zkSync creator and CEO of Matter Labs, Alex Gluchowski, has denied allegations of plagiarizing code from Polygon Zero, a zero-knowledge scaling firm. Gluchowski called the accusations “unfounded, misleading, and extremely disappointing,” stating that he highly respects the Polygon Zero team. This comes in response to a blog post by Polygon Zero, accusing Matter Labs of copy-pasting a significant amount of source code from the Plonky2 library.
Polygon Zero claimed that Matter Labs’ recent release, Boojum, integrated code from Plonky2 without proper attribution. While Plonky2 is an open-source platform, Polygon raised concerns about the lack of original copyrights and clear attribution to the original authors in Boojum. Polygon also highlighted similarities between Boojum and Plonky2, including the use of parallel repetition and custom gates for efficient arithmetic recursive verification.
In response, Gluchowski stated that Matter Labs gave credit to Polygon in the first line of the Boojum module and mentioned that around 5% of the Boojum code drew inspiration from the Plonky2 codebase. He acknowledged that there could have been a better approach to attributions and expressed a willingness to apply a more standard approach in the future.
Matter Labs emphasized that if the Polygon Zero team wanted additional credit, they could have submitted a pull request, which would have been gladly accepted. Gluchowski maintained that the accusations of plagiarism were unfounded and that Matter Labs values the contributions and collaboration within the crypto community.
The ongoing spat between Matter Labs and Polygon Zero raises questions about the importance of proper code attribution and the need for clear guidelines within the open-source community. As the crypto industry continues to evolve, ensuring transparency and fair recognition of contributions will be crucial for fostering trust and collaboration among developers and projects.
