Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

ziglang.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 299 posts

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#121

Post by [deleted] »

falcolas wrote: post #98
masklinn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except essentially none of the statement takes issue with the forking itself. In fact the author of the statement is active in this very thread and specifically notes that this is very much allowed and is not what they take issue with.

Other than encouraging Japanese users to use Zig instead of Zen, that is. The fact that most of the message was pointing out how poor the character of the Zen authors is doesn't feel good to me, no matter whether the allegations are true or not. It's an appeal to our sense of fairness, "Look at these big bad guys who are profiting off our work". And yet it's really the only argument that could be made by the Zig auth…

[deleted]

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#122

Post by kristoff_it »

pfraze wrote: post #84

Something which people don't always recognize about open source is how "value-capture" works for creators. FOSS eschews direct monetization (selling licenses to the core product) based on an ethical premise (it's unfairly limiting to end-users) and/or a business premise (the ecosystem is a key to the value prop and licenses would slow down the ecosystem growth). None of that means that the creator isn't capturing val…

I think that's a perfectly good point. The ZSF wants to build momentum and have the language take off. We also are looking for money in order to pay core contributors.

I can also share that my own role at the ZSF has as ultimate goal of increasing the total amount of effort spent on Zig.

The core problem with what kristate is doing is that, in a moment where the Zig community needs community members to take initiative and build things around Zig, and where likewise there's a tremendous potential for those individuals to capture a good chunk of value for themselves, all while making the pie bigger, he instead chose to cut a slice and run away with it for what amounts to pure vanity.

Right now we are trying to encourage people to start thinking about building a business around Zig, be it programming in Zig, or writing a Zig programming book, or whatever. I personally started https://zig.show before coming on board and I plan for my own, independent, Zig-related activity to become my main source of income one day.

If you add on top of that, that the guy creating this useless fork has a history of offering a free wifi service that steals personal information and rewrites amazon affiliate links, then you can see why we want to put as much distance as we can. For context: https://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/496423.html

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#123

Post by [deleted] »

falcolas wrote: post #98
masklinn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except essentially none of the statement takes issue with the forking itself. In fact the author of the statement is active in this very thread and specifically notes that this is very much allowed and is not what they take issue with.

Other than encouraging Japanese users to use Zig instead of Zen, that is. The fact that most of the message was pointing out how poor the character of the Zen authors is doesn't feel good to me, no matter whether the allegations are true or not. It's an appeal to our sense of fairness, "Look at these big bad guys who are profiting off our work". And yet it's really the only argument that could be made by the Zig auth…

[deleted]

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#124

Post by brnt »

nindalf wrote: post #3

Probably the strangest part of this is a person trying to sell a paid version of a compiler. Did that person miss the boat by 30 years? All mainstream programming languages today are free and open source. Programming languages are platforms that thrive only when they're widely adopted. The community that adopts it builds the libraries and ecosystem necessary for it to be viable. You can't possibly build a new platfor…

Have a look at the Delphi ecosystem. Used mostly by people who won't learn new things (for various reasons), and don't mind/can afford the lockin.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#125

Post by ziddoap »

kristopher wrote: post #116
0xTJ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really looking forward to Zig becoming more refined. I started writing an x86 kernel, but put that on pause because of known compiler bugs.

Which ones? Chances are that Zen has them fixed. We have a unikernel under Zen that we sell and had to revamp how packed structs were handled.

I can't help but feel slimey on your behalf.

You're ignoring or hand-waving the questions asked of you in this thread, in order to attempt to convert a sale, in a thread about the poor behavior of Zen. Ugh.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#126

Post by turndown »

kristopher wrote: post #108
turndown wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your statement about the fact that Zen clearly takes code from Zig post fork? Do you not find it - extremely - hypocritical that you are using thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lines of someone elses code for free while also mandating your employees enter draconian contracts? Do you think your actions will ostracize you from more communities, as has already occured with yourself and Zig? How quickly…

Sorry, but I was a top contributor to Zig when we forked it. What did you contribute? No regrets, by the way -- conversation is important.

Of course, I don't deny that, what I'm asking is about the code that was incorporated into your project from Zig after version 0.3, such as async/await, mentioned in this very post.

I contributed to Zig by not forking it for my own financial gain ;). What features did you work on in Zig that gives you the right to claim work you didn't do and incorporate it into your project?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#127

Post by pfraze »

kristoff_it wrote: post #122
pfraze wrote: post #84

Something which people don't always recognize about open source is how "value-capture" works for creators. FOSS eschews direct monetization (selling licenses to the core product) based on an ethical premise (it's unfairly limiting to end-users) and/or a business premise (the ecosystem is a key to the value prop and licenses would slow down the ecosystem growth). None of that means that the creator isn't capturing val…

I think that's a perfectly good point. The ZSF wants to build momentum and have the language take off. We also are looking for money in order to pay core contributors. I can also share that my own role at the ZSF has as ultimate goal of increasing the total amount of effort spent on Zig. The core problem with what kristate is doing is that, in a moment where the Zig community needs community members to take initiativ…

I've dealt with this kind of thing before, it's unpleasant, and I wish you the best.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#128

Post by hitekker »

falcolas wrote: post #120
masklinn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other than encouraging Japanese users to use Zig instead of Zen, that is. They're not encouraging users to use zig instead of zen because zen is a private fork, they're discouraging users from using zen because it is zen . > The fact that most of the message was pointing out how poor the character of the Zen authors is doesn't feel good to me Most of the statement has to do with Zen's dubious relationship with the…

> they're discouraging users from using zen because it is zen. And I quote: "we invite all Japanese developers ... to join the global Zig community and enjoy the real deal, without having to pay a single Yen for the privilege." > doesn't point out the poor character of Zen's creator but their poor behaviour Potato, tomato. You're correct that the specifics are different, yet the underlying message is the same: "these…

It’s perfectly reasonable for an Open Source software foundation to point out how a private company is misusing their software and misappropriating their brand.

Saying that Zig’s creators should sit down and be quiet sounds both condescending and craven.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#129

Post by lights0123 »

tyingq wrote: post #106
masklinn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you get the compiled binary into the app store? Can you do something completely unrelated to the question at hand without fulfilling requirements entirely unrelated to the question at hand? No. That doesn't make the compiler commercial. > Or to end users in some other way? You can put your mac application on your website more or less as you've always been able to.

Surely the usefulness of what the compiler outputs is at least related to whether it's commercial or not. If I forked GCC and made a version where the produced binaries would only run on the machine where the compiler ran, and removing that was a subscription...I'd call it a commercial product. (Ignoring the GPL issues)

> only run on the machine where the compiler ran

clang is always a cross-compiler, including the versions shipped by Apple.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#130

Post by skohan »

drcode wrote: post #10

As somebody that just got into Zig and loves the language, it makes me super sad that the developers on this project have to spend their valuable time stressing about BS like this. Also, the ideas the Zen people list on their website for forking Zig are terrible ideas- They were pushing to turn Zig into a hard-to-reason-about vanilla object-oriented programming language.

How close to "production ready" do you feel Zig is, especially in terms of tooling and cross-platform support? It's a super interesting language for me, but I am hesitant to invest in a language which might not be truly usable for years if ever
Post reply on HN