Mea Culpa – Dark Hours

Kudos to the author for taking responsibility and doing the ethical thing here.

> I’d like to give credit where credit is due.

... but I'm not going to insert a link to his project - https://github.com/mbeher2200/DarkHours

On the previous HN posts I got this impression:

The developer's astrology app containing tarot reading features was rejected from Apple's App Store that prohibits astrology apps.

He then replaced the app's content with a clone of, if not the identical open source astronomy app "Dark Hours", copying even the name. The original is here: https://darkhours.app

The developer was then in contact with John Gruber, who wrote an article claiming Apple's reviewers confuse a nice, scientific astronomy app with astrology. The developer reviewed the article before publication.

It then turned out that the developer forgot to mention that originally he did upload an astrology app for review. Gruber felt duped, and noted that it's unclear whether an updated build containing the new astronomy app was ever submitted to Apple for review: https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/retraction_app_store_reje...

Now the developer seems to claim that he merely accidentally cloned that open source app when working with Claude.

I am not buying it.

I love the attitude. Period. And I also understand his personal decision to not use it to create mobile apps, as mentioned. But, I would not follow the same route. There are several open source projects, and just because models were trained with their code, it shouldn’t stop me of creating something similar/better, with my “taste” (from another post this week) in mind. We are all different. We should have different options. I fully support open-source, but I support way more the creativity and idea from individuals that can generate something new.

That's interesting. I had originally posted a "this dude is classy" comment, and may repost, but I'd like to find out more, beforehand.

Are there any links to this stuff that you can share?

[UPDATED] Ah. I see this post has it[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49231394