The recent announcement about Anthropic joining the Blender Development Fund as a Corporate Patron member has raised concerns from the community around how we engage with AI topics.
This is how we plan to address the issue: https://www.blender.org/news/upcoming-blender-development-fund-and-ai-policies/
Why would you even consider getting into bed with fascist art-destroying thieves in the first place?
Fuckin hell.
@violetmadder @Blender Indeed, must be really easy being chairman for that foundation, just accept whatever bloody money and if there is an outrage you backpedal as little as possible while keeping the cash. No need to think ahead or have, you know, ethics.
May 1, 2026, 4:26 PM@Blender@mastodon.social I'm glad you're not keeping them on as a member and only receiving the funds once. That being said, you absolutely need to reject funding and membership from AI-focused companies (e.g. Anthropic and OpenAI) going forward.
May 1, 2026, 4:33 PM@Blender I think it is important to stress that the real reason for the community to react this way is not fear of them taking control or influencing decisions, but the very idea of taking "dirty money" from a company like this. I think the decision to keep it as a one-time donation is kinda-sorta fine in this situation, but in the future you should simply not accept these donations at all.
Personally very happy to see a reversal 🧡
The association with an AI company didn't bring joy and I for one am very relieved to see that getting heard + an upcoming stance on AI for future reassurances.
May 1, 2026, 4:40 PM
So... you're still accepting it, but just calling it something totally different, which I assume is for appearance only, to wash away whatever stigma is now attached to it.
Seriously?
Patron level = €240k
Includes: Logo and url on website, social media mention, credit in official reports and at events, Developer liaison, frontpage mention, board contact, Press release, tech blogpost, dedicated product manager for your area.
#Anthropic Sow's ear ≠ silk purse
That's what was announced in today's release, but my point in setting out the details is to point out what their expectations were, and once Pandora's treasure box has a deposit, it still had to be opened to accept it.
From what comments I've been reading over the last 2 days, what they have been shouting about is _not_ about how it was received... but that it was accepted _at all_.
Tone deafness or 'reframing it' isn't the underlying issue.
May 1, 2026, 4:55 PM@Blender cool let's see if we can get you some money from MBS next
May 1, 2026, 5:12 PM@Blender good, thank you!
@Blender I'm not sure what to think about still accepting the money, it's a compromise where I would have loved to see a very clear 'no thanks' to such a harmful company.
But I'm happy you considered our feedback and did something with it at least.
Personally I hope you can find another way to deal with corporate funding in the future. I'd rather wait a year longer for a new version of Blender than seeing some of these mega(maga)corps like google and meta on the fund.
@Blender oh nice another one of these:
"We should have opened up more conversation and perspectives from contributors before making this decision, and for that we are sorry."
Who could have predicted this?
@Blender 'engage with AI topics' is some good corporate speak.
GenAI has stolen the work of artists I know, and the scrapers it requires are a drain on the entire web. It's good you have understood the anger exists, but please prove you understand why it is there as well. People are about to be able to use Blender, trivially, to produce the sorts of thing I and many friends make *because we made it and our work has been examined without our consent*. That is a huge thing.
@Blender It's also catastrophically expensive in terms of computing power. Those data centres are not small, and they are often built in the sorts of vulnerable places that already have little protection. They are then adding energy cost to simple tasks. Please do not make that easier. I love your work. I want to be able to keep using it.
@Blender Still not happy with the acceptance of the one-time donation. But I can at least recognise the effort to listen to your community in this matter, and appreciate it.
@Blender if this text doesn't include "we're going to kill everyone in anthropic" it's probably not going to work sadly (yes we do want anthropic to die)
Anyways good on you for stealing money from some douchebags, just don't let them speak even a single word, in fact, erase them from the list of people who paid you. They aren't people anymore anyways.
May 1, 2026, 6:09 PM@Blender
Fucking sellouts
@Blender you're on Anthropic's payroll now. de facto
@Blender i love the comments in the thread and i agree.
