[HN Gopher] Ghostty is now non-profit
___________________________________________________________________
Ghostty is now non-profit
Author : vrnvu
Score : 584 points
Date : 2025-12-03 18:40 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mitchellh.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mitchellh.com)
| simonw wrote:
| I wasn't aware of Hack Club before and wow, their fiscal
| sponsorship program is enormous: https://hackclub.com/fiscal-
| sponsorship/directory/ - looks like they cover more than 2,500
| organizations!
|
| The Python Software Foundation acts as a fiscal sponsor for a
| much smaller set of orgs (20 listed on
| https://www.python.org/psf/fiscal-sponsorees/) and it keeps our
| accounting team pretty busy just looking after those. Hack Club
| must have this down to a very fine art.
|
| I wrote a bit more about PSF fiscal sponsorship here:
| https://simonwillison.net/2024/Sep/18/board-of-the-python-so...
| conradev wrote:
| Hack Club builds software, so the students naturally built a
| banking product to scale their fiscal sponsorship:
| https://hackclub.com/fiscal-sponsorship/
|
| I was working with Hack Club students on an experimental VPN
| client (https://github.com/hackclub/burrow) but never got the
| momentum to finish it. Made some great friends, though! It's a
| really fantastic organization.
|
| The students have one big global Slack instance. If you're a
| student and on here, you should also be in there:
| https://hackclub.com/slack/
| kace91 wrote:
| This community sounds amazing, is there anything similar for
| adults rather than teens?
|
| The "understanding through building" mentality is something I
| never got to experience as a group, the obvious answer is
| open source and the like but I wonder if there's something
| more learning oriented.
| mellowyeller wrote:
| Seconding this. I pivoted to tech in my early 30s and feel
| I've missed out on a lot of community building
| opportunities.
| leetrout wrote:
| Recurse Center might be a good option
| https://www.recurse.com
| conradev wrote:
| I would second Recurse Center. I've heard universally
| great things!
| abnercoimbre wrote:
| Self-plug: consider Handmade Cities. We have a simple
| meetups [0] page if you decide you appreciate our ethos.
| Hopefully we have an active meetup location near you?
|
| In any case, good luck on finding the right community!
|
| [0] https://handmadecities.com/meetups
| garyhtou wrote:
| I love seeing PSF support the community with fiscal
| sponsorship! It makes such a huge difference for these open
| source projects and meetups, letting them focus on software and
| community rather than the legal/financial back-office work.
|
| Hack Club's been a fiscal sponsor for about 7 years now (since
| 2018), and it's evolved quite a bit since the early days. I run
| engineering & product for the fiscal sponsorship program there
| and would be happy to chat/share any tips!
|
| oh, and while it's on my mind, the codebase was open-sourced
| earlier this year
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43519802), and we just
| launched a mobile app yesterday!
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46130402
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Hack Club was featured on front page not long ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45913663
|
| It might have improved since then?
| bos wrote:
| Really nice to see a solidly valuable project develop a
| sustainable foundation instead of turning into yet another VC-
| backed devtools startup that will inevitably die in a few years.
| neural_thing wrote:
| "sustainable foundation" it's still one guy funding it, no?
| seems as sustainable as before
| simonw wrote:
| 33 additional people funding it as of this announcement:
| https://hcb.hackclub.com/ghostty/transactions
| mitchellh wrote:
| You can't build a house without the foundation (pun
| intended).
|
| I said in the linked post that I remain the largest donor,
| but this helps lay bricks such that we can build a
| sustainable community that doesn't rely on me financially or
| technically. There simply wasn't a vehicle before that others
| could even join in financially. Now there is.
|
| All of the above was mentioned in the post. If you want more
| details, please read it. I assume you didn't.
|
| I'll begin some donor reach out and donor relationship work
| eventually. The past few months has been enough work simply
| coordinating this process, meeting with accountants and
| lawyers to figure out the right path forward, meeting with
| other software foundations to determine proper processes etc.
