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Posted by tosh 6 hours ago

Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation(mitchellh.com)
564 points | 177 commentspage 2
qudat 5 hours ago|
Major props to Mitchell (and his family) for these donations.
jaypatelani 4 hours ago||
I would gladly donate this much to NetBSD foundation.
loeg 3 hours ago||
Then do?
civet_java 1 hour ago|||
I'm curious - what's the point of this comment? Did you think the commentor was unaware of their own capacity for philanthropy?
jaypatelani 2 hours ago|||
I did but don't have 400k laying around lol
walthamstow 5 hours ago||
I'm not in the OSS world much so hopefully someone can help me understand: what does 700k buy you in OSS language development?
hiccuphippo 5 hours ago||
In the case of Zig, You can see their financial reports here:

https://ziglang.org/news/2025-financials/

Most of it goes to contributors.

alper 5 hours ago||
Who are paid at a steady and relatively decent rate. That's cool.
randusername 5 hours ago||
https://ziglang.org/news/2025-financials
tadasv 5 hours ago||
This is great IMO. I like zig as a language and the idea behind it. But boy, it has a syntax issue. I with they figure out better syntax before 1.0, developer ergonomics I think are as important.
lukaslalinsky 4 hours ago||
Zig has multiple issues, but syntax is definitely not it. It might take a little bit of time getting used to, if you are coming from another language, but it's one of the most readable languages I've ever worked with.
seanclayton 2 hours ago|||
Lisps have multiple issues, but syntax is definitely not it. It might take a little bit of time getting used to, if you are coming from another language, but LISPs are some of the most readable languages I've ever worked with.
benatkin 3 hours ago|||
That is an opinion framed as a fact. There's plenty to rub a coder the wrong way, such as the sigil in builtin functions like @import, the dot syntax in structures (.{}, Timestamp{ .seconds = 0, .nanos = 0, };), triple slash comments (///), and multiline strings (beginning each with \\ - good luck grepping for escaped backslashes). However, that is just like any programming language - none is immune to this criticism.
peesem 1 hour ago||
the triple slash is only for doc comments, not normal code comments - those are still double slashes. also, why would you want to grep for escaped backslashes?
n42 4 hours ago|||
https://matklad.github.io/2025/08/09/zigs-lovely-syntax.html
dtj1123 4 hours ago||
Can you elaborate on what you find to be an issue?
metaltyphoon 1 hour ago||
For me, anytype and the everything is public
peesem 1 hour ago||
all fields are public. declarations are private to the file they're in by default and then public if you choose to make them public
allknowingfrog 5 hours ago||
I really appreciate the "it's okay to be weird" sentiment. It has never been easier to try out a crazy idea. We may as well embrace it and try to learn something.
randypewick 4 hours ago||
Yay a big win for open source!

Now I wonder what other donations were deemed as much as - or more - useful.

mawadev 4 hours ago||
I love this guy
mi_lk 5 hours ago||
Nothing more beautiful when game recognizes game.
Npovview 4 hours ago|
I wish Rich people did this more often. Not just rich people but rich companies. Not just rich companies but rich governments. But we are a broken society. People should be paying more to OSS for building digital infrastructure.
Imustaskforhelp 5 hours ago|
> I use AI heavily. I've written about my AI adoption journey and shipping real features with AI assistance. I'm also quite vocal about remaining rational about its capabilities and frustrated with its negative impacts on open source.

> The point is that I have opinions. Those opinions don't fully align with ZSF's approach. And yet, I have nothing but respect for ZSF: the people, the policies, and the project. Part of what makes the internet and open source great is that projects can be weird and different. They can set unusual boundaries, build their own culture, and pursue quality in ways that won't make sense to everyone.

Mitchell does feel like the adult in the room when other people are having chain-saws and acting irrationally for a lack of better term (for example jared/bun controversy which the post just somewhat touches on)

(Mitchell's tweet about AI psychosis is genuinely influential and is now a pointer to what this phenomenon might be)

I really think him and simon's opinions are somehow decently nuanced opinions on AI that the internet has to offer.

Now glazing of mitchell aside, I am happy that zig foundation gets such amount of money and I am really excited that Zig an independent language is able to get the level of love that it does.

There is a famous talk by the creator of Elm on the economics of independent programming languages and how its hard for them to get sponsored if they aren't already working at a company (Rust was created at Mozilla, Golang was created by Google)

This is a real issue that is true for most of open-source and I am just happy that we are atleast moving slowly towards some good as well. Its an uphill battle with multiple lows but I am happy for the positive changes as it gets as open source does have a special place in my heart as it taught me about privacy and many of your hearts as well.

Arrowmaster 4 hours ago|
As things are right now, I see this as a respectable way of operating.

Michael has made his views and usage of AI known. The Ghostty project has a detailed AI policy for users to see and the team is willing to devote resources to enforcing a middle ground policy. The Zig project has a detailed policy taking a strict stance and as a result I expect they do not have expend as much resources when a contribution is suspected of being AI assisted.

A strict policy on either side is easier to enforce based on finite resources (mostly people). I'm sure many projects would like to have a middle ground policy but cannot currently devote the resources it would require long term. We might never see a shift in moderation abilities and this remains for the longer term, or there could be advanced in moderation that allows projects to adopt a more nuisanced policy that's right for them.

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