Mastodon’s founder cedes control, refuses to become next Musk or Zuckerberg
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/mastodon-becomes-nonprofit-to-make-sure-its-never-ruined-by-billionaire-ceo/
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There was no danger of that happening, Mr. Mastodon
jeena@piefed.jeena.net 5 days ago
Just for my understanding, wasn't OpenAI not also a nonprofit and is now a forprofit and the CEO is at least as bad as Zuckerberg?
I understand it will make it a little bit harder, but nothing prevents Mastodon to go the OpenAI way or is the situation different in some way?
jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days ago
The main difference is that the project will be owned by the non-profit foundation. This still leaves mastodon.social in the for profit Mastodon gGmbH but Mastodon itself is safe.
Midnitte@beehaw.org 5 days ago
Also worth noting that this was done in Europe (not the US), so corrupting the nonprofit should be harder.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 5 days ago
Ah, of course the guy motivated by money ensures he can keep getting it.
Let’s hope he will invest it in moderation worth a damn.
Sadly it sounds like he’ll still be in charge of the project so he can keep ignoring user issues and pull requests that are actually useful and making changes that users don’t like, want or need.
WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days ago
OpenAI is a for profit company, owned by a non profit. External investors can invest in the for profit subsidiary, but it is still owned by the non profit. Investors are only allowed a capped amount of profit. (The capped amount is still bajillions afaik). But the for profit is legally bound to follow the non-profit’s mission.
lily33@lemm.ee 5 days ago
gizmodo.com/to-further-its-mission-of-benefitting…
PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
Mastodon is also open source and decentralized, trying to turn it into anything else will meet so much resistance from the community, Mastodon will likely just get forked.
renard_roux@beehaw.org 5 days ago
Uhm. No? Or yes? Maybe? 🤔😅
jeena@piefed.jeena.net 5 days ago
This was me directly translating from German I think :D