Francesco Siddi

Besides a few very kind, concerned and constructive takes, it’s been concerning to see so many antisocial reactions to the original announcement. It looks like social media is tearing us apart. I hope more people consider getting involved and supporting the Blender project in the future, feeling confident that their contribution will matter. 8/8

On the ethical concerns. Corporations that provide funding to Blender choose to support Blender’s mission (directly or indirectly). However, Blender does not need to take any action towards those companies, or support their goals in any way. Blender has historically focused on achieving its mission, and not on obstructing or impeding other’s goals, and this is an important part of its identity and one of the reasons for its diverse user base. 5/8

We all have different thresholds and value systems when it comes to judging corporations. In my personal view, Anthropic is no different than other large corporations that are part of the Development Fund. But I do know, and respect, that for many it’s not the same. 6/8

In the case of the Development Fund, showing the logo (at mutual discretion) or providing a point of contact in the organization can be considered a form or relationship. This is why we chose to shift Anthropic’s Development Fund membership into a donation, which requires no agreement or formal relationship. The money still goes towards Blender’s mission, unconditionally. 7/8

Dev Fund membership agreement templates are public and can be checked. There is no influence or strings attached to the development process. Ultimately, this comes down to the Blender Foundation track record of sticking to its mission, goals, and community focus. I’m proud of that track record. 3/8

Corporate control is also balanced by individuals. By checking Blender Foundation’s annual reports, you can see that there is an effort to match the amounts, and not depend on a single large supporter. 4/8

When a major Dev Fund membership is announced, it usually raises two types of concerns: corporate control, and ethical alignment. 2/8

@robertguetzkow the MCP project started before any conversation with Anthropic (already last year). You can probably find design notes from Dalai back then, and there were definitely internal conversations and demos from last year's Siggraph. Of course Anthropic expressed interest in the work and we talked about it. This is a project for a reason: no guaranteed future support, merge into blender, etc. The upcoming AI policies will cover this topic.

@robertguetzkow Some of this info is available publicly (in the git repo for example), for the rest we will handle as part of the public discussion. Original motivation for this was to explore the technology.

@robertguetzkow @dfelinto in the MCP page you can see the reason. The goal was to explore offering a natural language interface with Blender's Python API, improving access to documentation, and allowing users to explore and understand complex setups using LLMs. This should be possible in full alignment with Blender's open source principles. Free software, running locally/offline, etc. Which is what we did.