| I'm going to take a breather, then hop back in. :)
| skywhopper wrote:
| How do you expect that to change? What is the next step in
| your mind? Maybe asking for donations? If only he would set
| up some way that the general public could contribute money to
| the project! That'd be the smart thing to do. Then he could
| write a blog post about it, and maybe someone would post a
| link to HN. That'd really be something.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Good. Maybe they'll add search to the terminal now. /s
| simonw wrote:
| https://twitter.com/mitchellh/status/1993728538344906978 -
| "Ghostty on macOS now has search [...] GTK to follow soon" -
| November 26th 2025
| mitchellh wrote:
| GTK is also merged. Main branch has search. Its also
| exposed via libghostty for embedders.
| anorwell wrote:
| But only in the the tip (nightly) build. I'm somewhat
| tempted to switch to them for this.
| cpach wrote:
| A while ago I compiled Ghostty from HEAD, because it had
| a bug fix I cared for. It was a very stable and pleasant
| experience. No hassle whatsoever.
| memco wrote:
| If you'd like you can also use `tip` as the update
| channel to get the nightly build binary without having to
| compile it yourself:
| https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference#auto-update-
| channe...
| zimpenfish wrote:
| I'm hoping they'll get around to supporting command-number
| for switching between windows[0]. command-` is fine but
| clunky as hell when you have more than three or four windows.
| Without command-number, I'm still stuck using iTerm2 as my
| daily driver.
|
| (It'd be nice if it supported other standard macOS UI
| conventions[1] too)
|
| [0] https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/discussions/8131
|
| [1] https://github.com/ghostty-
| org/ghostty/issues?q=is%3Aissue%2...
| therealmarv wrote:
| A little unfair that this is downvoted. No search is like a
| dealbreaker for me. I'm happy with iTerm and for 99% of my
| use cases I don't need a "very fast" terminal. Thanks for
| pointing this out.
|
| Seems I will wait a little longer before search is in the
| regular build (and not nightly ones)
| tristan957 wrote:
| Ghostty 1.3 will release in March.
| mindcrash wrote:
| Rather thank IBM for paying Mitchell an outrageous amount of
| money for Hashicorp, so he can devote all of his time on
| awesome projects like Ghostty without ever thinking about
| sustainable income ever again.
|
| So thanks, IBM! <3
| veverkap wrote:
| While you're not wrong, I think this undersells a little how
| much Mitchell has given of his time to OSS. Yes, he's
| fortunate that he doesn't have to worry about money, but even
| when he did, he still contributed openly and freely.
|
| That's part of what drew lots of us to HashiCorp in the first
| place - giving back.
| mindcrash wrote:
| It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but as you can see elsewhere
| in this discussion thread he mentions this himself on his
| own X account:
|
| "get asked the same about terminals all the time. "How will
| you turn this into a business? What's the monetization
| strategy?" The monetization strategy is that my bank
| account has 3 commas mate."
|
| https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1964785527741427940
|
| Take a good guess where the three commas come from.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Money begets the freedom to work on causes. Monetization
| was always a core part of Hashicorp, rather than being a
| bolt-on after years of OSS. Which is a good thing. (I was a
| customer of the first commercial offering from Hashicorp,
| their VMWare add-on for Vagrant)
| heipei wrote:
| I'd rather he'd still be working on Nomad to be honest, but
| Ghostty is a good consolation prize ;)
| codeptualize wrote:
| This seems really nice. Wasn't aware of hack club but that just
| looks like a wonderful construction and organization.
|
| In a world of VC backed open source projects with big profit
| motivations, it's refreshing to see things like this. Definitely
| going to give ghostty another try!
| tcdent wrote:
| I'm making an effort to support Open Source projects that I use
| everyday; much in the way I support creators on YouTube via
| Patreon with small monthly commitments, so it's a welcome
| opportunity that GhosTTY has made that easy to accomplish.
| Arcuru wrote:
| I give a lot of money to the free things I use as well, but
| even if I used Ghostty I'd struggle to give them any money
| since the founder is extraordinarily wealthy.
|
| Please fund projects that actually need it, and don't
| voluntarily gift money to a literal billionaire.
|
| > I get asked the same about terminals all the time. "How will
| you turn this into a business? What's the monetization
| strategy?" The monetization strategy is that my bank account
| has 3 commas mate.
|
| Original post:
| https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1964785527741427940
| mitchellh wrote:
| My intention is that the project isn't wholly dependent on
| me, so that I can move on (one day) and refocus my efforts
| elsewhere. I think no matter who the donor is, any charity
| dependent on the welfare of a single large whale is not a
| healthy organization. I intend to resolve this over time.
