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Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

ziglang.org

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Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#41

Post by ModernMech »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #16
Dork1234 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re branding a MIT license software and selling a commercial version is a good thing if done correctly. Clearly Zen is not providing any added value. The key takeaway from this is you don't sign contracts with overly aggressive business executives. I also think Non-competes should be almost completely banned for most employees.

The key takeaway for me is that a third party is able to use thousands of manhours of someone else’s labor as a basis for their closed source product without having to share their enhancements or pay a dime. If zig were licensed GPL, the zig foundation would be able to sell permissive licenses to companies that don’t want to share source as a way to fundraise.

> a third party is able to use thousands of manhours of someone else’s labor as a basis for their closed source product without having to share their enhancements or pay a dime.

This is my favorite part about open source. Why are you painting it as a bad thing?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#43

Post by kristopher »

Hello HN and sorry for this bizarre drama!

Although we have a page documenting some outlandish comments that the founder of Zig has made about Zen[0], we find it well inside of our rights to fork the MIT Licensed Zig and make a better product with commercial support.

We had initial plans to support Zig in Japan, but efforts to localize Zig were not accepted and we could not take the risk of not having some sort of formal role.

Regarding commercializing compilers: our main market is in embedded and as others have pointed out, charging for compilers and support is not uncommon.

One of our big main differences between Zig is that Zen natively supports vtables and traits that we call interfaces[1].

Although our core market is in Japan, we are preparing our English website and hope to have it out soon.

On a more personal note, I am happy that Zig is growing and that they got the foundation together. At the peak before the fork, I was the 5th largest contributor to Zig, so I am very happy to hear when people say that they are enjoying the language.

It's midnight in Japan, but I will try to field questions if any.

[0] https://zen-lang.org/zig/ [1] https://www.zen-lang.org/ja-JP/docs/ch06-interface/

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#45

Post by learc83 »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #40
kristoff_it wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can't speak with absolute certainty, we probably would not want to merge any "improvement" Zen made.

“Since then, “No. 2” has resigned from their position at connectFree, but won’t be able to contribute to the Zig project for some time because of a “non-compete” clause present in the contract.“ So why do you care if No. 2 is not able to work on Zig if you don’t value the contributions he’s made to Zen?

Maybe they believe that No. 2 is capable of making valuable contributions, but that the specific contributions made at the direction of the Zen founder aren’t valuable.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#46

Post by xtian »

kristopher wrote: post #43

Hello HN and sorry for this bizarre drama! Although we have a page documenting some outlandish comments that the founder of Zig has made about Zen[0], we find it well inside of our rights to fork the MIT Licensed Zig and make a better product with commercial support. We had initial plans to support Zig in Japan, but efforts to localize Zig were not accepted and we could not take the risk of not having some sort of fo…

Can you share your justification for non-compete clauses in employment contracts as well as contracts which take ownership of employee work done outside work hours?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#47

Post by justin66 »

kristopher wrote: post #43

Hello HN and sorry for this bizarre drama! Although we have a page documenting some outlandish comments that the founder of Zig has made about Zen[0], we find it well inside of our rights to fork the MIT Licensed Zig and make a better product with commercial support. We had initial plans to support Zig in Japan, but efforts to localize Zig were not accepted and we could not take the risk of not having some sort of fo…

Dude... what are you even doing?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#48

Post by drcode »

time0ut wrote: post #36
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.

I feel so bad for Andrew. It must be frustrating to pour your heart into something beautiful like zig only to have this sort of thing happen. Now is a great time to sponsor the zig project on github!

Agreed, I have a donation to them in the works already.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#49

Post by hitekker »

kristopher wrote: post #43

Hello HN and sorry for this bizarre drama! Although we have a page documenting some outlandish comments that the founder of Zig has made about Zen[0], we find it well inside of our rights to fork the MIT Licensed Zig and make a better product with commercial support. We had initial plans to support Zig in Japan, but efforts to localize Zig were not accepted and we could not take the risk of not having some sort of fo…

Can you explain why you were banned from Zig?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#50

Post by kodablah »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #2

This is why you always use GPL

For those that believe in software freedoms as fewer restrictions, you have to accept that people may take advantage of your fewer restrictions. This is the cost of giving more (beer) freedom, and you don't have to abandon your principles because of how it manifests. (this has obvious political analogies in other restriction-less freedom contexts too)
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