5 ms·

Really nice to see a solidly valuable project develop a sustainable foundation instead of turning into yet another VC-backed devtools startup that will inevitab

by bos 10mo ago

Really nice to see a solidly valuable project develop a sustainable foundation instead of turning into yet another VC-backed devtools startup that will inevitably die in a few years.

neural_thing 10mo ago
"sustainable foundation" it's still one guy funding it, no? seems as sustainable as before
- simonw 10mo ago
  33 additional people funding it as of this announcement: https://hcb.hackclub.com/ghostty/transactions https://hcb.hackclub.com/ghostty/transactions
- mitchellh 10mo ago
  You can't build a house without the foundation (pun intended). I said in the linked post that I remain the largest donor, but this helps lay bricks such that we can build a sustainable community that doesn't rely on me financially or technically. There simply wasn't a vehicle before that others could even join in financially. Now there is. All of the above was mentioned in the post. If you want more details, please read it. I assume you didn't. I'll begin some donor reach out and donor relationship work eventually. The past few months has been enough work simply coordinating this process, meeting with accountants and lawyers to figure out the right path forward, meeting with other software foundations to determine proper processes etc. I'm going to take a breather, then hop back in. :)
- skywhopper 10mo ago
  How do you expect that to change? What is the next step in your mind? Maybe asking for donations? If only he would set up some way that the general public could contribute money to the project! That’d be the smart thing to do. Then he could write a blog post about it, and maybe someone would post a link to HN. That’d really be something.
- fragmede 10mo ago
  To be fair, that one guy happens to be the OG Mitchell Hashimoto, who's worth a giant pile of money from selling terraform to IBM, and he's the guy actually writing it in the first place, so I don't think that's, like, a terrible horrible no good issue.
zikduruqe 10mo ago
Good. Maybe they'll add search to the terminal now. /s
- simonw 10mo ago
  https://twitter.com/mitchellh/status/1993728538344906978 https://twitter.com/mitchellh/status/1993728538344906978 - "Ghostty on macOS now has search [...] GTK to follow soon" - November 26th 2025
  - mitchellh 10mo ago
    GTK is also merged. Main branch has search. Its also exposed via libghostty for embedders.
  - anorwell 10mo ago
    But only in the the tip (nightly) build. I'm somewhat tempted to switch to them for this.
    - cpach 10mo ago
      A while ago I compiled Ghostty from HEAD, because it had a bug fix I cared for. It was a very stable and pleasant experience. No hassle whatsoever.
      - memco 10mo ago
        If you'd like you can also use `tip` as the update channel to get the nightly build binary without having to compile it yourself: https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference#auto-update-channel https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference#auto-update-channe...
        cpach 10mo ago
        Ah. Cool!
      - ilvez 10mo ago
mindcrash 10mo ago
Rather thank IBM for paying Mitchell an outrageous amount of money for Hashicorp, so he can devote all of his time on awesome projects like Ghostty without ever thinking about sustainable income ever again. So thanks, IBM! <3
- heipei 10mo ago
  I'd rather he'd still be working on Nomad to be honest, but Ghostty is a good consolation prize ;)
- veverkap 10mo ago
  While you're not wrong, I think this undersells a little how much Mitchell has given of his time to OSS. Yes, he's fortunate that he doesn't have to worry about money, but even when he did, he still contributed openly and freely. That's part of what drew lots of us to HashiCorp in the first place - giving back.
  - mindcrash 10mo ago
    It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but as you can see elsewhere in this discussion thread he mentions this himself on his own X account: "get asked the same about terminals all the time. “How will you turn this into a business? What’s the monetization strategy?” The monetization strategy is that my bank account has 3 commas mate." https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1964785527741427940 https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1964785527741427940 Take a good guess where the three commas come from.
    - charcircuit 10mo ago
      >The monetization strategy is that my bank account has 3 commas mate." Having money doesn't mean that you'll have the motivation to continue working on something for free forever.
      - lillecarl 10mo ago
        Free work is the most rewarding work on every metric but monetization in my experience, and when you hit road bumps you can pay your way out of it to keep going. Sounds like the literal dream
jarjoura 10mo ago
There are hundreds of thousands of software engineers who, given FU amounts of money, would absolutely keep writing software and do it only for the love of it. The companies that hire us usually make us sign promises that we won't work on side projects. Even if there are legal workarounds to that, it's not quite so simple. Even still, whatever high salaries they do give us just flow right back into the neighborhoods through insane property values and other cost-of-living expenses that negate any gains. So, it’s always just the few of us who can win that lottery and truly break out of the cycle.
- yalok 10mo ago
  moonlighting is permitted by law in California (companies legally can't prevent you from doing it, iiuc), as long as there's no conflict of interest with your main job...
  - fragmede 10mo ago
    As long as you don't use their hardware to do it.
    - jarjoura 10mo ago
      that goes without saying, but it's still not free permission when you use your own stuff.
  - jarjoura 10mo ago
    "no conflict of interest" is basically meaningless if your day job is writing software. These clauses you sign are quite broad in what that scope of conflict could be. Every company I've worked for has had very explicit rules that say, you must get written permission from someone at some director or VP level sign off on your "side project," open source or not. You might want to check your company guidelines around this just to make sure you're safe.
    - kyrra 10mo ago
      Side projects that aren't a conflict of interest when working at Google is rather limiting. Likely less so for small companies.

