Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

The norm is a neutral relationship

Also relevant concerning the "No 5" contributor, Mr. Tate: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/1530

That link is what the statement references as a sign of Mr. Tate's "flawed technical arguments". I'll admit I'm an outsider and a bit ignorant except for having read the linked issue, but it seems like Tate was reasonable and respectful, and that what seemed like an interesting technical discussion was shut down pre-maturely. Other contributors also said as much.

Again, I'm somewhat ignorant, but seems like some brash and stifling behaviour from a project seeking technical correctness. And then the commit linked above? Immature.

I'll be steering clear.

edit: to be clear, I'm not siding with Tate. Just commenting on the only negative behavior I see.

I don't know of any court cases or other precedent, no. I am working with the definitions of "software" and "program" as I am familiar with them being used in various software licenses. But that doesn't really matter because the only assumptions I'm basing this argument on are contained in the MIT/Expat and what connectFree has done with Zen.

For the sake of the argument, let's grant you the premise that each file is its own "software" (as the word is used in the MIT/Expat). The only requirement of the license is this: "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software." So even if connectFree removed all the copyright notices in the source code files, they still meet that condition because the original Zig license is included in their modified copy of Zig. It doesn't matter what the definition of "software" is here, because they meet the conditions regardless of what that definition is.

I replied to the substance of your comment already, but I also wanted to say that it's a bit frustrating to me that you are downvoted without other replies.

While "freedom" is a fairly generic term (I can be free to kill you or not free to kill you), circumscribing "personal freedom" is reasonable in such situations. Many libertarians would agree that "personal freedom" is bounded by the "Harm principle" so any supposed right to shoot you without fear of reprisal would not be included in the term "personal freedom." Those same people would probably also argue that self-harm (and behavior that places one at risk of self-harm), are absolutely part of personal freedom.

Anarchists might say that "personal freedom" encompasses the right to harm others, and would argue that the repercussions would be natural; the damage to your reputation from harming others would deny you the assistance of others that could be necessary to succeed (or even survive) in the future, and it could also open you up to reprisal.

Some people argue that "personal freedom" includes all, or nearly all forms of free speech. In the US, it is generally agreed upon that defamation and incitement to riot are exceptions due to the harm principle. Many people take it further and say that allowing e.g. a KKK parade in a town should be excluded because it causes harm to the black community by fostering an environment of fear and mistrust, resulting in mental, emotional and financial harm.

I take no disrespect, and agree that a reasonable person could exclude harm to others as part of "personal freedom" I'm less convinced that harm to self isn't "personal freedom" as I think even most of those who support e.g. seatbelt laws would agree that they are a very small infringement on personal freedom in exchange for a very large public-health benefit and are knowingly making that tradeoff.

> MIT license allows it, so where's the problem. It's like people who support freedom of speech, and then cry anytime someone used it to say something they don't like.

You can support freedom of speech and still publicly disagree with what people say. Freedom of speech says that people should not be silenced, not that they can't be disagreed with.