Wow, I had no clue, but assumed Foundation sprung from BS. I like that Foundation is lighter and easier to override than BS, and even though it has a similar look, it's decidedly different than the stock, ubiquitous bootstrap design. But lack of IE8 support makes it a bit of a hard sell. I'm excited to see what's in store for both frameworks, but hope to see Foundation continue as a leaner, less opinionated alternative.
I really like Foundation based on the same points you raised.
It does support IE8, minus the responsive stuff, it's < IE8 that it doesn't (http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/support.php), and that's a deal breaker for me and why I've never used it since most of the sites I build still get around 10-12% from IE7.
You could use the older version of Foundation, but that doesn't appeal to me either.