|
| That all being said, everyone should give where they want,
| and if you don't want to give to a terminal emulator non-
| profit project, then don't! Don't let anyone bully you (me,
| the person I'm responding to, or anyone else) into what you
| should and shouldn't charitably support. Enjoy.
|
| (Also, I don't want to repeat this everywhere but I paid
| taxes and I lost a comma, so no need to worry about that
| anymore! Everyone please pull out your most microscopic
| violins! )
| defen wrote:
| > don't voluntarily gift money to a literal billionaire.
|
| The entire point of this post is that the money is not going
| to him.
| nodesocket wrote:
| I love Mitchell's X post awhile back:
|
| "What the monetization strategy of Ghostty?"
|
| "My monetization strategy is that my bank account has 10 digits
| in it..." lol, epic.
| losvedir wrote:
| Ha. That counts the cents, though, I assume? I didn't think
| Hashicorp was _that_ big, right?
| nodesocket wrote:
| Shockingly I believe billionaire with a B. They timed the
| acquisition nearly perfect in terms of market conditions.
| Tres comma club!!!
| Romario77 wrote:
| Hashicorp was sold for 6.5B to IBM.
|
| Another thing - when it went public it was valued at 13B and
| Hashimoto owned 8.5% of it according to the filing.
|
| So, depending on when he sold or converted his shares it is
| pretty plausible that he got a billion.
| asadm wrote:
| was that big
| maxmoehl wrote:
| Original post:
| https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1964785527741427940
|
| > I get asked the same about terminals all the time. "How will
| you turn this into a business? What's the monetization
| strategy?" The monetization strategy is that my bank account
| has 3 commas mate.
| LennyHenrysNuts wrote:
| ...and another $150k from my family...
|
| Wow.
| sethops1 wrote:
| Not to dismiss the generosity, but he's a billionaire.
|
| A millionaire donating the relative equivalent would be $150.
| alkh wrote:
| The only thing I am missing now from Ghostty is being able to
| open it in any open Finder folder with a keyboard shortcut(like
| standard Ubuntu terminal). Ghostty already provides Finder-
| specific GUI shortcut but you need to use a mouse. Otherwise,
| stellar work(especially the ease of configuring it) and congrats
| to everyone involved!
| orbsa wrote:
| Can you not bind the command "open ." to a keybind through
| Ghostty?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| I think they are looking for the opposite: open a Ghostty
| window from Finder.
| alkh wrote:
| Yeah, exactly, like Ctrl+Alt+T opening Xterm in Ubuntu. If
| I am not mistaken, if you have a file explorer open it will
| automatically open terminal in that specific folder(i.e.
| kind of like `cd`ing there first)
| duskwuff wrote:
| Wrong direction. OP wants to open Ghostty from a Finder
| window, not vice versa.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| You can set a keyboard shortcut for that GUI menu entry (and
| most others) in macOS system settings.
| presbyterian wrote:
| I do this with an Alfred workflow, I hit command+space and then
| type "ft" and it opens the front most Finder window's directory
| in Terminal (or iTerm, you can set it to whatever)
| rvz wrote:
| Smart decision and makes sense.
|
| Lowers the risk of a rug pull or the project becoming suddenly
| abandoned.
|
| Reminds me of Signal.
| srameshc wrote:
| I never realize Ghostty is a project by Mitchell Hashimoto. I am
| very happy with tmux and never seriously looked at it , now I
| really curious what is it about and how it is different than say
| tmux ?
| ubercore wrote:
| It's a terminal, not a multiplexer. Different type of product.
| simonw wrote:
| It's not an alternative to tmux, it's an alternative to the
| macOS Terminal.app or iTerm2.
|
| You can run tmux inside Ghostty.
| nurettin wrote:
| For those who will read this literally, it works fine on
| linux as well.
