Live data from Hacker News

GPUI 2 is now in production – Zed

zed.dev

1–10 of 21 posts

Re: GPUI 2 is now in production – Zed

#4
I'd love to try this, though the large number of projects that only support MacOS perplexes me. This excludes at least 80% of people with computers that would like to use your software and effectively limits it to a class of folk with money, creating a sort of nasty exclusivity to the software that does this when there doesn't seem to be a platform-limiting factor.

Their Windows Support Issue was opened on Jun 29, 2022 and the Linux one on the same day, so they're just under two years old. It seems that this isn't source-available right now either, though they mention they'll open source it at some point, but it prevents contributions toward this end too.

The websites this (https://github.com/zed-industries/community/issues/2197) list as the reason for blocking the other OSes though it's quite sparse and doesn't say much.

Genuine and non-argumentative question; why? Easier to focus on one platform for the purposes of achieving good stability before supporting more than one OS, or trying to get a userbase that is typically more willing to pay for your software? Investor pressure?

Edit: Another comment mentioned the FAQ. So it is about validating the project toward the end of making money it seems. I guess they chose Mac because Apple people have a history of being more willing to pay for stuff.

Re: GPUI 2 is now in production – Zed

#6
post #5

Nothing about whether they might support other OSs :/

They mention it in their Issues on GitHub though it appears no work has been done toward that.

From their FAQs:

  We are a small team, so it's critical for us to be laser-focused. As a startup, one of our key priorities at this early phase is learning, and right now, we're focused on the following questions:

    What are the key features we need to get traction on any platform?
    Are our assumptions about our eventual business model valid?

  While we'd love to support users on Linux and Windows, adding those platforms doesn't really help us answer those questions.

https://zed.dev/faq

Re: GPUI 2 is now in production – Zed

#8
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention it in their Issues on GitHub though it appears no work has been done toward that.

From their FAQs: We are a small team, so it's critical for us to be laser-focused. As a startup, one of our key priorities at this early phase is learning, and right now, we're focused on the following questions: What are the key features we need to get traction on any platform? Are our assumptions about our eventual business model valid? While we'd love to support users on Linux and Windows, adding those platforms d…

Thanks. I went off of what they had posted on GitHub and the linked issues and reasons.

Re: GPUI 2 is now in production – Zed

#9
I see the measurements on the homepage lists zed and sublime as basically the same. Anyone know how they measure - and how helix and neovim compare?

I'm not bothered at all with helix startup time...

Re: GPUI 2 is now in production – Zed

#10
If Zed plan to open source the editor, what is the monetisation strategy? Paid features like "multiplayer"? How does that feature work for companies that don't allow code to leave their networks?

> GPUI rasterizes the entire window on the GPU

Other programs I have seen do this on Linux and Windows tend to have blurry fonts. I hope that is not also the case here.

Post reply on HN