Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor.

[Gast]

@titania

I definitely got some negative feedback , comparable to past corporate memberships. Which is normal, and once clarifying that this is just a donation, there was understanding.

[angiebaby@mas.to]

@netopwibby @DBG3D @Blender

This is not the flex you think it is.

Stay untalented, I guess?

[Gast]

@Blender blender has been the biggest success story in FOSS since Linux. Why do this? Are there no actual artists or creators involved in these decisions?

Anthropic is also significantly involved with war and violence. Does the project accept those kind of sponsors now?

I feel like accepting this sponsorship is going to have knock on effects for the project that go much further than the size of the cheque you’ll get - you’re damaging trust, not just with the users ( not that the project leadership cares about what users/artists think, clearly ) but with devs and the people who contribute to the project. They’re not dumb, and they don’t have to donate their time if they don’t feel the project deserves it

[Gast]

@fsiddi

In the communications it appear that the Blender project were aware that this would be controversial.

First, as the CEO of Blender why do you value the blood money from Anthropic more than the trust and goodwill of your users and individual supporters?

Secondly, as the CEO of Blender do you and the Blender project care about ethics and if so how is that consistent with taking blood money from Anthropic with their well documented practices?

[Gast]

@Blender
So…you decided to make it worse by thinking that the problem was the way you said it?

You’re taking money from the people whose entire business model is taking the money out of creatives’ pockets and then telling us to go fuck ourselves.

That money, at best, will be withdrawn from when the bubble pops, likely with catastrophic effects on Blender.

At worst, it will continue to flow because they continue to extract all art.

[Gast]

@angiebaby @DBG3D @Blender Absolutely!

[Gast]

@kookie @Blender

It may not be tomorrow but, yeah...

https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-for-creative-work

[angiebaby@mas.to]

@netopwibby @DBG3D @Blender

And y'all wonder why women avoid you.

[Gast]

@Blender Maybe you can get Palantir, ICE and the Saudi government on board too.

[Gast]

@sternentau @Blender This is my favourite response. As concise as it is effective

[Gast]

@fsiddi@mstdn.social @Blender@mastodon.social Why didn't you guys just say no? You could've done that, it's not like you have a gun to your head. You know that part of your community and your target users see these kinds of companies and their products as threats to their jobs and their creations, right?

[Gast]

@Blender@mastodon.social

Well fuck, I would’ve hoped better from y’all. Hope you can still turn it down

[Gast]

@unkx @AnnieBuddy @Blender
maybe the name is a contraction like:
BLood money, schoolgirl ENDER

[Gast]

@angiebaby @DBG3D @Blender You got me there, partner!

[titania@retro.pizza]

@fsiddi so that's a no.

Actual responsibility would have looked like viewing what happened to user trust in Firefox and other open-source projects, and weighing the short term benefits vs long term consequences to what accepting a donation from Anthropic would mean.

This was incredibly shortsighted. Congratulations on ruining community goodwill toward blender. Will be interesting to see how this affects donations in the long run -- feel fairly comfortable in saying that unless Blender returns it + you resign from your post, this will absolutely tank project donations. I teach classes how to perform market analysis -- this is a stunning example of why it's critical to do so before rolling our new product features or accepting corporate sponsorship or "donations" as a nonprofit. Silver linings, I suppose. My students will have fun dissecting this one come September.

[Gast]

@Blender@mastodon.social dumbasses. fucking why

[Gast]

@amosmulder the idea is that we welcome funding towards the project, under Blender's condition. This usually has the support of the community. This case of funding is clearly extremely polarizing.

[Gast]

@art_codesmith This is currently a one-time donation.

[Gast]

@Blender OK wow

[Gast]

@Blender