Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor.

[Gast]

@Blender Boo!

[dannotdaniel@hellions.cloud]

@ratking @Blender this

[Gast]

@Blender I understand that funding an open source project like Blender is a challenge but you do have choice who you want to associate with. This decision is more than disappointing. I have supported Blender for years through contributions to the development fund and with my work on the bug tracker a couple years back. It has been a shining example for an open source project that I have recommended to everyone. This crosses a red line for me and I will be stopping my contribution to the development fund. I hope you take the community feedback to heart, reverse the decision, and establish a better policy that considers ethical aspects about who you're taking money from.

[Gast]

@Blender well now I know never to use Blender for anything. Thanks for the heads up!

[Gast]

@Blender you should be ashamed.
Of course I uninstalled your software.

[Gast]

@Blender regardless of what your funding policy might say, accepting funding from such an infamous company that is so widely hated specifically by your user base is not a good idea.

And honestly I also find it short-sighted, given the massive bubble and constant bleed of money these companies have. Gaining long term unpopularity for what I believe will likely be short term funding seems like a poor strategy to take.

I think everyone would have been much happier if the headline was "Blender rejects funding from Anthropic", even better if it was followed by another headline saying "Blender drafts new AI policy prohibiting the use of genAI for its development process".

[Gast]

@Blender rolls eyes clearly the problem is you're not selling the peons on taking the money from them enough, riiiiiight

[Gast]

@Blender This is a bad deal. I hope you know that. I understand you need the financial support, but this is seriously eating at the user base trust. You WILL lose users.

[Gast]

@Blender so y'all were like "I can't imagine anyone who uses blender would be upset that a business determined to steal their work and jobs would be pissed off at this news. Let's announce this. Everyone will love it!".
But you do you.

[Gast]

it's nice that y'all are liking my post but Blender doesn't get to see that. You either have to voice your own outrage or retoot mine. Just pressing the star doesn't have any effect.

[Gast]

@Blender Fuck. No.

[Gast]

@miss_rodent @Blender Well said. I just want to comment with all the traction this is getting, this isn’t it guys. It’s photography, it’s graphic art, it’s business, it’s jobs, it’s every nook and cranny you look and despite being told otherwise tech is bleeding people. If this gets more people thinking that’s great, because the tech has been here redifining human worth for a while now.

[Gast]

@Blender SHAME

[Gast]

@robertguetzkow Thank you for making your point in a polite way.

[Gast]

@Blender

So your project is going to end up a vibe coded piece of shit - got it!

[Gast]

@normjess @Blender Blender forks?

[Gast]

@fsiddi @robertguetzkow

Like if your decision to take Anthropic patronage is "polite" on any way.
‍️‍️

[Gast]

@Blender Disgusting.

[Gast]

@fsiddi Let’s ignore the lost trust and users in the replies here saying they’ll never use it again. Let’s also ignore the lack of clarity about any strings attached, or Blender’s ethical alignment.

How much did they give? How much in donations has been lost since the announcement? Is it going to be significantly more than people would give for this to *not* happen? Even if it was, is that worth it?

It may be too late, but I’d like to see transparency about how much was donated. Any discussions with them around the donation. A return of those funds. A clear and explicit policy about AI contributions in the codebase, ideally forbidding them (but there already are some, which calls into question code licenses and ownership). After all of the above, and if done in the right spirit to support open source and artists, and with significantly better comms, I’d like to see a donation drive with the goal of beating the anthropic contribution.

[Gast]

@Blender i now feel a bit less shitty, that i have installed Blender, but so far did not take the time to really learn to use it.
I would be so angry now, had i invested my time.

So deleting it is.

A shame.