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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
by kristopher 6y ago
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/ https://zen-lang.org/zig/
[1] https://www.zen-lang.org/ja-JP/docs/ch06-interface/ https://www.zen-lang.org/ja-JP/docs/ch06-interface/
- xtian 6y agoCan 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?
- justin66 6y agoDude... what are you even doing?
- badsectoracula 6y agoAsking money for a compiler, the audacity!
- hitekker 6y agoCan you explain why you were banned from Zig?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kristoff_it 6y agoCan 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/FF75D797BF8A8562102A23936240FF60A15248A6D91AF8F8F1D741CC24A962DD/40/ja 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)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- akhong 6y agoGot a "System error occurred. If the error occurs repeatedly, please contact the Help Desk." Probably taken down?
- kristopher 6y agoHi 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.
- dnautics 6y agosince 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?
- kristopher 6y agoOur communication with the ZSF seems to be on the rocks. If they can communicate politely, this could be possible. The ZSF has my email address.
- 6y ago
- kstenerud 6y agoOn whose authority was https://github.com/ziglang/zig/pull/2701 https://github.com/ziglang/zig/pull/2701 made, and what are the implications for the Zig project now that the referenced commit (https://github.com/ziglang/zig/commit/aa60d2a688c965dcccf8e2c42afe5c180daba8fc https://github.com/ziglang/zig/commit/aa60d2a688c965dcccf8e2...) is part of the codebase?
- AndyKelley 6y agoIt is not part of the codebase. I immediately reverted the commit in question[1] and then I fixed the bug independently[2]. [1]: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/commit/8ed88280a62f2a400d00b5ac20618539693dad36 https://github.com/ziglang/zig/commit/8ed88280a62f2a400d00b5... [2]: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/commit/9050a07540b7387dade8184d3a3daf957e805e4f https://github.com/ziglang/zig/commit/9050a07540b7387dade818...
- dnautics 6y agohey folks, don't downvote this, it seems like this is a good opportunity for a conversation!
- vesche 6y agoAre you blind to the fact that you're causing damage & frustration to one of the coolest open-source projects to pop-up over the past 5 years?
- turndown 6y agoWhat 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 after posting this did you regret it as a foolish midnight decision?
- kristopher 6y agoSorry, but I was a top contributor to Zig when we forked it. What did you contribute? No regrets, by the way -- conversation is important.
- fastball 6y agoYou were the 5th top contributor, which isn't much considering the actual top contributor (Andrew Kelley) still accounts for 60% of commits, even years after your fork "at 0.3". Speaking of the fork at v0.3, in your response you forgot to address the claim that Zen has lifted changes almost wholesale made to Zig post-0.3. You'd think if Connectfree was doing all this heavy-lifting (as you seem keen to claim), it would be the other way around, no?
- kristopher 6y agoThank-you for the question. Most of heavy lifting is in the actual compiler itself and in the vtables/trait interface feature. Although the cpp implementation now differs most, we never claimed to be a hard fork of Zig.
- turndown 6y agoOf 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?
- ratww 6y agoWill you release contributor No. 2 from the anti-compete and allow them contribute again to Zig?
- kristopher 6y agoSorry, cannot talk about individual cases.
- tssva 6y agoCannot and will not are two different things.
- darthrupert 6y agoPlease stop making the world a worse place. There are so many other fields you could contribute to.
- kahlonel 6y agoI'd never pay for your compiler. I don't care what features it has over Zig.