Mastodon announces transition to a non-profit structure

Organizing a decentralized social network Mastodon It said on Monday that it plans to create a new non-profit organization in Europe and hand over ownership of the entities responsible for Mastodon’s main ecosystem and platform components. This means that no one person will have control over the entire project. The organization is trying to differentiate itself from social networks controlled by CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

While the exact details have yet to be finalized, this means that Mastodon’s current CEO and creator, Eugene Rushko, will hand over the running parts of the organization to the new entity and focus on product strategy.

The organization said it would continue to host Mastodon. social and Mastodon.online Servers, to which users can subscribe and join the ActivityPub-based network. Mastodon currently has 835,000 monthly active users Spread across thousands of servers.

“When founder Eugene Rushko started working on Mastodon, his focus was on creating the code and terms for the type of social media he envisioned. The legal setup was a means to an end, a quick fix that would allow him to continue operations. From the beginning, he announced that Mastodon would no longer be for sale and would be empty It is controlled by one wealthy individual, and he can guarantee this because he is the person in control, the sole final decision maker. Blog post.

Last year, the company was founded US-based non-profit organization to seek more funds and grants with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on the board of directors. As a side effect, the organization lost its non-profit status in Germany at the same time.

While Mastodon relies on donations and sponsorships to operate, Bluesky, its main competitor which operates on a competing decentralized network, is It is said to raise A new financing round from investors valued at $700 million.

The blog post noted that the new European-based non-profit entity will fully own the for-profit entity Mastodon GmbH. The organization is in the process of finalizing the location where the new entity will be established.

“We are taking the time to select the appropriate jurisdiction and structure in Europe. We will then identify other (sub)legal structures needed to support operations and sustainability,” the publication said.

“At all times we will focus on establishing appropriate governance and leadership frameworks that reflect the nature and purpose of Mastodon as a whole, and responsibly serve the community.”

In the past few months, ownership of open source projects has become a frequent news topic. For example, people questioned control over Some WordPress community projects Being in the hands of WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg. Mastodon is trying to avoid situations where only one person has decision-making powers with today’s new structure.