[jorgeleo]

I was all for trying it until I saw this in the License Agreement:

"4.1. Zed's Use of Customer Data Customer hereby grants Zed a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid-up, non-sublicensable (except to service providers and Customer’s designees), non-transferable (except as set forth in Section 15.1) right to use, copy, store, disclose, transmit, transfer, display, modify, create derivative works from, collect, access, store, host, or otherwise process (“Process”) any materials that Customer inputs into or otherwise makes available to the Service (including prompts and other written content) (collectively, “Customer Data”) solely: (a) to perform its obligations set forth in the Terms, including its Support obligations as applicable; (b) to derive and generate Telemetry (see Section 4.4); and (c) as necessary to comply with applicable Laws. Except as required by applicable Laws, Zed will not provide Customer Data to any person or entity other than Customer’s designees (including pursuant to Section 7) or service providers."

Sorry, no I don't agree to make my source code and the product I am working to give you "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid-up, non-sublicensable (except to service providers and Customer’s designees), non-transferable (except as set forth in Section 15.1) right to use, copy, store, disclose, transmit, transfer, display, modify, create derivative works from, collect, access, store, host, or otherwise process (“Process”) any materials that Customer inputs into or otherwise makes available to the Service (including prompts and other written content)"

[meantub]

Aren't you forgetting the part that says "solely: (a) to perform its obligations set forth in the Terms, including its Support obligations as applicable; (b) to derive and generate Telemetry (see Section 4.4); and (c) as necessary to comply with applicable Laws. Except as required by applicable Laws, Zed will not provide Customer Data to any person or entity other than Customer’s designees (including pursuant to Section 7) or service providers."

Seems like legalese to be able to take that data for support reasons, telemetry, and local laws that require that data be sent to them. I think ignoring this portion is a little uncharitable to them.

[coldtea]

>Aren't you forgetting the part that says "solely: (a) to perform its obligations set forth in the Terms, including its Support obligations as applicable; (b) to derive and generate Telemetry (see Section 4.4); and (c) as necessary to comply with applicable Laws

None of the above I like, and (a) is so vague as to be useless, including if you read the obligations.

>Except as required by applicable Laws, Zed will not provide Customer Data to any person or entity other than Customer’s designees (including pursuant to Section 7) or service providers."

Companies still do it all the time despite "applicable laws". And when the company is sold, all bets are off.

I'd rather they don't get, or keep, any to begin with.

[coldtea]

Apparently you can do:

  "telemetry": {
    "diagnostics": false,
    "metrics": false
  }

[gpm]

The telemetry section of the TOS explicitly clarifies that that does not restrict their ability to use the data that is sent to them.

> Customer may configure the Software to opt out of the collection of certain Telemetry Processed locally by the Software itself, but Zed may still collect, generate, and Process Telemetry on Zed’s servers.

Note that they have (or did have, I haven't used their editor in awhile) an AI tab completion feature... it's safe to assume that all of the code you edit is sent to them at least when that is enabled.

[coldtea]

>The telemetry section of the TOS explicitly clarifies that that does not restrict their ability to use the data that is sent to them.

Hopefully it does restrict them being sent to them in the first place.

I also found there are a couple of "Chromium" style builds.

>Note that they have (or did have, I haven't used their editor in awhile) an AI tab completion feature... it's safe to assume that all of the code you edit is sent to them at least when that is enabled.

There's also an option to turn ai features off. At which point of course, nvim is just as good :)

[freehorse]

What I understand reading this is that if you use their online services, incl AI-agents, llm based tab-completion, auto-updates etc, you send data to their servers, and on that part they run analytics. Frankly, this is what I would expect anyway, ie if I disable telemetry locally, it would affect what I do locally, ie no data about how I use my software locally would leave the machine, but if I sent data to some server I would not expect people not to run analytics on their servers.

> AI tab completion feature... it's safe to assume that all of the code you edit is sent to them

Yes, this is quite obvious, how else could they provide AI tab completion? I hope anybody understands this before using sth like this. They do specify that "[...] telemetry expressly does not include Customer Data" though.

[gpm]

> They do specify that "[...] telemetry expressly does not include Customer Data" though.

Yes and no. They first grant themselves a license "to derive and generate Telemetry" from the users copyrighted material, something that they only need if they're deriving it from the actual creative works the customer updates, and not just the metadata about them.

And they define telemetry extremely broadly, effectively "anything useful for lawful business purposes except customer data".

