We Overhauled Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy - Another VC funded bait and switch

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zed.dev/blog/terms-update#links-and-contact

Following in the footsteps of Hashicorp, Hudson, etc. Zed has chosen to cash in the good will of its now substantial user base and start going to full corporate enshittification. Among other things like minimum age nonsense, they have also added binding mandatory opt-OUT arbitration.

I find such agreements very troubling, because it gives up public funded dispute resolution for private which nearly unanimously benefits larger entities, it lowers transparency to near zero, and eliminates the abilities to act as a class and to appeal. But I worry most will just accept it, as is the norm.

You can however opt out by emailing arbitration-opt-out@zed.dev with full legal name, the email address associated with your account, and a statement that you want to opt out.

I’ll just consider my days of advocating for Zed as an interesting new editor over and go back to Neovim bliss.

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Oh, and I just head about the fork that reached 1.0 recently. Not that I use it or Zed in the first place, but I’m glad people have options to escape enshittification!

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53

I tried Zed a little and it didn’t really click with me but after reading the project mission I’m going to give this fork a try:

I think AI integration in a code editor is a bad feature. AI makes me angry.

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25

Oh very cool, hadn’t heard of this. Thanks for sharing.

Their source is also on Codeberg instead of GitHub which is awesome.

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11

I paid ~$80 or something for Sublime Text 4 a few years ago, and I can’t remember the last time it had an update, yet I am an extremely happy customer.

A text editor should only focus on stability and performance, and Sublime does exactly that, and is why I am “stuck” with it.

But Gram looks like it’s going the same direction, and it’s open source! I really hope development on it picks up so I can finally gain peace of mind by having a FOSS code editor that can actually compete with Sublime.

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I know it’s not as fancy as other IDEs, but it is still my go to for anything that I plan to perfect within a week or two. It’s also my go to for txt files. Anyone that is savvy enough for notepad++ could get a lot of use out of it in my opinion.

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Looks like I’m sticking with good old nvim for another dozen or so years

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25

WTF? According to the project page on github, at least some of it is AGPL. It can’t have restrictive “terms of service” on top of that!

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Oh, yes it can. The license only changes what other people than the owner may do. It’s the rights and conditions they give you.

For most projects that doesn’t matter because there are several owners of the code base. Every single person who contributed can enforce these rights on their part. However, to contribute to Zed you have to sign a cla. Signing away all rights and ownership of your contribution. So they have all the rights and can do whatever they want.

They could close source everything tomorrow without any consequence and sell you a feature you made yourself.

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27

That’s all true except for that last paragraph - the rights and conditions they gave you to existing code are irrevocable, so you’ll continue to be able to use the last open source version indefinitely, including the feature you made yourself. It’s just that they can release new versions and not publish the source code of their additions, even if that new release also includes a feature you made yourself.

(I’m not a lawyer, but still.)

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OP edited

I suspect they draw a distinction between using their built binary and logged in services like collaboration from the editor code itself, but iinal.

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They have some functionality for which you can login, and only at login are you asked to agree to the terms. Presumably you can just use the offline functionality of the editor just fine without agreeing to anything other than the AGPL.

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This is perfectly fine to me. The only features that require an account are AI and chat, two features which make perfect sense to have an account for.

I personally don’t even use these features. In fact, I have this in my zed settings.

{
    "disable_ai": true,
    "title_bar": {
        "show_sign_in": false
    }
}
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7

Let me introduce you to the magical concept of the CLA. It means they can do whatever they want with the project but you can not. You should never contribute to CLA projects.

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edited

The CLA can never override the code license. It handles the transition of your code into their code, and what they can do with it. But once it’s published as AGPL, you or anyone else can fork it and work with it as AGPL anyway. The CLA can allow them to change the license to something different. But the AGPL published code remains published and usable under AGPL.

I’m usually fine with contributing under CLA. A CLA often make sense. Because the alternative is a hassle and lock-in to current constructs. Which can have its own set of disadvantages.

A FOSS license and CLA combination can offer reasonable good to both parties: You can be sure your contribution is published as FOSS, and they know they can continue to maintain the project with some autonomy and choices. (Choices can be better or worse for others, of course.)

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edited

I never said that you can remove a license retroactively. A CLA is an assignment of copyright from the contributor to the company. The only reason for a company to add a CLA to a project is to put a rug under the project which they will pull as soon as they gained a critical mass of users. It fundamentally undermines the social contract of open source development. These companies want to enjoy all the benefits of open source, like the market appeal and the free labour, but none of the drawbacks. A CLA is just one thing, a promise that the project will go non-free in the future.

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laughs in Emacs

It is unfortunate though, since Zed did seem to have potential. But I can’t say I’m surprised given their focus on vibe coding instead if making a good editor.

