Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Hand Inside the Blender: Microsoft Money for Blender's Development Fund is Not a 'Cookie Jar' Donation But Another Power Move

Masks four matrix: YOU will be assimilated



Summary: Microsoft keeps paying, conditionally, a bunch of high-profile Free software projects; there's expectation they will reciprocate one way or another, shows recent history

THE Blender project is a fantastic project. It's a Free software success story. I love Blender and I love movies made with Blender. I fell in love with the project well over a decade ago. I've watched their movies more times than I can remember (probably about 20 times in total). Blender's 'daddy' Ton Roosendaal (@tonroosendaal) wrote this when Microsoft announced the takeover of GitHub: "Why was Blender not on @github? Simple: Github already accepted $350M (at least) from venture capitalists - who want it back with huge profits. And whatever Microsoft pays for it, they will want it back too. Who pays in the end? The users. FYI: Blender has its code on http://git.blender.org and developer services on http://developer.blender.org - we already host our own services since 2002. About "users paying": I don't mean the freemium model. I believe that in due time @github services slowly degrade to losing control and ownership of your work."

"We're not saying there's such an expectation wrt GitHub, but as we saw in Godot Engine there tends to be an expectation that C# and .NET will be boosted in GitHub (and that's an explicit goal of the money)."Blender is not invulnerable to bribes though, e.g. through Blender's Development Fund. Last month it was Microsoft (they buy influence over the project this way) and now it's Mono pushers (Unity). What next? Will demands be made? What strings are being attached to this month's payment? We're not saying there's such an expectation wrt GitHub, but as we saw in Godot Engine there tends to be an expectation that C# and .NET will be boosted in GitHub (and that's an explicit goal of the money). These aren't donations; Microsoft's shareholders aren't donating money, as they clearly want something in return. We previously wrote about how Microsoft was bribing projects ("helping" them) to defect to GitHub, entrapping their developers and users in Microsoft territories with Microsoft accounts.

"It's not a donation; it's more like an investment in the VC sense. It's about control."Yesterday in IRC we researched the state of Blender wrt GitHub and we reached out by E-mail to another person who had "checked Blender several times in the past." (For this purpose)

"I believe it was always a mirror," he told us. "Any project can mirror free software. it's a non-issue. nothing that can be done but to make the software less free."

We're going to keep our eyes on Blender and see what Microsoft (and its Mono pushers) want in return from Blender. It's not a donation; it's more like an investment in the VC sense. It's about control.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 03/10/2024: "Hey Hi" Scandals and Copyright/Trademark Disputes
Links for the day
Invidious Seems to be Nearing 'End of Life' After Repeated Crackdowns by Google/Alphabet/YouTube
To Free software users, YouTube ought to become a "no-no"
Links 03/10/2024: Climate Issues and Tensions in East Asia
Links for the day
Like a Marketing Department of Microsoft, Canonical Sells Back Doors and Surveillance as "Confidential" and "Hey Hi" (AI)
Notice how Canonical has made no statement critical of Microsoft for years
Gemini Links 03/10/2024: Frozen Tofu and SGI O2
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 02, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 02, 2024
Links 02/10/2024: Microsoft Spying on Windows Users Grows, Microsoft's Surveillance Arm LinkedIn Used to Highlight Employment Crisis
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2024: Students Who Can’t Read Books and Dead Butt Syndrome
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/10/2024: GNU/Linux Distros, Flat-File Databases, and How the Web ate Gopher
Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part II
By Dr. Andy Farnell
A Cost-Free Bribe From Microsoft
Daniel Stenberg is not dumb, but he seems rather gullible or unprincipled
Plans for the Site's 19th Year
Like TechDirt, we expect to devote more efforts/time to covering free speech online
Network Getting Faster
Loading up the site in 0.077 seconds
The Manchester Experience
Yesterday Tux Machines served 436,897 Web hits
If Red Hat Has Mass Layoffs This Year, Nobody Will Tell You About It
We seem to have entered a strange quasi-cosmic era wherein layoffs aren't disclosed anymore and news sites don't bother to report them, either
IBM, Kyndryl, Subsidiaries (Like Red Hat) and Silent Layoffs
Kyndryl follows in IBM's footsteps with rolling layoffs likely affecting thousands
Anniversaries and New Beginnings
The world needs more transparency and far less secrecy
Links 02/10/2024: Microsoft Kills Off HoloLens, Media Discusses Assange Speech
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/10/2024: New Car, Broadband, and Gemtexter 3.0.0
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 01, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 01, 2024
[Meme] October 1st: The Day Julian Assange 'Officially Came Back'
Assange: See you in Strasbourg in 5 years
Full Transcript of Julian Assange's Speech in Strasbourg
the full thing
The Full Talk by Julian Assange Including Questions and Answers Discussed Further (October 1st 2024, Council of Europe Committee Legal Affairs)
Wikileaks covered this talk in "tweets"
Julian Assange's First Publicly Delivered Talk Since 2019
Julian Assange's talk in France
Links 01/10/2024: Another Escalation in the Middle East, Software Patents Being Squashed
Links for the day
Microsoft's Collapse is Continuing
Microsoft is discontinuing its HoloLens headsets
Links 01/10/2024: Gavin Newsom's Tech Safety Legislation, YouTube Sued for Health Harms
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/10/2024: ROOPHLOCH and Photos
Links for the day
Julian Assange Talk: Watch Live
2 hours from now
"IBM executives did not decide to buy Red Hat on their own, nor will they decide to sell Red Hat on their own should that time ever arise"
Since IBM bought Red Hat it merely made its products more proprietary
GNU/Linux and Android Rose to New Highs in September
StatCounter isn't the ground truth, but there's not much else in the public domain.
Links 01/10/2024: Climate Stories, Climate Change, and War in Lebanon
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/10/2024: Separation, Validation, and Flatfile Databases
Links for the day
Blind Worship of Technology is a Misguided Fool's Errand
Andy Farnell of the Cybershow used the metaphor of "golden calf" last week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 30, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, September 30, 2024