Its similar to accepting blood diamonds as a donation.
The source of the money matters.
It's exactly like taking money from the mob.
Only, no mafia has ever been as powerful as these, or done this much damage to the planet or society, or dumped such staggering resources into trying to build their own mechanical god. We're in kinda uncharted territory here, as organized depravity goes.
May 1, 2026, 6:19 PM@Blender TLDR: you're idiots for being upset and nothing fundamentally changes.
May 1, 2026, 6:50 PM@Blender It looks like (other than a logo on the website) Patrons get their calls answered by the Board and a dev team to help them. I wonder if $281k+ grants one some of those considerations regardless of what it's called.
@Blender "Blender is a tool for artists and creators, it’s made by humans for humans."
What place does generative AI have here, then?
I don't usually think that purity should stand in the way of the good but as you say yourself, you are a tool for artists and genAI is hurting artists. Anthropic is hurting your user base. I understand that FOSS projects need funding but this is a line in the sand moment.
@Blender I guess I'll be a dissenting voice here, but for as evil Anthropic is, funding from Meta is a thousand times worse. That bothered me more and will continue to bother me more.
@lynndotpy @Blender do you want Blender to be a less capable tool for millions of people just so you can feel a bit more righteous?
May 1, 2026, 10:49 PM@aronkvh@mograph.social @lynndotpy @Blender "Shut up and accept fascism" is an odd hill to take, but go storm it. That's not us slowing you down, it's just mud and rainfall.
The rest of us will do as we please without some blathering about inferiority complexes guiding our lives.
@aronkvh Please express your rhetoric more literally, and in the form of statements and not as a rhetorical question. Your reply seems like a non-sequitur to mine and I don't understand what you're really trying to say.
@aronkvh @lynndotpy @Blender If the only reason your tool works is theft, then why are you using that tool? Millions of people committing IP theft is worse than nobody doing it, not better.
@dianaprobst I'm talking about Meta's funding from the other comment. In Anthropic's case I can see the point since people don't like them and they want to buy social acceptance through Blender, and that can still be avoided. But for most companies donating to open source, the alternative is that Blender gets less funding (->"becomes a less useful tool fool millions of people") and the big company pays another big tech company instead.
@aronkvh *sigh*
It'd be great if the world valued different things, huh? "This big company is slightly less bad than that big company," is a bad choice to have to make.
@aronkvh I am not advocating for Blender to reject either Meta or Anthropic's funding.
I am saying that Meta has much more blood on their hands.
I don't agree with a position that sees Anthropic (an evil company) as less objectionable than Meta. Meta has inflicted orders of magnitude more harm on people than Anthropic has.
Even if someone can excuse genocide, fascism, etc. and only cares about opposing AI, Meta is a larger AI company than Anthropic.
@lynndotpy Looks like we're on the same page then
company: we're going to do something really extremely bad for our customers and possibly even people who aren't our customers. we think this is good
furious internet mob: we hate this
company: we'd like to clarify our intentions. just to be clear: we're doing the same thing but we'd like you to hate it a little less now
Return the blood money and make a permanent stand against Ai companies and not just a wishy washy “for now” and leaving that door unlocked #blender
May 1, 2026, 6:55 PM@Blender You can address the issue by giving the blood money back and by pledging to never add AI bullshit into Blender, ever.
May 1, 2026, 7:32 PM@Blender lol. lmao.
@Blender So y'all understand this was a wildly unpopular move and an unnecessary own-goal.
Good.
The question that remains to be addressed is this: What does Anthropic get out of this deal?
Corporations do not give away money without strings attached. That's not how business works. So if they're giving you money, as a Blender user and supporter, I would like to know what you are giving them in return. That will inform whether I and others will support you in the future.
Marketing and self interest. Donate to one of the most successful open-source projects for creatives out there, release a separate tool to interface with said project. Get good press for your newly released tool.