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Emacs is hard to refer to new users (unless they have the passion and time for these things), but I feel lucky I learned it while I had free time.

I feel like projects like these are the only ones that won’t betray us.

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Indeed! I think packages like Doom Emacs help, but the learning curve is still steep.

But I do think leaning Emacs was one of the best things I’ve done!

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Definitely happy I learned it. But I think it also helped I was introduced to it when I just started on Linux.

Most people that use Linux already has editor of choice, and emacs in windows doesn’t feel the same. I’ve had friends show interest in emacs because of how I use it, but it’s always such a hassle to set things up in windows.

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This why you just stay within the realm of our pure open source.

Vim, neoVim and emacs. Lean to use in combination with other tools like tmux and you have an excellent working environment. These are tools that are contributed to by the best of the best OGs out there.

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There’s also plenty of good GUI editors if vim and emacs aren’t your cup of tea. Personally I think Kate’s fantastic, for instance.

– Frost

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Do you have any good resources for how to use kate in a dev scenario ?

I’ve tried multiple times, but it always seemed clunky to me.

As a text editor its great, though i prefer sublime ( not FOSS however ) but i haven’t been able to get it to click as any kind of ide or part of one.

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Kate has LSP, project, debug, git, and inbuilt terminal support. I daily drove kate before switching to emacs

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Honestly, I may not be the best person to ask if an IDE is what you want, heh. We usually just use it as an editor, and we don’t really have much in the way of IDE features in vim either. But we also don’t really use languages that practically need an IDE, like Java. Stuff like HTML and perl and JS are much easier to write with a normal text editor.

If you just need LSP autocomplete and such, though, Kate’s got that! There’s a plugin for it, I think. You might have to turn it on.

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I think it honestly might just be my sublime muscle memory ruining it for me, that and it feels like it should be more IDE than text editor.

I use helix quite a bit for dev so lsp’s and editor based coding is known to me.

Perhaps it was just bad timing.

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edited

I find such agreements very troubling, because it gives up public funded dispute resolution for private which nearly unanimously benefits larger entities

For starters, check if that term is valid in your country’s legislation. Where I am for example, no contract with a foreign entity can legally retract your rights of legal representation, so any ToS you agree to that have this clause would be automatically considered invalid and you can happily eg.: start a class action lawsuit (with other users in your country).

(tbf, in my country ToS are not even considered legal contracts in the first place so we’re somewhat better than that, but still I do get that other countries are \*Worse*)

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OP

Agreed and I have domicile in a country that provides improved, though not perfect, protections. But it still tempers my views of the organization.

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Well that didn’t take long at all. 😕

I’m gonna give that fork a try today.

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I presume this thread is about this bit:

Arbitration. The updated Terms include a binding arbitration clause with a class action waiver. Arbitration provides a faster, lower-cost resolution process for disputes between individual users and Zed compared to traditional litigation. We recognize this is a meaningful legal trade-off, which is why we include a 30-day opt-out window after you accept the Terms. Section 15 has the full details, including how to opt out.

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That is about their AI service. If you don’t use that then who cares?

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Lmao I had a boss who was soo enthusiastic about Zed…

I tried it once but it somehow newer clicked for me, I’m kind of happy now that it didn’t

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OP

It is quite good and hopefully one of the privacy forks will rise victorious. But yeah, nothing will ever topple neovim and emacs.

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is this really a problem? if you don’t make a Zed account (this is for their paid services) you don’t have to agree to any TOS. The editor remains untouched.

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Well then there is not even a single reason for switching from VS Code for a normal dev. When I tried it in Debian with a normal laptop, it continuously caused freezing, because it kinda throttled the integrated graphics.

I really wish there is an editor that support vscode’s devcontainer like containerisation, but open source. I really don’t like doing it manually. Too much effort for something that can be autonated.

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Comments in Technology@lemmy.world

For anybody wondering “what is a Zed, and why would I need it":

Zed is a minimal code editor crafted for speed and collaboration with humans and AI.

A code editor built on an industry burning through venture capital? Great.

Arbitration. The updated Terms include a binding arbitration clause with a class action waiver. Arbitration provides a faster, lower-cost resolution process for disputes between individual users and Zed compared to traditional litigation. We recognize this is a meaningful legal trade-off, which is why we include a 30-day opt-out window after you accept the Terms. Section 15 has the full details, including how to opt out.

I like how they try to frame arbitration as efficient.

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They never state who it’s more efficient and cost effective for, so I’m sure it’s true… from a certain point of view.

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That’s the big secret. Efficient at what is never discussed. It’s very efficient [… at lowering legal costs, and avoiding consequences and accountability]. As long as no one says the quiet part out loud, everything is “fine” [… for them].

