Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor.
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Why take corporate money? Why take THIS corporate money? Why not throw this out to the Blender community at large and include them in this decision BEFORE accepting this money? The complete disregard for user's very valid concerns with regard to AI and especially Anthropic AI money in a beloved FOSS project is insulting in the current world. How could you not foresee the blowback?
@noondlyt Blender has accepted a lot of corporate funding over the years. In the press release we try to make it clear that this donation will be used at Blender's discretion, but the origin of the donation is very much not appreciated ideed.
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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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@noondlyt Blender has accepted a lot of corporate funding over the years. In the press release we try to make it clear that this donation will be used at Blender's discretion, but the origin of the donation is very much not appreciated ideed.
And this is how they benefit. This was the trade off. No one wants this except Anthropic.
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Note: partially reworded the social media announcement so it sounds less tone-deaf about the controversial nature of the membership.
@Blender "Thanks for the edit, Claude!"
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Note: partially reworded the social media announcement so it sounds less tone-deaf about the controversial nature of the membership.
@Blender that money was partially gained by killing little iranian schoolgirls for the us-military.
You have given yourself only two options here:
Either you don't know where your money comes from(bad)
Or you just don't care(worse)
And this is still ignoring the fact that ANY generative-ai only exists because it steals art directly from your userbase.
But that's just what ai-companies do right?
So you seem to think that's "fine" and "acceptable"Enjoy your blood money I guess
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@fsiddi sure, I'll bite.
1). Did you do any market research whatsoever before deciding to tank your reputation?
2). Are you planning to use Claude to draft your resignation letter in light of how badly you screwed up? -
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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/
@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
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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!
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?
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Note: partially reworded the social media announcement so it sounds less tone-deaf about the controversial nature of the membership.
@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.
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@angiebaby @DBG3D @Blender Absolutely!
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@angiebaby @DBG3D @Blender Absolutely!
And y'all wonder why women avoid you.
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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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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@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?
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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/
Well fuck, I would’ve hoped better from y’all. Hope you can still turn it down
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@AnnieBuddy @Blender I guess ChildMurderer 3D is probably the natural branding choice after this.
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And y'all wonder why women avoid you.
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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.
@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.