| dmit wrote:
| To be fair, you can also run tmux inside tmux (inside Zellij,
| inside another tmux, inside screen, etc). :)
| dagi3d wrote:
| I really love Ghostty. Thanks to it, my comeback to (n)vim has
| been quite smooth. Keybindings with the CMD key works right away
| without having to send any escape sequence or similar. It just
| works(tm)
| trueno wrote:
| ive found ghostty to be a pretty decent replacement for iterm2,
| some bugs still being worked out and i havent always had the
| best luck with the guake dropdown style terminal but all in all
| it's pretty nice. sort of miss the additional hot-key invoking
| options iterm2 had (i could double tap control or cmd to
| invoke) and ghostty is a lil more limited there, but overall
| its solid, doesn't feel bloated. iterm2's settings gui was a
| total tragedy. there was some xterm related issue i ran into
| ssh'ing into a vps but i can't even remember for the life of me
| what that was.
|
| i didnt even consider that having to configure everything with
| a config file allows apps like this
| https://github.com/zerebos/ghostty-config to exist. neat
| misiti3780 wrote:
| i agree, you can search in the terminal like you can iterm2
| either, which is super annoying.
| helterskelter wrote:
| Is there a compelling reason to use ghostty on Linux, over say,
| gnome-terminal or foot?
| smw wrote:
| It's very fast and has a lot of work to show correctness.
| sramsay wrote:
| There might be. And I certainly bear no ill will of any kind
| toward the project or its devs. But I am in terminals all day
| long, and I hesitate to use one that is written in a language
| that hasn't yet hit 1.0.
|
| Foot is way more my speed. Fast, extremely stable, and (most
| importantly) barely noticed. When it comes to terminals, the
| slightest flicker -- the merest bug -- and I'm gone. And that
| happened to me with both ghostty and alacritty.
| commandersaki wrote:
| Yes, because Ghostty is a fiscally sponsored non-profit.
| tristan957 wrote:
| The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit as well.
| mindcrash wrote:
| While foot focuses on minimalism, Ghostty brings along a shit
| ton of features like support for Kitty's
| (https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/) graphics protocol (in
| terminal images! - https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-
| protocol/), advanced window management (windows, tabs, splits)
| and OpenGL pixelshaders (https://catskull.net/fun-with-ghostty-
| shaders.html)
|
| Given features it's more comparable to Kitty than foot IMO.
| loeg wrote:
| gnome-terminal still writes out its scrollback history to the
| filesystem, potentially on-disk and not just tmpfs. It uses
| encryption to obfuscate that these days, but, it's still pretty
| weird behavior. Its performance is also relatively poor.
| crims0n wrote:
| One fun thing, it supports shaders: https://catskull.net/fun-
| with-ghostty-shaders.html
| neop1x wrote:
| Or WezTerm which is much more usable and polished than this. I
| don't think there are any. It is likely just a social media
| hype.
| tristan957 wrote:
| I use Ghostty because it is a native application, and it
| looks great on macOS and GNOME. WezTerm, Kitty, and Foot
| don't do that for me. Foot is great though.
| tristan957 wrote:
| gnome-terminal is GTK 3 last I checked, and foot uses Wayland
| primitives. If you want a native terminal feel, Ghostty would
| be a great terminal. On Linux, my backup terminal is Ptyxis,
| authored by Christian Hergert. I recommend Ptyxis over gnome-
| terminal or gnome-console.
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| Cool. I hadn't heard of it before. What advantages does it offer
| over the Mac's Terminal, for example?
| focom wrote:
| One personal gripe: Compared to the default terminal, ghostty,
| close the terminal on ctrl+d.
| Xiol wrote:
| People use something other than CTRL-D to exit their
| terminal?
| dbacar wrote:
| i type exit
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| Same. I didn't know Ctrl-D did anything.
| quesera wrote:
| Ctrl+D is the ASCII End Of File (EOF) marker.
|
| Software that takes text input should interpret that as
| the end of the input.
|
| Shells decide that end of input means it's time to exit.
| Terminals usually decide that if the shell exits, there's
| nothing else to do and so close the window.
|
| macOS Terminal.app instead prints "Process exited", which
| I can't quite fathom the value of. I guess it's
| marginally less confusing than making the window
| disappear. :)
|
| (Note though -- I can't find it in Terminal.app settings
| right now, but there must be a way to change the
| behaviour to close the window instead. Mine is configured
| that way, but it's not the default)
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| Thanks. It exists, and I found that I already have it
| active. In Settings, it's under Profiles / Shell and the
| control is
|
| When the shell exits: - Close if the shell existed
| cleanly
| kergonath wrote:
| Command-Q? Or command-W to close only the current window.
