I think their email used unfortunate wording where it doesn't specify just a part of Zed is 18+. Their blog post does a better job: "Age requirement. You must be 18 or older to use Zed’s AI-enabled software-as-a-service offering (the “Service")."
put down the pitchfork
That's still not great
I can't speak for Zed specifically, but this has little to do with the nature of the software, and more to do with overreach on the part of legislators with respect to age verification (self attested or otherwise).
For example, California's AB-1043, which takes effect in January of 2027: https://natlawreview.com/article/california-introduces-new-age-verification-requirements-software-applications
I use Zed occasionally but only because they allow you to completely disable all AI garbage.
I really wish we had a full IDE without AI that doesn't require tens of hours of configuration and learning.
Zed is a minimal code editor crafted for speed and collaboration with humans and AI.
you use a AI editor... and disable the AI
it's like ordering a supreme pizza and picking off all the toppings
Disabling the AI in Zed is one simple setting switch, they gained popularity by advertising exactly that feature.
Zed is a Code Editor. It's like Eclipse or Visual Studio Code, except Visual Studio Code's AI can't be disabled. A better analogy is it's like every pizzeria in town adds dog diarrhea as a non-optional topping except for one. I don't care how many places do it, don't come in here and try to fucking normalize dog diarrhea pizza.
Probably a troll, just ignore
Actually, VSCodium is open source (unlike VSCode), and completely free of AI.
I'm just not gonna trust Microsoft going forward. Theres a couple of repos of Codium with the telemetry and branding stripped out, but if I have the option to be completely nonreliant on them then that's better.
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I can't think of many services that allow kids to purchase stuff without parental oversight, so that seems like a normal thing.
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