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Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

ziglang.org

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Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#81

Post by falcolas »

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.

That's one of the costs of using the MIT and BSD licenses: anybody can take it and go private/for-profit with it (without giving back even a "thanks"), and all the author can do is issue a strongly worded statement about it.

Moreover, they can't even claim the moral high ground when writing the strongly worded statement, since they've made the explicit choice to give up any and all rights to the product.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#82

Post by masklinn »

tyingq wrote: post #75
masklinn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple (100€£$/year) The compiler is not commercial and does not require a developer account.

Can you get the compiled binary into the app store? Or to end users in some other way?

> 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.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#83

Post by TurboHaskal »

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…

I must have missed the boat as well. I paid for two different compilers last year.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#84

Post by pfraze »

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 value. You capture social credibility and market awareness which you can convert in a variety of ways, including monetarily (by selling complementary products/services, by donation models, or by getting a job that you might not have had the career-credentials to get otherwise). As an aside to elaborate on this point: a lot of the recent debate about paying FOSS maintainers has to do with projects which realized all the potential social value-capture, and left creators with an externality of maintenance.

Intuitively, I think people understand that forking and rebranding a project without a really strong motivation can be scummy, but I don't think people can verbalize why. This is why: you're attempting to steal the upside which the creator is the in the process of capturing.

And FWIW, anybody saying that a blogpost is weak action and you ought to be going to court is ignoring that, when the value you're capturing is reputation, then public discourse is the tool you want to be using to manage it.

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#85

Post by dnautics »

kristopher wrote: post #80
kristoff_it wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why you're attempting to register a "ZIG" trademark in Japan? https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/TR/JP-2020-078615/FF... (for people that can't read japanese: click the "english" link on the top right for a translation) (edit: fixed link, I pasted another trademark registration by connectfree by mistake)

Hi Loris, thanks for the question and congratulations on your new role at the Zig Software Foundation. We originally planned on supporting Zig in Japan via support contracts and this is from that preparation. Trademarks have multiple categories and one such category is for contract work and related materials. We don't plan to use this trademark to harm Zig.

since you have instead settled on forking as the zen PL, which is your right to do, would you turn that trademark over to the zig foundation as a show of good faith?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#86

Post by dnautics »

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…

hey folks, don't downvote this, it seems like this is a good opportunity for a conversation!

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#87

Post by CyberRabbi »

kristoff_it wrote: post #63
learc83 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Precisely.

Two logical issues with that position:

1. Why do you believe that No. 2 can make valuable contributions to Zig if you do not value his contributions to Zen?

2. Why do you believe that No. 2 would be a potential contributor to Zig if he weren’t otherwise legally restricted?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#88

Post by zimpenfish »

tyingq wrote: post #75
masklinn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple (100€£$/year) The compiler is not commercial and does not require a developer account.

Can you get the compiled binary into the app store? Or to end users in some other way?

You can host the binary on your web site / store; it's not as smooth an experience for the end user, certainly, but it is possible.

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/mac-app-unide...

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#89

Post by kristoff_it »

kristopher wrote: post #80
kristoff_it wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why you're attempting to register a "ZIG" trademark in Japan? https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/TR/JP-2020-078615/FF... (for people that can't read japanese: click the "english" link on the top right for a translation) (edit: fixed link, I pasted another trademark registration by connectfree by mistake)

Hi Loris, thanks for the question and congratulations on your new role at the Zig Software Foundation. We originally planned on supporting Zig in Japan via support contracts and this is from that preparation. Trademarks have multiple categories and one such category is for contract work and related materials. We don't plan to use this trademark to harm Zig.

> We don't plan to use this trademark to harm Zig.

Of course you don't. How about we register a Japanese ZSF subsidiary and you hand it over?

Re: Statement Regarding the Zen Programming Language

#90

Post by masklinn »

falcolas wrote: post #81
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.

That's one of the costs of using the MIT and BSD licenses: anybody can take it and go private/for-profit with it (without giving back even a "thanks"), and all the author can do is issue a strongly worded statement about it. Moreover, they can't even claim the moral high ground when writing the strongly worded statement, since they've made the explicit choice to give up any and all rights to the product.

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.

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