| hamburglar wrote:
| Good. That weird "keep the window open after ctrl+d" behavior
| is annoying.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| Against Mac's terminal I'd recommend ghostty. Just the support
| for more characters and better defaults are a good reason.
|
| Yet, I use WezTerm, won't be switching soon.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| For me:
|
| - easy to customise using a simple, easy to understand config
|
| - supports non-native full screen so I don't need to wait for
| the virtual desktop transition animation on Mac to finish...
|
| - has a friendly community
|
| - it's a good model for building sustainable products/tools
|
| and, with all of the above: it doesn't feel like a compromise
| kccqzy wrote:
| It's just faster when you accidentally dump large amount of
| text or binary onto the Terminal. You can measure this by
| running `time cat` on a multi-gigabyte file and observing the
| wall clock time.
| throwaway29827 wrote:
| So the same Hack Club from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45913663 is now managing
| donations. Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna be donating to Ghostty
| any time soon. Just seems like a deeply unserious organization
| all around.
| purpleidea wrote:
| This is great work and good news, however if you want to
| guarantee a long-term public benefit, use copyleft without a CLA!
| A more well-funded company can fork this and make the new work
| proprietary, meaning you did all that initial development work
| for them for free.
|
| Apple and Microsoft are the two most likely parties to do so
| here. This isn't a theoretical risk.
| simonw wrote:
| Using a copyleft license can add friction that reduces the
| amount of value your software can create in the world.
|
| I'd honestly rather Apple and Microsoft ripped off my work if
| it meant that my work provided more utility to a larger number
| of people.
| miclill wrote:
| I recently heard the argument that the license-friction of
| copyleft sometimes is actually a good thing. Think linux
| kernel that arguably is more successful than all the BSDs
| combined (citation needed)...
| simonw wrote:
| I'd be really interested in hearing more about that
| argument.
|
| I can take a guess with respect to Linux: that's the kind
| of software where forcing companies to submit code back to
| it is enormously beneficial due to the need for an
| operating system to have drivers for vast ranges of
| different hardware.
| knowknow wrote:
| Keep in mind that Linux doesn't use the GPL3 and stuck with
| the GPL2 since the maintainers and Linus Torvalds thought
| that it was overly restrictive [1]. So at some point the
| license friction becomes too large to be practical for
| organizations to use or contribute to.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/PaKIZ7gJlRU
| dulvui wrote:
| On the other hand having a copyleft license without CLA makes
| rug pulls nearly impossible (once there are multiple
| contributors and copyright holders). But you are right, from
| a (commercial) value perspective, permissive wins.
| purpleidea wrote:
| > Using a copyleft license can add friction that reduces the
| amount of value your software can create in the world.
|
| That "friction" is by design. It prevents someone else from
| screwing over the users.
|
| The people that oppose copyleft are those it was specifically
| design to protect against.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| It's sad, people have really been shitting on copyleft
| licenses the past few years, when they are critical to
| ensuring our computing freedoms are preserved.
|
| Copyleft protects the user. The friction is, like you said,
| by design. It ensures that something that started free,
| stays free, and can't be rug pulled out from under you.
|
| Big monied interests have been trying, and succeeding, in
| changing the discourse around free software away from free
| and to simply just "open source" and moving toward
| permissive licenses, specifically so community effort can
| be extracted and monetized without contributing back.
| bsimpson wrote:
| BSD-0 is a public-domain-equivalent license. The guy who
| published it is one of the few people who has actually been
| involved in a lawsuit to try to assert a copyleft license. The
| whole thing was such a bad experience for him that he decided
| copyleft licenses are a false goal.
|
| You should watch his talk:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJkyMuBm3g
|
| (He used to be a maintainer of busybox, a GNU clone for
| embedded devices. He then ended up writing toybox, a similar
| project under the more free MIT license.)
| Karliss wrote:
| Does anyone have good examples of this actually happening for
| end user software (like Ghostty is) and where in the long term
| proprietary fork won? Most of the recent variations of this
| that come to my mind are related to cloud infrastructure. Stuff
| where you have serious business customers.
