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by tl 2108 days ago
Taking the story at face value: Zen lied to customers and the community, hired a developer away from Zig, and that developer cannot work on Zig now due to an NDA.

GPL violations are not unknown. Would Zen have really cared about breaking the license? Would legal mechanisms work fast enough to limit damage?
1 comments
CyberRabbi 2108 days ago
All of that developers work on zen would be available to the zig foundation if it were licensed GPL.

If it were licensed GPL and they were violating that license they could sue in the legal system instead of writing a blog post with dubious effect.

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we2341 2108 days ago
>All of that developers work on zen would be available to the zig foundation if it were licensed GPL.

False. the changes and the license only need to be extended to Zen's customers. They don't need to be provided back to Zig.

>If it were licensed GPL and they were violating that license they could sue in the legal system instead of writing a blog post with dubious effect.

Suing isn't a good idea even if you have a case. The blog post does more with less effort.

Even if Zig and Zen were GPL the employees agreement can be structured such that his work on Zen can not be used for Zig. There's an FAQ for this sort of stuff: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DevelopChangesU...

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CyberRabbi 2108 days ago
>>All of that developers work on zen would be available to the zig foundation if it were licensed GPL.

>False. the changes and the license only need to be extended to Zen's customers. They don't need to be provided back to Zig.

Zen makes their system available for free download to the public, thus would be forced to provide source to the public. https://zen-lang.org/ja-JP/download/

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AnIdiotOnTheNet 2108 days ago
Has anyone ever perused legal action based on a GPL violation? Last I checked, even the biggest piece of GPL software in existence, the Linux kernel, gets its violated without legal repercussions.
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yjftsjthsd-h 2108 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BusyBox#GPL_lawsuits
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monocasa 2108 days ago
Yes, there have been several successful GPL violation lawsuits.
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dnautics 2108 days ago
and where would the money and time to pursue a lawsuit come from?
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mouldysammich 2108 days ago
This is the purpose of the FSF as far as I understand. One of their goals is enforcement of the GPL
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MaxBarraclough 2108 days ago
I believe the FSF only use their legal resources to defend software whose copyright has been assigned to them.

https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2014/spring/copyright-assignmen...

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CyberRabbi 2108 days ago
From the Zig foundation
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dnautics 2108 days ago
that's laughable. How much do you suppose it would cost to hire an international lawyer to pursue a case in a foreign country. Even if there were enough resources, do you think that the stakeholders in the Zig Foundation would consider that to be a reasonable use of the funds that they've donated?

I certainly wouldn't. As a donor, as far as I can tell, this is as good as they could do. I'm much happier that they spend their money on code, and leave it at a statement that can grab attention, like what they have done.

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CyberRabbi 2108 days ago
Roughly $100K-$200K maximum and it would be a good use of time if it would recover potentially millions for the foundation.
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AndyKelley 2108 days ago
good lord. our budget is public; you can see we have some 30K in the bank, with $3500 income per month. We will not be wasting donors' money on a lawyer.
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nemothekid 2108 days ago
>recover potentially millions for the foundation.

You really believe a guy setting up a superficial fork in his basement has "millions" to pay out in damages?

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