Comment by RestartKernel

4 days ago

Bit premature to post this, especially without some manifesto explaining the particular reason for this fork. The "no rugpulls" implies something happened with Zed, but you can't really expect every HN reader to be in the loop with the open source controversy of the week.

78 comments

RestartKernel

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eikenberry  4 days ago

Contributor Agreements are specifically there for license rug-pulls, so they can change the license in the future as they own all the copyrights. So the fact that they have a CA means they are prepping for a rug-pull and thus this bullet point.

  • latexr  4 days ago

    I can’t speak for Zed’s specific case, but several years ago I was part of a project which used a permissive license. I wanted to make it even more permissive, by changing it to one of those essentially-public-domain licenses. The person with the ultimate decision power had no objections and was fine with it, but said we couldn’t do that because we never had Contributor License Agreements. So it cuts both ways.

    • eikenberry  4 days ago

      You seem to be assuming that a more permissive license is good. I don't believe this is true. Linux kernel is a great example of a project where going more permissive would be a terrible idea.

      1 reply →

  • Conlectus  4 days ago

    I’m not sure where this belief came from, or why the people who believe it feel so strongly about it, but this is not generally true.

    With the exception of GPL derivatives, most popular licenses such as MIT already include provisions allowing you to relicense or create derivative works as desired. So even if you follow the supposed norm that without an explicit license agreement all open source contributions should be understood to be licensed by contributors under the same terms as the license of the project, this would still allow the project owners to “rug pull” (create a fork under another license) using those contributions.

    But given that Zed appears to make their source available under the Apache 2.0 license, the GPL exception wouldn’t apply.

  • hsn915  4 days ago

    CA means: this is not just a hobby project, it's a business, and we want to retain the power to make business decisions as we see fit.

    I don't like the term "rug-pull". It's misleading.

    If you have an open source version of Zed today, you can keep it forever, even if future versions switch to closed source or some source-available only model.

    • jeremyjh  4 days ago

      If you build a product and a community around a certain set of values, and then you completely swap value systems its a rug pull. They build a user base by offering something they don't intend to continue offering. What the fuck else do you want to call it?

      2 replies →

  • zahlman  4 days ago

    CLAs represent an important legal protection, and I would never accept a PR from a stranger, for something being developed in public, without one. They're the simplest way to prove that the contributor consented to licensing the code under the terms of the project license, and a CYA in case the contributed code is e.g. plagiarized from another party.

    (I see that I have received two downvotes for this in mere minutes, but no replies. I genuinely don't understand the basis for objecting to what I have to say here, and could not possibly understand it without a counterargument. What I'm saying seems straightforward and obvious to me; I wouldn't say it otherwise.)

  • jen20  4 days ago

    Are you suggesting the FSF has a copyright assignment for the purposes of “rug pulls”?

    • ilc  4 days ago

      Yes.

      The FSF requires assignment so they can re-license the code to whatever new license THEY deem best.

      Not the contributors.

      A CLA should always be a warning.

      4 replies →

NoboruWataya  4 days ago

Zed is quite well known to be heavily cloud- and AI-focused, it seems clear that's what's motivating this fork. It's not some new controversy, it's just the clearly signposted direction of the project that many don't like.

  • aurareturn  4 days ago

    I remember it started out as a native app editor that is all about speed. I think it only started focusing on AI after LLMs blew up.

decentrality  4 days ago

Seems like it might be reacting to or fanned to flame by: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/36604

  • Squarex  4 days ago

    [flagged]

    • barbazoo  4 days ago

      > Are they really boycotting jews now?

      Just because they're boycotting someone who happens to be Jewish doesn't necessarily mean they're boycotting them because of it.

      > Zed just announced that they are taking money from Sequoia Capital, which has a partner, Shaun Maguire, who has recently been publicly and unapologetically Islamophobic. It seems hard to believe that the team didn't know about this, as it was covered in the New York Times. In addition, Maguire has been actively pro-occupation and genocide in Palestine for nearly 2 years.

      > How can anyone feel like the Code of Conduct means anything at all, when Sequoia is an investor? I'm shocked and surprised at the Zed team for this - I expected much better.

      Reads like it has more to do with what they said and done in the past which seems reasonable.

      2 replies →

marcosdumay  4 days ago

They got a VC investment.

But a fork with focus on privacy and local-first only needs lack of those to justify itself. It will have to cut some features that zed is really proud of, so it's hard to even say this is a rugpull.