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It's not really clear from the thread what the complaint is though there is an implication of misspent or wasted funds.

Looking at the About section, and the people involved [1] there appears to be at least a misalignment between the purely technical (?) vision of the tweet and the much wider remit of a foundation that he started years ago.

Things change, priorities move on. Is there something rotten here as rather vaguely implied? Perhaps, but it's possible there is just a disappointment at the child choosing a very different path to that desired by the parent.

[1] https://processingfoundation.org/people



The criticism seemed pretty clear. He said that last year 800k was spent, and none of it went into development of Processing itself. And that next year they plan to spend 1.2 million, and of that, only 2 developers are planned to spend any time further developing Processing.

And he said that's no better than what they had prior the foundation when him and Casey were working on Processing. That he started the foundation in the hope to scale up development.

Now, I have no idea what they could have allocated money on, isn't it sole purpose to further develop Processing? But my guess is they are doing outreach, grants, and other stuff like that, as opposed to further development. But that's just speculation on my part.


The purpose of the foundation has grown wider than the original Processing software, and encompasses things like p5js and its editor.


Your comments above seem to be implying that Ben’s concerns are only about investment in the original Processing software. Is this the case? Are there more devs being funded to work on p5js?


yes. they have been funding fellowship projects and grants for p5 more than Processing for years. Ben is just mad that Processing gets less funding but p5 has waaaaay more active users and is used more frequently in mission aligned contexts (education)


> something rotten here as rather vaguely implied

An org which usually potters along turning over small figures receives $10M USD in crypto in 2021, specifically 2021? You tell me.


> there appears to be at least a misalignment between the purely technical (?) vision of the tweet and the much wider remit of a foundation that he started years ago.

Is there? Why do they need to be aligned? The foundation is aligned to who's in charge of it "today". If those mentioned in the tweet are no longer in some sort of control they can't expect it to go the way they "wish".


Yes, but that's partly the point I was making.

The whole thing is a vague lashing out without clear detail of what the exact criticism is or whether it is fair.


Agreed. More clarity would help.

Maybe he wanted to start drawing a salary in order to resume working on Processing again, and the board said no. (That isn’t my first guess about what’s happening, based on the highly polarizing content on the foundation’s website but the thought did cross my mind.)


> It's not really clear from the thread

Wow, didn't realize it was a thread with more info. Not logged in, it only showed me the first tweet in isolation. No thread, comments, nothing.




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