So this agreement would seem to cover things like "an update to an AI model trained off of your code" or even "an AI summary of what you're working on and any relevant business information contained therein". As long as they process it to something new, it's not "customer data" (a term defined narrowly in the agreement). I don't expect that they are doing that, but I think they've given themselves permission to. The agreement is far too broad.

I agree that I expect that they are deriving metadata, and would expect that regardless of this agreement, but this agreement doesn't seem necessary for that.

[rootnod3]

That should be off by default. That alone is a "I won't use this" for me.

[coldtea]

I was willing to give it another go. Now I read on this thread that it installs tons of node packages (so much for Rust native code) and even Go packages, and gets many extra processes running along with it.

[Intralexical]

https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/7054

https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/12589

TL;DR: Mix of language tooling, unsigned proprietary blobs, corrupted and/or GLIBC-dependent files, redundant copies of already-installed executables. The Node packages especially are able to run scripts on install. Personal preference aside, might also create issues with security laws, certifications. All without user consent.

Issues opened in January and June 2024. They've been rejected, closed, and opened a couple times since then. No changes directly improving this yet as of April 2026.

Personally, I think even if they eventually fix this, given the attitude shown towards their users' machines, I should probably just use an editor where I don't have to worry about it.

[rootnod3]

Modern software. That's why I stick with Emacs or Neovim.

[halJordan]

This is a bad faith take. The terms are modifiable without the customer's consent or knowledge so "pursuant to these terms" is meaningless.

No one needs all those rights to do what this block says it's going to do. Any one would require that block to be changed in any contract between equals. But this is a contract of adhesion, so it's uncharitable for you to demand charity where they withhold their charity

[KPGv2]

Can you cite the passage that authorizes Zed to modify the terms without the user's consent? Before I retired, my job was, inter alia, writing software licenses. I was GC for a tech company. I'd like to validate what you're saying, bc I'm the author of a Zed plugin and I wrote a language grammar that another plugin uses.

I don't use Zed, but I occasionally consider switching.

[Shadowmist]

16.4

[KPGv2]

That's not what 16.4 says, although I can understand how you'd think that (and personally, I would not have written 16.4 this way, and I've had a longstanding issue with a lot of software license phrasing; used to find all sorts of loopholes in partner agreements even with enormous companies like AT&T). 16.4 warns the user that terms might change, those terms will be available, and continued use of the product after the new terms are promulgated will constitute acceptance of the terms.

You can even see this in action: https://zed.dev/blog/terms-update

When new terms come out, you're forcibly signed out of the Zed service and have to agree to new ones before using the service again.

It's most likely the case that this clause was written so that someone using the service, when offered new terms, can't say "nah, Imma stick with the old terms" and then claim Zed aren't allowed to revoke the license.

[nathanmills]

What makes you think it's bad faith?

[piker]

I had the same thought but if you chase down the definition of "Telemetry" as well as unilateral amendment rights pointed out in sibling comments, there's some broad authority implied.

[makeitdouble]

None of that would require the "create derivative works" part.

I honestly can't see any legitimate reason why they'd have the right to derivate work from yours, and you don't insert that kind of terms by mistake.

[sdenton4]

Probably 'we reserve the right to train our next version of smart autocomplete based on the text you send to the current version of smart autocomplete'

[svnt]

Which is not different in kind from “we use your source code to improve our products” and is functionally identical to “we own your output because you use our editor.”

How do people continually fall for this. Refusing to look at the playbook that has been run time and time again and then getting offended when it is too late.

[mkl]

AI tab completion and agentic edits are often derivative works.

[makeitdouble]

But should they own any rights on these outputs and edits done to your source code?

[freehorse]

They don't. Paragraph 4.2, "Customer's Ownership of Output" [0]. I recite verbatim below for the sake of clarity.

These are about processing the data, not owning it. They need to process the data eg to provide llm-based tab-completion. A completion is derivative work, and it is also owned by the customer, as it says below.

[0] https://zed.dev/terms#42-customers-ownership-of-output

> The Service may generate specifically for, and make available to, Customer text and written content based on or in response to Customer Data input into the Service (collectively, “Output”), including through the use of technologies that incorporate or rely upon artificial intelligence, machine learning techniques, and other similar technology and features. As between the Parties, to the greatest extent permitted by applicable Laws, Customer owns all Output and Zed hereby irrevocably assigns to Customer all right, title, and interest in and to the Output that Zed may possess. For the avoidance of doubt, Zed and its AI Providers will not retain or use Customer Data for the purpose of improving or training the Service or any AI Provider products, except to the extent Customer explicitly opts-in on Zed’s specific feature to allow training and/or such improvement (such as fine-tuning) and is solely for the benefit of Customer.

