Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor.
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> In these uncertain and divisive times, we appreciate Anthropic offering support to the Blender project [...]
I wanted to write some thoughtful reply to that, but you know what..
Simply, fuck off.
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Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor. This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/
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And this is how they benefit. This was the trade off. No one wants this except Anthropic.
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All right, Francesco here - CEO at Blender. I'm going to spend some time to try and respond. If you have direct questions or comments, reply here!
You find it "intense".

Imagine how blender users felt, when they find out that you took blood money. Doesn't matter if it is / was a single donation.
You were naive, to say the least, thinking it will be taken like other past patrons.
We are into an AI war for survival. Either you like it, believe it, or not. When this bubble explodes, and it will do, is taking a chunk of global economy with it.
I'm even more ashamed to find out in a toot from someone else, you are accepting code reviewed or generated with AI. 🤮
https://mastodon.social/@mrmasterkeyboard/116483286991823696
Other #FLOSS projects did a stance on not accepting this #AISlop, because they know it does not work. What it is worse it polutes the source code with code that Anthropic could claim as "theirs" in the future.
What crossed your mind to take a decision that will stain Blender and the Blender Foundation forever? Even if you reject it now.
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Make sure to check out the full message on https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/ and the funding policy at https://fund.blender.org/funding-policy/ to get the complete picture.
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Note: partially reworded the social media announcement so it sounds less tone-deaf about the controversial nature of the membership.
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@anthropy @Blender
I was under the impression that an opensource art-tool had an actual spine. That software made for artists actually respected art
(and human life, anthropic literally helped the US bomb schoolkids ffs)The morally correct choice would have been to publicly announce that they refused.
They have funding, they don't NEED that money.
But like so many others they chose greed over integrity, they sold their users/souls for a quick buck.I'm not surprised, just disapointed.
@ChocoDrawing @Blender I mean, not to be rude, but have you literally ever donated to blender yourself? I'm just saying, statistically the chance is very low, and these things do need funding.
As far as I can tell by their blogpost this is just about API expansions which will be welcome for anyone who writes scripts that interact with blender.
(also just to nitpick, AFAIK was Anthropic the one who said 'no' to US defense contracts, and OpenAI jumped on that opportunity instead)
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Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor. This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/
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Note: partially reworded the social media announcement so it sounds less tone-deaf about the controversial nature of the membership.
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Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor. This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/
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@Blender It's not the announcement, that's tone-deaf. It's the actual acceptance of dirty money by a bad actor that's tone-deaf.
Just in case you forgot: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y4jpg922qo
They paid $1.5bn because they were IRREFUTABLY CAUGHT PIRATING.
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All right, Francesco here - CEO at Blender. I'm going to spend some time to try and respond. If you have direct questions or comments, reply here!
@fsiddi
Q1: Of all of the previous corporate sponsors that Blender has accepted, is there one that is of the same or greater magnitude, or as controversial or socially devisive as that of Anthropic?
Q2: Are you now aware, through this onslaght of scathing comments, that this may be the most polarizing and detrimental agreement Blender has ever decided to put on paper?
Q3: And furthermore, have you weighed how much of a CEO Hero you would be if this all just 'went away' and the Blender community (both now and future) perceived you as doing the right thing and looked for more ethically and morally centered corporate sponsers?
Thanks for taking questions. This is an important open-community process. -
@0x4d6165 @Blender there's no deal with the devil, blender is not getting worse, they are receiving money from literally every big tech company on the block, but with anthropic suddenly it's all too much and blender is a bad guy now
you are kicking the shins of your allies to have a quip about AI, and for what? so they can't siphon money out of the AI industry back to the artists?
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Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor. This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/
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Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor. This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/
Take their money. Dump their commits.
For the love of god don't destroy blender with Anthropic code. The LAST thing I want is the world's most useful tool compromising my system and identity.
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Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor. This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/
I realize that this is just "accepting" money from Anthropic, with the implication (especially given your Funding Policy) that Anthropic won't get to dictate anything about Blender development.
It still looks EXTREMELY BAD to your userbase who, in a large number of cases (myself among them), are vehemently opposed to generative AI, and are specifically learning to do our own art as a
to Anthropic and their fellow purveyors of genAI technology.Is their money really worth it?
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Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor. This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/