by bos 10mo ago

Really nice to see a solidly valuable project develop a sustainable foundation instead of turning into yet another VC-backed devtools startup that will inevitably die in a few years.

neural_thing 10mo ago

"sustainable foundation" it's still one guy funding it, no? seems as sustainable as before

simonw 10mo ago
33 additional people funding it as of this announcement: https://hcb.hackclub.com/ghostty/transactions https://hcb.hackclub.com/ghostty/transactions
mitchellh 10mo ago
You can't build a house without the foundation (pun intended). I said in the linked post that I remain the largest donor, but this helps lay bricks such that we can build a sustainable community that doesn't rely on me financially or technically. There simply wasn't a vehicle before that others could even join in financially. Now there is. All of the above was mentioned in the post. If you want more details, please read it. I assume you didn't. I'll begin some donor reach out and donor relationship work eventually. The past few months has been enough work simply coordinating this process, meeting with accountants and lawyers to figure out the right path forward, meeting with other software foundations to determine proper processes etc. I'm going to take a breather, then hop back in. :)
skywhopper 10mo ago
How do you expect that to change? What is the next step in your mind? Maybe asking for donations? If only he would set up some way that the general public could contribute money to the project! That’d be the smart thing to do. Then he could write a blog post about it, and maybe someone would post a link to HN. That’d really be something.
fragmede 10mo ago
To be fair, that one guy happens to be the OG Mitchell Hashimoto, who's worth a giant pile of money from selling terraform to IBM, and he's the guy actually writing it in the first place, so I don't think that's, like, a terrible horrible no good issue.

zikduruqe 10mo ago

Good. Maybe they'll add search to the terminal now. /s

simonw 10mo ago
https://twitter.com/mitchellh/status/1993728538344906978 https://twitter.com/mitchellh/status/1993728538344906978 - "Ghostty on macOS now has search [...] GTK to follow soon" - November 26th 2025
- mitchellh 10mo ago
  GTK is also merged. Main branch has search. Its also exposed via libghostty for embedders.
- anorwell 10mo ago
  But only in the the tip (nightly) build. I'm somewhat tempted to switch to them for this.
  - cpach 10mo ago
    A while ago I compiled Ghostty from HEAD, because it had a bug fix I cared for. It was a very stable and pleasant experience. No hassle whatsoever.
    - memco 10mo ago
      If you'd like you can also use `tip` as the update channel to get the nightly build binary without having to compile it yourself: https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference#auto-update-channel https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference#auto-update-channe...
      - cpach 10mo ago
        Ah. Cool!
    - ilvez 10mo ago

mindcrash 10mo ago

Rather thank IBM for paying Mitchell an outrageous amount of money for Hashicorp, so he can devote all of his time on awesome projects like Ghostty without ever thinking about sustainable income ever again. So thanks, IBM! <3

heipei 10mo ago
I'd rather he'd still be working on Nomad to be honest, but Ghostty is a good consolation prize ;)
veverkap 10mo ago
While you're not wrong, I think this undersells a little how much Mitchell has given of his time to OSS. Yes, he's fortunate that he doesn't have to worry about money, but even when he did, he still contributed openly and freely. That's part of what drew lots of us to HashiCorp in the first place - giving back.
- mindcrash 10mo ago
  It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but as you can see elsewhere in this discussion thread he mentions this himself on his own X account: "get asked the same about terminals all the time. “How will you turn this into a business? What’s the monetization strategy?” The monetization strategy is that my bank account has 3 commas mate." https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1964785527741427940 https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1964785527741427940 Take a good guess where the three commas come from.
  - charcircuit 10mo ago
    >The monetization strategy is that my bank account has 3 commas mate." Having money doesn't mean that you'll have the motivation to continue working on something for free forever.
    - lillecarl 10mo ago
      Free work is the most rewarding work on every metric but monetization in my experience, and when you hit road bumps you can pay your way out of it to keep going. Sounds like the literal dream

jarjoura 10mo ago

There are hundreds of thousands of software engineers who, given FU amounts of money, would absolutely keep writing software and do it only for the love of it. The companies that hire us usually make us sign promises that we won't work on side projects. Even if there are legal workarounds to that, it's not quite so simple. Even still, whatever high salaries they do give us just flow right back into the neighborhoods through insane property values and other cost-of-living expenses that negate any gains. So, it’s always just the few of us who can win that lottery and truly break out of the cycle.

yalok 10mo ago
moonlighting is permitted by law in California (companies legally can't prevent you from doing it, iiuc), as long as there's no conflict of interest with your main job...
- fragmede 10mo ago
  As long as you don't use their hardware to do it.
  - jarjoura 10mo ago
    that goes without saying, but it's still not free permission when you use your own stuff.
- jarjoura 10mo ago
  "no conflict of interest" is basically meaningless if your day job is writing software. These clauses you sign are quite broad in what that scope of conflict could be. Every company I've worked for has had very explicit rules that say, you must get written permission from someone at some director or VP level sign off on your "side project," open source or not. You might want to check your company guidelines around this just to make sure you're safe.
  - kyrra 10mo ago
    Side projects that aren't a conflict of interest when working at Google is rather limiting. Likely less so for small companies.