[anvuong]

Why do you need to see what I'm writing in my IDE for telemetry?

[jonhohle]

I had a long conversation about this with Gemini this morning. I described the telemetry practices and Gemini told me about all the local and federal laws that were being violated. Then I mentioned it was telemetry, and it turned on a dime and said it was fine because the user agreed to it in the TOS. Disgusting.

[gpm]

I'm not a lawyer, but the only part of this that seems objectionable is the "telemetry" bit, the rest of it basically seems to say "we can use things you send us to do the things you asked us to do, including for support purposes. We can comply with the law as necessary (e.g. responding to warrants)".

That said the definition of "telemetry" is so broad that I think it would include training a LLM and the like. Telemetry is defined in section 4.4 as

> Zed may collect, generate, and Process information, including technical logs, metrics, and data and learnings, related to the Software and Service (“Telemetry”) to improve and support the Services and for other lawful business purposes.

I guess that it's so opaque is also objectionable. Contracts don't have to be inscrutable.

[lowbloodsugar]

The problem is that I don’t send them anything. So it’s “we can use whatever of yours that the application we wrote sends to us”.

[seb1204]

Wow, so why not just write that instead of the legalese? Reads like an overjustification to me.

[mwigdahl]

"Other lawful business purposes" sounds awfully close to "all lawful use".

[aljaz823]

I understand that differently. The last part of the statement is important I think. It reads as if this grants them the right to "Process" "Customer Data": 1. to perform its obligations, including support obligations, 2. to perform telemetry, 3. when required by law.

This is sensible, no?

[nomel]

> when required by law

Suggests there's a longer term storage, available for hackers.

[LinXitoW]

There doesn't have to be storage, NSA could always just force them to add it in later without telling you. Like every single USA company.

[jacobsenscott]

Can't you just build the source and run it without giving them any information? Or does the editor itself require information and phone home while running?

[marshray]

Initializing the http client is one of the very first things this text editor does in "app.run()": https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/a7c9c24f40d7e9169... Line 497 suggests it fails without it.

There are hundreds of references to http requests in the source tree, though most seem associated with calling particular AI model providers.

This looks to be the telemetry struct: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/a7c9c24f40d7e9169...

It appears to crawl your worktrees collecting an inventory of the types of projects you have and is interested in certain named files specificaly: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/a7c9c24f40d7e9169...

[xpe]

1. Yes, Zed is open source, you can build it yourself.

2. Telemetry defaults to on. So turn off telemetry as explained at https://zed.dev/docs/telemetry#configuring-telemetry-setting...

    "telemetry": {
        "diagnostics": false,
        "metrics": false,
    },

[kstrauser]

That license agreement covers their online service if you opt in to use it. This reads like every ToS for a SaaS product I’ve read in ages. If you don’t want to use their paid service, don’t create an account and configure it in Zed, and then this doesn’t apply to you.

I’m not associated with Zed in any way except as a user. That said, this is a bonkers misinterpretation of their ToS. You don’t grant them the right to eat all your data just by using the editor. You do give them the right to process your data if you sign up for an account and opt in to send them all your data for processing.

[fittingopposite]

You made me curious. Found this fork https://github.com/zedless-editor/zedless Wdyt?

[still_grokking]

Wasn't that legalize the reason Gram got created?

https://gram.liten.app/

[nextaccountic]

Is Zed open source or not?

If it's open source it can't have a license agreement to use the software itself

Or is this an agreement to use some cloud service? Supposedly you can opt to not use it

Elsewhere people said that "even if you disable telemetry, Zed can still collect telemetry" but, it being open source means you're still in control

No open source license can force you to run misfeatures

[freehorse]

> The Terms of Service and the open source editor are separate. Zed's editor is licensed under GPL v3 (with Apache 2.0 for certain components). Those licenses govern the software itself and haven't changed. The Terms of Service apply when you create a Zed account and use our hosted services. If you use the editor without signing in, the open source licenses are the only thing that applies, and the new terms codify this more clearly than the old.

https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/50568#issuecomm...

[shimman]

so something that 95% of the users of Zed will end up doing? You're arguing this is a good thing because there is a "choice" in how the company gets to fuck you over?

[piaste]

> so something that 95% of the users of Zed will end up doing?

