuke or after effect! (if i want to) do you think i am here to force people to make software in order that i be able to have free software to make motion graphic? i was genuinely interested in natron
"Reality is that i wanted to create a series of Tutorials about something (in motion graphic style) and i wanted to use a free (libre) software and since i am fund of libre-softwares i wanted to say in videos that this is created by this software so i was interested to see that is natron hopeless and should i use and credit blender instead or not. and since natrons suits my work more i really wanted to chose natron but i was afraid that natron be in a situation that my help be meaningless in promoting it.
also i wanted to make videos on how i created those videos and kinda hit two birds with one stone.
it is ok! nothing happened to me since it is just a online anonymous post but you really misjudging people and you can hurt people wrongly because you are too much emotional on fund of taking revenge and making justice! you can’t even tolerate peoples speaking tone "my tone was harsh because the answer was confusing! but i am very careful to not insult and use bad words. you can believe that you are making justice but always remember humans are (by nature) very fraud and twisted creature (both civil or cave doweling) and it is better to remember that it applies to every person even me and you so it is better to be cool and chill other wise there is big chance of misjudging and making mistakes! which unlike this online post could destroy people’s life.
i say it one time more “you want to take revenge and you are actively seeking to find a person to take revenge on”
go and figure out why it is (most probably unsolved childhood traumas)