Mastodon, a decentralised social network, announced on Monday that it is going to set up a new non-profit organisation in Europe and give ownership of key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components to that organisation. This means that the project won’t be run by just one person. The group is trying to set itself apart from social networks run by CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Eugen Rochko, who is currently CEO and creator of Mastodon, will hand over some management duties to the new organisation and focus on the product strategy. The exact terms of this deal have not been finalised yet.
People can sign up for and join the ActivityPub-based network on the mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers, which the group said it would continue to run. Mastodon has 835,000 monthly active users on thousands of computers right now.
“When Eugen Rochko, Mastodon’s founder, started working on the project, his main goal was to make the code and conditions for the social media he wanted to see. Setting up the formal structure was just a quick fix to get him back to business. From the beginning, he said that Mastodon would not be for sale and would not be controlled by a single wealthy person. He was able to do this because he was in charge and the only one who could make the final choice, Mastodon wrote in a blog post.
The company set up a U.S.-based non-profit last year to get more money and funding. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, is on the board of this organisation. Along with that, the group lost its non-profit standing in Germany at the same time.
Mastodon runs on donations and sponsorships. Bluesky, its main competitor, works on a different decentralised network and is allegedly seeking a new funding round from investors at a valuation of $700 million.
The blog post said that the new non-profit organisation based in Europe will own the for-profit Mastodon GmbH in its entirety. The group is almost done choosing the spot where the new company will be set up.
“We are taking our time to find the right environment and structure in Europe.” Then we’ll figure out what other legal structures (subsidiary) are needed to keep things running and make the business last, the post said.
“Throughout, we will focus on setting up the right governance and leadership frameworks that are in line with Mastodon’s nature and purpose as a whole and serve the community responsibly.”
Also Read: With Bridgy Fed, People Who Use Bluesky and Mastodon Can Now Talk to Each Other
The question of who owns open-source projects has been in the news a lot in the past few months. Regarding the fact that WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg is in charge of some community projects, some people have raised concerns. With its new structure, Mastodon is trying to avoid cases where only one person can make a choice.
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