Decentralized social network organization Mastodon said on Monday that it plans to create a new non-profit organization in Europe and transfer ownership of the entities responsible for the key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components. This means that one person does not have control over the entire project. The organization tries to differentiate itself from the 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, Eugen Rochko, will hand over the management pieces of the organization to the new entity and focus on product strategy.
The organization said it continues to host mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers, which users can sign up for and join the ActivityPub-based network. Mastodon currently has 835,000 monthly active users spread across thousands of servers.
“When the founder Eugen Rochko started working at Mastodon, his focus was to create the code and conditions for the kind of social network he imagined. The legal configuration was a means to an end, a quick fix to allow it to continue operations. From the beginning, he declared that Mastodon would not be for sale and that it would be free from the control of a single rich individual, and that he could make sure that, because he was the controller , the sole ultimate decision maker,” Mastodon said. a blog post.
Last year, the company formed a non-profit based in the United States to get more funds and grants with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on the board.. 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 working on a rival decentralized network, is it is said to grow a new round of funding from investors at a valuation of $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 place where the new entity will be installed.
“We are taking time to select the appropriate jurisdiction and structure in Europe. Then we will determine what other (subsidiary) legal structures are needed to support operations and sustainability,” the post said.
“Across the board, 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 recent months, the ownership of open-source projects has been a recurring news subject. For example, people questioned the control some WordPress community projects being in the hands of WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg. Mastodon tries to avoid situations where only one person has decision-making power with today’s new structure.
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2025-01-13 11:00:00