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Dictatorships can be very efficient, tons of time saved by no meetings, delays, stakeholders, rights, debate or considerations needed.

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I like the irony of that.

Our code is hallucinated but our legal team is very, very real

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I’ve never felt the need to sue a text editor. It’s concerning that they’re so worried about it.

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edited

VC Lawyers insist. Not worth it for the company to fight for something (not going to arbitration) that no one will notice or care about if it doesn’t change. Or maybe they didn’t care.

I’m just saying capitalism ruins everything because investors only care about maximizing profit and minimizing risk, this forces bullshit like this onto everyone downstream. One solution is not to use the product. Better solution is to change the law to make mandatory arbitration illegal. Best solution is to throw billionaires into the ocean and stir the solution until the solid is fully dissolved.

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edited

I was with you right up until stirring the ocean. I feel like that’s going to cause a lot of problems. Middle of the ocean and leave them, or an active volcano.

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The earth has enough microplastics.

I’ve heard that the best billionaires really love Greenland, just let them roam free in northern Greenland (wouldn’t want to annoy any actual Greenlanders). Don’t worry about them, these Masters of Industry will pull themselves up by their bootstraps and have a fire and shelter in no time.

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Appreciate the heads up. I’m reasonably sure I’ve already uninstalled it anyway, but I’ll check tomorrow to make sure.

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It looks like the code is mostly under GPL. Has anyone tried forking it?

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A guy on HN forked as “gram” https://codeberg.org/GramEditor/gram he doesn’t intend to pull everything from upstream

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Comments in Open Source@lemmy.ml

Zed always felt fishy to me.

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he/him

God fucking damn it, I’ve been a massive Zed advocate and this is extremely saddening. I went as far as convincing my teammates to use it over VSCode and have had a personal subscription to their AI service, partly just to support them

Why can’t we have a single nice thing? I’ll continue to use it after opting out but I’ll be back to the same feeling of reluctance I had when I used Code.

Hopefully we’ll see a fork of the project

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We have a nice thing, it’s called Emacs. You’re not gonna find a for-profit company that will put your experience before its profits. That is impossible by definition. It really sucks.

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edited

</\Vader voice>We Overhauled Our Terms of Service, pray we don’t overhaul it any further</Vader voice>

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Didn’t read bc busy but wanted to drop this: https://lobste.rs/s/yyqowj/gram_zed_fork_without_all_ai

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OP

Nice. This is one of a few promising forks. I think they’re on Codeberg too.

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she/her

I guess I will uninstall Zed now.

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Seems like it only matters if you login to their service.

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OP

It also matters if you value organizations changing terms after attracting a community and changing to non-transparent solutions while claiming to be “open”. It matters if your values are different.

But you’re right too. If not logging in, your liability is probably not changing.

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edited

I do agree with that overall principle. I am not a fan of the arbitration clause.

But it’s an open source project, I’m not paying them apart from donations. And theyre mainly GPL+AGPL+Apache. So I’m not worried, id be more concerned of they moved to a more permissive license. And you can run your own instance of their backend server for realtime collaboration.

All things considered I am not too concerned right now, but I will be watching for more signs of problematic behavior.

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Comments in Opensource@programming.dev

I love how if we want out we have to basically verify identity. Such shit.

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Meanwhile, vim keeps trucking along, 34 years later.

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Privacy Surveillance Policy

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Comments in Linux@lemmy.ml

edited

Never understood a terms of service existing if the project code license is GPL or such. Can’t this just be forked and cured of anti features, if people value it enough to do so?

Binding arbitration (aka, if we break the law you can’t sue us) aught to be illegal in every country.

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she/her

It already happened: https://gram.liten.app

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edited

Note that Zed has an Affero GPL, which limits others from competing with Zed Industries in the service space.

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edited

The zed-industries Github repository lists Zed licenses as AGPL, Apache and GPLv3.

The AGPL refers to the GNU Affero General Public license, which does not limit others from competing. Unless you mean the fact that forks must share source code when accessed over a network?

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I mistakenly thought it was more restrictive, thanks.

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Doesn’t the AGPL just say that you can’t keep your changes/improvements private? (honest question: I seem to recall so, but I’m not really sure)

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It seems you’re right. I may be confusing it with another license.

It is intended for software designed to be run over a network, adding a provision requiring that the corresponding source code of modified versions of the software be prominently offered to all users who interact with the software over a network.

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Thanks for checking and reporting back! (I was too lazy to do that)

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OP edited

The terms on the right to use user data in section 4.1 are also a bit surprising. I’d expect that from a social network like Facebook, but not from a text editor.

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this seems to only apply to their hosted services and not the binary itself?

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