GoKawiilToday marks a major transition for the Zulip open-source project and for Kandra Labs, the company behind it: I’m stepping back from full-time Zulip leadership to join Anthropic, alongside three senior team members, and we’re donating the company to a newly created, independent, nonprofit Zulip Foundation. The new structure provides stability, a renewed commitment to our values, and opportunities for charitable fundraising to support our mission. This blog post explains these changes and why they set Zulip up for greater long-term success.
Zulip is a beloved organized team chat product, used by thousands of companies, open-source projects, and research communities. Zulip is known for its unique topic-based threading model, which makes it easy to have many conversations in parallel without chaos, interruptions, or stress. April’s Zulip 12.0 release included almost 5,500 commits contributed by 160 people from all around the world.
Zulip’s new ownership and governance structure
The Zulip Foundation will be the formal steward of the Zulip project, with a mission of developing the best possible team chat experience, with a particular focus on public-interest organizations and communities.
Kandra Labs, the company that has stewarded Zulip for the last decade, will now be fully and independently owned by the Zulip Foundation, with no other stockholders or debt obligations. Kandra Labs will continue hosting, supporting, and improving Zulip for use across all industries, offering an excellent experience for business customers. We’re committed to being a trustworthy, transparent vendor for our customers, and anticipate no major changes in how we conduct business.
I’m excited that this new structure — similar to governance structures for Mozilla, Signal, and Wikipedia — formalizes our longtime commitment to Zulip’s sustainability and independence.
The foundation’s initial board of directors will be:
Tim Abbott, Zulip’s founder (me).
Greg Price, who has helped me lead Zulip in a cofounder-like role for the last 9 years.
Alya Abbott, Zulip’s product lead, who has also held a cofounder-like role for the last 5 years.
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