|
| And in some of those cases GPL wasn't enough to prevent it.
| Niche end user utilities, where original is available for free
| have little room for monetization. And in many cases existing
| users are already choosing the open source option despite the
| existence of commercial solutions, or where it's too niche for
| commercial solutions to exist.
|
| Only thing that comes to my mind is VScode with all the AI
| craze. But that doesn't quite fit the pattern neither is the
| Microsoft underdog, nor it's clear that any of AI based editors
| derived from VScode will survive by themselves long term.
|
| There are also occasional grifters trying to sell open source
| software with little long term impact.
| tristan957 wrote:
| > Does anyone have good examples of this actually happening
| for end user software (like Ghostty is) and where in the long
| term proprietary fork won?
|
| VSCode is a proprietary fork of code-oss, the product located
| at https://github.com/microsoft/vscode. It might not be an
| example that you're looking for though.
| asim wrote:
| Kudos to Mitchell for doing it. Unfortunately the "rug pull"
| issue has been severely crippled by OpenAI's about face turn on
| their non profit status, but knowing Mitchell, he's not about the
| money, power, status, etc so the project is in good hands and you
| can expect this to stay free.
| sevensor wrote:
| > A non-profit structure provides enforceable assurances: the
| mission cannot be quietly changed, funds cannot be diverted to
| private benefit, and the project cannot be sold off or
| repurposed for commercial gain
|
| Yeah, OpenAI has shown us that this is more negotiable than we
| might have believed. Fortunately nobody will ever think
| terminal emulation is a trillion dollar industry, so I think
| we're ok.
| zwnow wrote:
| Monetary independent person announcing his side project which is
| just a teletypewriter and basically has no infra costs is now
| non-profit. More news at 10...
| wasmainiac wrote:
| Your right! Strange. I thought I commented this to the Seattle
| thread... bug?
| aroman wrote:
| Did you post this comment on the wrong article? Nothing here
| has anything to do with AI whatsoever.
| xrd wrote:
| I'm really excited about Ghostty (and Zig mostly because of my
| exposure via ghostty). Until ghostty I hadn't really considered
| that a terminal would be a catalyst for innovation and even
| startups. But, libghostty is REALLY fascinating. And, all the
| good AI coding tools, IMHO, operate inside a terminal, and my
| head is spinning with ideas about hammering on the container for
| these new CLIs.
|
| (UWash CompSci strikes again, not that I'm biased)
| simonw wrote:
| Inspired by this I just posted a resonably niche feature request
| to the Ghostty discussion forum (copy and paste to support
| text/rtf)... and found out within half an hour that the
| equivalent of what I was asking for was already available on
| their main branch: https://github.com/ghostty-
| org/ghostty/discussions/9798
| arjie wrote:
| Mitchell Hashimoto is a real programmer in the old vein. It's
| lovely to see him succeed. Ghostty is fantastic to use.
|
| There was a devtools blackhole era once where if you got in that
| business you were just giving things away and never got to reap
| the rewards. Then there was this era of founders who figured out
| how to make it sticky and capture value in a Pareto-optimal way.
|
| Love to see it.
| tolerance wrote:
| Is anyone opposed or at least of two minds concerning what could
| be described as the bureaucratization of FOSS?
|
| Or has this always been a thing. But it feels like a common--and
| celebrated--outcome for a lot of projects.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Ever heard of the Free Software Foundation? Apache Software
| Foundation? FreeBSD Foundation? Linux Foundation?
| chrysoprace wrote:
| Non-profits allow projects to grow beyond hobbies. Covering
| costs (whether that's the expense of hosting / running the
| project or hiring talented people to work on it) is going to be
| a better incentive to keep the projects alive in the long term,
| meaning that people can rely on them instead of being wary that
| the project might become abandonware in a year.
| xpe wrote:
| > I believe infrastructure of this kind should be stewarded by a
| mission-driven, non-commercial entity that prioritizes public
| benefit over private profit.
|
| One of my pet peeves is people trotting out "I believe"
| statements. (Usually) I care much more about the evidence that
| backs the belief than the belief.
|
| Putting aside my cantankerousness, I am glad Michael believes in
| setting up good incentives for the organization that will manage
| Ghostty. (But being glad right now doesn't count for much.)
