Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor.

[Gast]

@gruni

Yeah and how much is that company worth these days? yeah it should have been 11.5 billion, not onepointfive.

FFS.

[Gast]

@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.

[Gast]

@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?

[Gast]

@Blender You know these guys murder children right?

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@Blender

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.

[Gast]

@annika ratheon? Halliburton....

[Gast]

@0x4d6165 @Blender Anthropic was the one who said No to the US defense department, you are probably thinking of OpenAI. But whatever floats your boat

[Gast]

@Blender

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?

[Gast]

@Blender Think about it again – you’re on the wrong track

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@Blender

Perhaps understandably the Blender foundation doesn't provide an online contact mechanism like email or form but physical address.

I think I would be speaking for men here and saying it's fine for Anthropic to throw pocket chain your way, but where the user base will have a problem is comes from any software that might be committed to the code base + QA tests.

The central problem with AI code generation is its well-deserved reputation for generating unreadable spaghetti.

1/2

[Gast]

@0x4d6165 Okay- Touche, but it's still very onesided to be upset about Anthropic while not being upset about any of the others.

99.9% of the blender users (actual numbers) do not donate. They're not new to big tech. I frankly don't see the problem, unless you want to completely defund Blender.

[Gast]

@Blender
Yikes

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@Blender

In addition, if developers become or are forced to become dependent on its tools along with all the attendant costs to purchase tokens, I don't think that this would be acceptable.

So that would be my comment about what should be the barest minimum of requirements.

The most adversely affect affected communities is the artistic and creative communities. As much as AI could be a fabulous tool these companies have stolen peoples intellectual property.

[lazarou@mastodon.social]

@Blender

they are slaughtering you in the comments though...

[Gast]

@Blender I don't begrudge any FOSS org from shaking pennies out of corporate couch cushions so to speak to keep the lights on, *but there's something real ick* about taking money from a source that is hellbent on destroying FOSS communities—and worst, allowing their slop to enter your codebase.

[Gast]

@0x4d6165 Empty words from people that do not donate honestly.

I could argue everyone is a shitstain for making these companies rely on big tech for donations.

Once again, you're not fixing anything by swearing at your allies

[Gast]

@Blender everyone who thought this was a good idea should lose their job because war profiteers can do it worse

[Gast]

@the_wub I don't have personal experience with Bforartists. From what I can tell, it is a soft fork of Blender. This means it is very much dependent on whatever the Blender Foundation does and 'just' builds UI changes on top of that.

@Blender

[Gast]

@JoshuaACNewman @Blender They've had Meta and Google as sponsors for years. Didn't change Blender, just more funding for development. How are they different?

[Gast]

@the_wub @Rakkom @Blender Might be a way to find out: https://github.com/Bforartists/Bforartists/issues/6506 (Please don't pile on and try to do only thoguhtful responses.)