Dang, everyone is getting that FUTO money lately it seems like 
Iām trying to keep an open mind / trying not to rush to conclusions as I donāt know a lot about FUTO apart from what I read today, and what I vaguely remember from the Grayjay app announcement a while back. But Iām somewhat uncomfortable with the vagueness of Futoās business model (generally speaking), and what they expect in return when they fund a project like Immich and how much control/power they receive in exchange for funding.
If they arenāt a non-profit making no strings attached donations (they arenāt) and they are not a venture capital firm (they say they are not). What exactly are they? Iād like to understand their incentives, constraints, and structure, beyond the flowery philosophical statements they make, which I are values are share, but not a business model nor anything concrete and defined.
What I am happy about and hopeful for regardless of the above is that Immichās developers will be fairly compensated for their hard work. On paper the things Futo says they stand for are good things. And that Immich development could possibly be more sustainable over the long term with this partnership.
There will be a Q&A livestream happening next week, and there is an ongoing reddit thread started by Immichās creator here
It does definitely seem like a Signal situation, where things just exist because I guess a billionaire wants it to, and you just have to trust that theyāll be cool forever?
I feel like if I were a billionaire Iād want to do something like FUTO, except fully FOSS and self-hostable in all aspectsā¦ Of course this is perhaps why Iām not a billionaire, I donāt have that billionaire mindset 
What I will point out though is that many FUTO projects do receive no-strings-attached grants (at least to my understanding). Some projects like Grayjay and Circles and now Immich seem to have different agreements than that, but FUTO is also funding legit fully FOSS projects as well.
From my understanding Grayjay, Circles, the Futo Keyboard etc. are all Futo projects that they develop and own, The situation with Immich Iām not too clear on though. From my personal view Iād say as long as Louis Rossman is still heavily involved Iāll give them some trust, if he ever leaves theyāll have to work hard to maintain that level of trust since heās usually pretty outspoken on things.
Yeah, all the FUTO āProjectsā are theirs, the legendary grant recipients are not.
It sounds to me like Immich will become a FUTO Project, same as Circles, et al.
I agree, Rossman lends them a lot of credibility. I canāt think of a single instance where heās been dishonest or untrustworthy. Still best to look at other factors instead of just deferring to authority of course, but it certainly helps FUTOās case.
Now I want a billionaire to built cool things like this with me tooš
Clearly I need to find a billionaire that likes Privacy Guides 
I mean I havenāt checked the legal future thread in a while but you could try for a FUTO grant depending on how the plan is looking for the legal future.