|
| At a deeper level, my more precise complaint is people
| broadcasting "I believe" statements as if doing so should
| persuade us. It should not. "I believe" statements may often be
| personal and genuine, but they are so easily abused that perhaps
| they should be enumerated among the dark patterns of rhetoric.
|
| (There are some ridiculous quote from the first episode of
| Silicon Valley by Mike Judge that pokes fun at the zealotry
| behind belief, but I can't quote it off the top of my head.)
|
| In the case of software projects with broad benefits that want
| continuity over a long period of time, I _want_ to agree that the
| not-for-profit structure is a good choice and often than the
| alternatives. But I don't know that this has been carefully
| studied.
|
| My hunch would be there are stronger causal predictors such as
| governance mechanisms. Choosing an organization form is just step
| one. Smart governance, and long-term execution can only be shown
| with time.
|
| Individuals with unaligned incentives will challenge any
| organization's set of rules. In the same way that our immune
| system has to evolve over time to win, organizational rules at
| all levels have to evolve.
|
| Also, I do think there's a lot of opportunity for smarter legal
| structures after the machinations pulled by OpenAI.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Why do you assume Mitchell is just doing this without any
| research or reasoning? From what I know of him, it's surely the
| opposite.
|
| Your laundry list of everything that might possibly go wrong
| with an open software project is not exactly useful. There is
| no legal structure that can protect from all bad actors
| forever.
|
| But the good news is that if you hate this, you can fork the
| code and set up your own perfect legal entity to solve all the
| problems only you can see! Enjoy!
| Copenjin wrote:
| > A non-profit structure provides enforceable assurances: the
| mission cannot be quietly changed, funds cannot be diverted to
| private benefit, and the project cannot be sold off or repurposed
| for commercial gain.
|
| What does he mean, isn't this what OpenAI just did, I'm confused
| guys
| dizhn wrote:
| No way! You need to incorporate a whole other company for that.
| By the way, it's a terminal emulator. I think we'll be fine if
| they pull the rug.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| "A non-profit structure provides enforceable assurances: the
| mission cannot be quietly changed, funds cannot be diverted to
| private benefit, and the project cannot be sold off or repurposed
| for commercial gain. The structure legally binds Ghostty to the
| public-benefit purpose it was created to serve."
|
| I mean, after the OpenAI debacle, surely this type of assurance
| doesn't hold much weight anymore? (Though Ghostty is ofc very
| unlikely to pull shenanigans)
| itarmonkey wrote:
| we got hack club sponsorship in HS. Sanil chawla is a great guy
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Hey articles like this could get some value with a two liner
| about what the tool is, tty can mean several things, so clearly
| stating its function would help gain additional users that aren't
| already familiar with your product :)
| mmaunder wrote:
| Thanks for doing this Mitchell, if you're on here, and for
| contributing to open source. Donated.
| neural_thing wrote:
| Donating in Chrome didn't work, only in Safari.
|
| FullStory namespace conflict. Please set window["_fs_namespace"].
| script.pageview-props.tagged-events.js:1 Failed to load resource:
| net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENTUnderstand this error
| edge.fullstory.com/s/fs.js:1 Failed to load resource:
| net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENTUnderstand this error ghostty:1 Access
| to XMLHttpRequest at
| 'https://d3hb14vkzrxvla.cloudfront.net/v1/e3d6bbe1-aa48-43cb-...'
| from origin 'https://hcb.hackclub.com' has been blocked by CORS
| policy: Request header field beacon-device-instance-id is not
| allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Headers in preflight
| response.Understand this error installHook.js:1 Unable to Load
| Beacon overrideMethod @ installHook.js:1Understand this error
| installHook.js:1 $ overrideMethod @ installHook.js:1Understand
| this error d3hb14vkzrxvla.cloudfront.net/v1/e3d6bbe1-aa48-43cb-8f
| 8b-be1e33945bab:1 Failed to load resource:
| net::ERR_FAILEDUnderstand this error [Violation] Potential
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| to load resource: net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENTUnderstand this error
| 29[Intervention] Unable to preventDefault inside passive event
| listener due to target being treated as passive. See <URL>
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