Will they? I downloaded it for a test run, and there was no pressure to create a Zed account. I got the impression that it's something you'd do if you wanted to use their cloud AI services, and I can't really see why you'd want a third party involved instead of just bringing your own subscription to your favourite model.

[freehorse]

Not sure what you assume I said or argued. Grandparent wrote a question about how can an open source project have ToS (which is a totally legitimate question if they think that the ToS are for the open source project) and I copy pasted the response of somebody from zed team that says that the ToS are about the subscription services only.

The data related part of the ToS for the subscription are the most basic thing you would expect in a standard data processing agreement type of ToS where you have somebody else process your data on your behalf. I don't see any "fuck you over" in them.

[NewsaHackO]

After MinIO, I don't care if a VC-backed product is open source or not, frankly. Especially if it has a CLA to contribute (which this one does).

[snarfy]

Ouch, that was one of the quickest uninstalls after scrolling and reading this.

[uneekname]

Oof. Is this for the software itself or their add-on LLM subscription?

[xpe]

This language fits common SaaS templates. Let me illustrate by removing chunks and labeling them:

    Customer hereby grants Zed
    {{ broad list of rights }}
    solely:
    {{ for these purposes }}

IANAL, but the term "solely" seems essential to understanding this. Pivotal. As in "if you get it wrong, you'll be wearing a tinfoil hat" essential.

Also see "4.4. Telemetry: .... For avoidance of doubt, Telemetry expressly does not include Customer Data."

My two cents: I'm not worried about Zed's contract here. Much more important to pay attention to when your data goes to third-party AI providers: read _their_ contract language.

Meta-comment: Don't let a well-meaning comment like the above trigger a panic. Better to get familiar with typical contracts and/or build your personal network for legal advice.

P.S. Look out for shameless legal slop on the Web, I "promise.legal" it is out there.

[sneak]

Any local editor that includes any sort of telemetry whatsoever is an instant nonstarter for me.

What’s local stays entirely and totally local, always and every time, otherwise what’s the point?

[desireco42]

Yeah this really makes you wonder... now, they are to best of my knowledge fantastic people, so I guess some lawyer slipped this in. I would love to hear some clarification and will always give them benefit of the doubt.

So far they've been great and product is fantastic as you know.

[bigbadfeline]

> now, they are to best of my knowledge fantastic people,

They could be the next "don't do evil" people but practice shows that doesn't last for long. And then the messy license terms become very handy for what comes next.

If they went to the trouble to specify all of their rights over your data, their glossing over about what they can do with it is a solid reason to push for complete clarity or pull out completely.

[lokar]

Why would they have your code in the first place?

[yobid20]

wouldn't touch this editor with a 10 foot pole. no i am not giving them the rights to use my code for their product. hell no. thanks for highlighting this. people need to making a bigger deal about it. maybe they will rethink their tos.

[aljgz]

Curious, how does this compare to the editor you use?

[Razengan]

Oh no.. fuck them, not this shit again..

With AI being so good why isn't someone making fully open source alternatives to all this crap by now?

Oh Zed is open source, maybe Codex/Claude can make a VSCodium-like fork off it?

[roarcher]

> With AI being so good why isn't someone...

It baffles me that people ask this question all the time and it never occurs to them that perhaps the answer is "because it isn't".

[Razengan]

> perhaps the answer is "because it isn't"

I'm sure it can handle "remove all instances of telemetry"

[roarcher]

So why don't you do it? Easy, right?

[eclectric]

Gram, a fork of zed, exists already. https://gram.liten.app/

Motivation: https://gram.liten.app/why/

[dgellow]

forks exist…

[ouraf]

I encourage you to mail them specifically about this concern.

If it is a matter of communication, they can fix and clarify it. If it's genuinely scummy, they can change their approach now that they know they were caught in the act

[xpe]

The comment above has started a sh-tstorm. Please, slow down and learn about the details before jumping to conclusions. Most of us here did NOT "go pro" in the law. [1] For those that want to educate themselves, you could do worse than immediately leave HN and go _learn_:

1. SaaS Agreements: Key Contractual Provisions https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/bu...

2. Cornell Law School's Wex: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex

3. Coursera : American Contract Law I (Yale prof): https://www.coursera.org/learn/contracts-1

4. Software as a Service (SaaS) Agreements: Thomson Reuters/Westlaw (paywalled; trial available) https://content.next.westlaw.com/practical-law/document/I61c...