NVIDIA, Adobe, Meta, Google et al. - they're not the first AI company on the list, and the rules are clear:
https://fund.blender.org/funding-policy/
All these companies sponsor the Linux Foundation as well (Anthropic included). 😔
@Blender
In a sense, this wishy-washy "damage control template" half-measure is almost worse than nothing coming from the Blender project. We are facing an extremely well-resourced fascist element that intends to annihilate human culture as it currently exists, and that includes both 3D art and FOSS. At the moment, they appear to be winning. Suggestion to stop with the triangulation and pick a side
@Blender
Genocide $$$
@Blender easy: RETURN THE MONEY. State AND abide by a total, complete, absolute, comprehensive opposition to everything anthropic is.
See? Easy!
How's that resignation announcement coming along Francesco?
You appear to not have the skills for your job.
How much are you getting paid anyway?
This "donation" benefits you personally.
May 1, 2026, 8:41 PM@Blender “We should have opened up more conversation and perspectives from contributors before making this decision, and for that we are sorry.”
We’re so sorry in fact, that we listened to how our community didn’t want us to take money from a company that contributes to war and violence, as well as builds its machine from the plagiarism of blender modellers and artists - and we’re happy to announce that we will be accepting money from Anthropic!
What the hell. It’s very impressive that this corporate pr spin is being accepted by other people here though. :floofMug:
@Blender The correct course of action is to NOT take the money.
Blender is a tool for artists and creators, it’s made by humans for humans. No generative AI functionality is currently available or planned to be integrated in Blender.
What about this?
Even if it isn't built-in, this is work officially supported, and worse, sponsored, by the Blender Foundation, which shows a willingness to accept the slop machine.
The permissive AI Contributions Policy being made, and already accepted slop commits also don't help your case, making this announcement seem more like "sorry we got caught" than a genuine change.
@Blender oh no, you don’t get to “address the issue” now. You’ve already lost.
Your codebase is already infested by “AI” vommits, making it not properly licenced FOSS any more: https://mastodon.social/@mrmasterkeyboard/116483286991823696
@Blender@mastodon.social
What kind of internal investigation are you conducting to determine how you failed so badly on this? We are multiple years into a massive backlash against AI among the artistic community. You never fell for NFT related scams. What changed in your internal structure that caused you to handle this so much worse?
If you aren't willing to examine why you made this misstep, how can anyone trust you not to repeat it in the future?
May 1, 2026, 10:41 PMMay 1, 2026, 10:57 PM@Blender It is truly an era where a tool to help artists is being funded by a tool to steal art and both sides wants artists placated while keeping the money.
It is like learning to paint with a specific brush only to learn that brush is sending my artwork to hundreds of other easels, while the brushmaker is telling me to shut up and keep painting.
When put into those terms, the simplest answer is for the artists to walk away from all of it. Make new tools yourself, and to hell with everything else.
May 1, 2026, 11:52 PM@Blender Thanks for listening to the community ❤️
@Blender
Many of us would prefer you sending that one-off donation back to sender.
At least it's a move in a right direction.
@Blender that was really not a smart move, guys.
@Blender the response reads very handwavy
@Blender I don't like AI as much as the next guy, but getting money with no strings attached to continue the incredible work I personally feel is fine. This post basically just reflects what i thought of the previous announcement (a formality set by yourself for receiving donations)
thanks!
@violetmadder @Blender you'd rather misanthropic keep their money? you really think blender with the way they've responded will 180 and add genAI features now?
I choose to believe that there is some good left in the world and blender is doing it, they need to eat too.
@Blender glad to see you’re dropping them as a corporate patron. Don’t want to see Blender taking money from the art-theft, Global South labor exploitation, energy and water hogging, RAM price escalating LLM industry again though.
@Blender Well, it looks like you're a bit behind the curl on this one.
@Blender there's how you engage with AI, and there's how you engage with misanthropic corporations such as Anthropic...
Blender, thank you. 🩷