In these uncertain and divisive times, we appreciate Anthropic offering support to the Blender project in the form of a Patron-level membership. This enables the Blender team to keep pursuing projects independently, and to focus on building tools for artists and creators.
Francesco Siddi, CEO at Blender
I think the main counter argument to this is a practical one. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, all these greedy corporations have contributed to many open source projects and initiatives. Google has a strong influence in defining web standards, should we ditch web browsing? Amazon and even Microsoft have contributed to Linux either trough donations or direct contributions, both in the kernel and in foundational software that runs on top of it. Should we ditch using Linux servers?
What shows is that while money can corrupt it is not an inevitability. So instead of ditching Blender because Anthropic donates to it I’d suggest ditching Blender only if and when they start rolling out vendor-locked Antrophoc AI integrations rather than take a dogmatic ai company = bad stance.
I agree, I didn’t say with clarity that the reason for the worry is the above. I worry things will work out that way and AI companies are the absolute worst offenders for screwing everyone over constantly so it seems more likely with them than another company.
That said, Blender wouldn’t be where it is without contributions from various companies that drove features forward and made contributions to it. I do worry about the future, but I feel that way about most tech, the average person does not benefit from DRM at all but Linux supports it to some degree. I can remove support if I want and there are distros that support that, but in a world with corporate control as law I guess this is the best we can hope for for now.