Corporations and investor-funded projects dominate the AI scene. Several projects and platforms that originally launch as free and ‘for the people’ eventually come under corporate control. Censorship, public image, and profits take priority over serving the user base that helped make the project or platform successful.
During RPWithAI’s conversation with Henky and Concedo, the developers of KoboldCpp, we discussed why KoboldCpp is a project that doesn’t accept user donations and how its principles have helped it remain free, open-source, and independent.
No Donations, Enjoy It As A Hobby
Henky and Concedo have never allowed people to support KoboldCpp through donations. KoboldCpp’s principles have attracted contributors who enjoy maintaining and improving the open-source backend out of passion or as a hobby.
Instead [of donations], our funds are how much enjoyment the contributors have in adding things, that’s key. If they don’t find it fun to work on it anymore, that’s when the project would end. So the biggest form of support is just in love for the project, people letting us know they enjoy using it, spreading the word, etc.
Henky, KoboldCpp’s Developer, in a conversation with RPWithAI.
Adding donations to the mix could make tasks seem more like a job or obligation. Some donors might feel entitled to have their suggestions or feature requests included, and developers may feel compelled to do so because of a donor’s request.
If I accepted donations, it would feel like a job. People who donated would either feel entitled to something, or I would feel obliged to do it. And I don’t want that.
Concedo, KoboldCpp’s Developer, in a conversation with RPWithAI.
Another challenge Henky and Concedo would face if they accepted any financial support would be deciding how to split the funds and assigning a monetary value to contributors who support the project.
And there’s another part to it. If we as a project were to accept money, that means one of us has to decide who should be receiving what portion and how valuable the contributors are. That’s a really good way to kill the fun of it real quick.”
Henky, KoboldCpp’s Developer, in a conversation with RPWithAI.
Donations also compromise privacy and make it harder to manage public opinion about the project. Since KoboldCpp doesn’t accept monetary support of any kind, no one can accuse the project of making decisions solely for profit.
Say No To Evil, Reject Corporate Influence
Henky has also turned down investor and sponsorship opportunities to uphold KoboldCpp’s principles, prioritizing users’ interests above all.
I even had an investor opportunity at some point. But I turned them down, users first. I basically told them that if they wanted to give us resources and help us out, I’d be willing to accept that, but that we were not interested in commercializing.
Henky, KoboldCpp’s Developer, in a conversation with RPWithAI.
Never heard back from them after that. They did end up giving grants to some other projects later down the line, but in our case, it was not an unconditional grant, nor would we have had much use for the money. Same thing with sponsor opportunities in the past.
Many alternatives that emerged after KoboldCpp have become more popular than the project because they receive funding or resources with strings attached. KoboldCpp doesn’t have the same resources as these commercial projects. However, KoboldCpp’s developers and contributors have been doing their best to stay competitive with other investor-funded projects.
Commercial entity feels like such a trap, though. They are going to have to monetize those development teams somehow. Investor money is cool and all, but eventually, they want a return on [their] investment. So then, suddenly, you get the upselling to cloud rentals, you get features behind paywalls, data collection, etc.
Henky, KoboldCpp’s Developer, in a conversation with RPWithAI.
And it’s by design that Henky and Concedo can easily say no to evil and reject corporate influence. The project’s licensing permits anyone to fork KoboldCpp and remove any features added solely to please investors or commercialize the product.
I always had the goal to defeat the evil version of myself before he could possibly exist, so Kobold, from the ground up, was designed to be impossible to corrupt like that. If we ever started including those anti-user features with the AGPL, all people would have to do is make a fork that removes them again. You’d lose the user base overnight to a fork, and that’s by design. It means we can’t even choose to be evil if we wanted to.
Henky, KoboldCpp’s Developer, in a conversation with RPWithAI.
In a scene dominated by investors and corporate interests, KoboldCpp’s principles have helped the project to remain free, open-source, and independent. The developers and contributors work on the project out of passion and always focus on what’s best for the users.
Referrals For Cloud Computing Services
While KoboldCpp doesn’t accept direct monetary support of any kind, it does provide a referral link for cloud computing services like RunPod and Novita AI. Users can use these services to rent GPUs and run an instance of KoboldCpp to access large models that can’t be run on their local systems.
But KoboldCpp has never made any changes to its software or influenced users to use these services through its referral link in any other way. Henky still recommends that users with hardware limitations use KoboldCpp via Google Colab since it’s free. Using KoboldCpp through Runpod or Novita AI is an option for users who want that kind of computing power, not a compulsion.
Instead of cashing out the funds earned through referrals, Henky invests them back into the community.
With the referral credit, there’s a simple solution. I simply don’t cash it. Whenever we need an instance, we just spin one up. If there’s other community things going on that need funds, they allow us to transfer it [to them]. Then it becomes an “as-needed” thing rather than people feeling left out.
Henky, KoboldCpp’s Developer, in a conversation with RPWithAI.
It’s not KoboldCpp telling you that you can use RunPod and shoving that in your face. It’s more in the sense that we know [it’s] a good provider, and if people want to run their own instance, they can do so privately instead of paying us for it, so we mention it in the readme. We only get a commission for recommending it, but we recommend it because it’s [both] easy to use and stable enough.
KoboldCpp’s Principles: Free, Open-Source, And Independent
KoboldCpp’s Principles have helped it remain free, open-source, and independent. In a space where corporate greed and investor appeasement often cause promising projects to fail, KoboldCpp continues to prioritize users’ interests above all else.
The project has attracted contributors who dedicate their time out of passion and see it as a hobby. The community unites to support the developers in maintaining KoboldCpp, helping it compete with other commercial products that have dedicated development teams.
While KoboldCpp may not be as flashy and polished as its competitors, it won’t hide features behind a paywall, upsell cloud services, try to monetize its product, or collect your data to sell to the highest bidder. Because if the developers stray from KoboldCpp’s principles, a new fork will quickly emerge to replace it.
