Pledging Another $400k to the Zig Software Foundation

# Pledging Another $400,000 to the Zig Software Foundation Source: [https://mitchellh.com/writing/zig-donation-2026](https://mitchellh.com/writing/zig-donation-2026) My family is pledging another $400,000[1](https://mitchellh.com/writing/zig-donation-2026#user-content-fn-1)to the[Zig Software Foundation](https://ziglang.org/zsf/)\(ZSF\)\. This brings our total pledged support for ZSF to $700,000, after our[initial donation in 2024](https://mitchellh.com/writing/zig-donation)\. Zig continues to earn my respect as a technical project and as a community\. The[2026 devlog](https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/)shows steady progress on the hard problems of building an excellent language and compiler\. I also deeply respect the project's approach to maintainership and community, reflected in initiatives like Loris Cro's[Contributor Poker and Zig's AI Ban](https://kristoff.it/blog/contributor-poker-and-ai/)\. That philosophy continues to attract and develop some of the most[talented people in open source](https://ziglang.org/news/welcoming-new-team-members/)\. Recently, Zig's strict no\-LLM contribution policy became a public topic of discussion again, especially in the context of Bun's Zig fork and Rust rewrite\. I have no problem with what Bun did, I think Bun is a great project, and I'm not interested in turning this into a Bun post\. Instead, what stood out to me was how quickly people villainized one another\. Too much of the conversation lacked empathy and respect for viewpoints different from our own\. I use AI heavily\. I've written about[my AI adoption journey](https://mitchellh.com/writing/my-ai-adoption-journey)and[shipping real features with AI assistance](https://mitchellh.com/writing/non-trivial-vibing)\. I'm also quite vocal about[remaining rational about its capabilities](https://x.com/mitchellh/status/2066657032938442833)and[frustrated with its negative impacts on open source](https://github.com/mitchellh/vouch)\. 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\. Zig is exceptional software: ambitious, practical, independent, and unusually serious about quality\. Ghostty exists in large part because Zig made it possible for me to build the kind of software I wanted to build\. This is why I support Zig\. I'm proud to support Zig and the Zig Software Foundation again\. Please consider[donating](https://ziglang.org/zsf/)if you can\. 1. $200,000 per year split over two years, the same structure as our 2024 donation\.[↩](https://mitchellh.com/writing/zig-donation-2026#user-content-fnref-1)