If anyone has good detailed resources that are free, please add.

[1] IANAL but I wasn't that far from going down that path. I've worked for a legal-tech startup, did really well in an undergrad Constitutional Law class, incorporated several small companies, managed lots of contractor agreements. So, I know from experience: legal language is weird and specific in ways you may not realize. So be intellectually humble and defer judgment until you talk to a legal expert. Hopefully people more experienced than I can weigh in with more specifics.

[Intralexical]

If you need an education in law to be able to trust a business isn't trying to steal from you, then maybe you just shouldn't trust that business at all.

Especially for something like a code editor, where plenty of less-shady competitors are available.

[xpe]

> Especially for something like a code editor, where plenty of less-shady competitors are available.

On what basis are you claiming Zed is shady? I seek evidence, not feels.

If you don't understand the contract language, it seems rather presumptuous to make that kind of claim. See what I mean?

If you want to make a _relative_ claim, then I have to ask: have you read the licenses of VS Code, JetBrains, Cursor, WindSurf?

[otabdeveloper4]

> my text editor has a SaaS license agreement

[mandeepj]

wait, there's more [copied from the top comment of their youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Bns1T77HM)] -

1. Mandatory arbitration by default. You waive your right to a jury trial and cannot join class action lawsuits. You have only 30 days to opt out after agreeing to the terms.

2. 1-year statute of limitations. You must file any legal claim within one year, which is much shorter than the default period under most state laws.

3. Zed can terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with no liability. No notice is required, and they owe you nothing if they pull the plug.

4. Autocomplete sends your code to AI providers in the background unless you turn it off. Worth knowing if you're working on proprietary or sensitive code.

5. No guarantees about data retention. If your payment lapses, they reserve the right to delete your account and all associated data with no liability.

6. All fees are non-refundable except where required by law, with one narrow exception for disagreeing with modified terms.

7. Zed can modify the terms at any time. For existing users, material changes take effect after just 30 days, and continued use counts as acceptance.

8. Zed can use your name, logo, and brand in their marketing without asking. You'd have to send a written request to stop them.

9. No warranties whatsoever. The service is "as is", they disclaim all responsibility for errors, data loss, or AI-generated output being inaccurate or harmful.

10. Liability is capped very low, at most, whatever you paid in the last 12 months, or $100, whichever is higher.

[Andrex]

Why does a text editor have such a defensive license? This is extreme and reckless levels of paranoia.

Zed devs reading this: just release it as GPL. It will be better for literally everyone.

[astafrig]

Some of these are questionable, but 3 and 5 stick out. Being included makes it sound like whoever wrote this list doesn’t really know what Zed is?

It’s a local text editor. The only thing an account gives you is access to their specific flavour of coding agent and a collaboration server.

> If your payment lapses, they reserve the right to delete your account and all associated data with no liability.

Pretty much the only associated data is your payment info.

[marshray]

Yeah, screw that.

I am literally shopping for a new editor. A once-a-decade thing for me. I want something that can effectively sandbox local models for code gen.

So I was looking at Zed yesterday. Cloned the repo. Then I noticed they were funded by our favorite VCs.

Between this and CVE-2026-31431 ("Copy Fail"), it seems like I dodged a bullet.

[jeena]

What I do is to have two things, a simple editor, I use helix for normal editing. And in a second terminal a docker container solution where I put opencode or claude in https://git.jeena.net/jeena/agent-container

[komali2]

By sandbox you mean limit to certain files, certain actions, or both?

I've been wanting to look into better emacs integration for agents. Imagine an agent making direct elisp function calls, or using macros... One could limit which functions are allowed to run similar to how cli harnesses work, but plug straight into LSP and etc.

[twohaibei]

I think that's why fork "Gram" exists. It strips all the weird parts and leaves just the editor.

[Nevin1901]

These are all fairly standard terms.... nothing crazy

[shimman]

lol those are extremely anti-consumer and anti-human behaviors. Some of us don't want to live in a corporate hell holes.

[OccamsMirror]

Yes, but the companies want to reserve the right to turn evil later.

[dwb]

If that’s the case, and it certainly isn’t for Emacs, my preferred editor, then it should become non-standard.

[komali2]

Is it? My editor's terms of service seem much more user friendly:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

[DougBTX]

Zed is also released under GPL 3:

https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/LICENSE-GPL

[Hilliard_Ohiooo]

Please don't be a buzz kill. Probably agreed to something 10 times worse just by using this website and whatever device you're visiting on.