[flagged]
Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
11–20 of 258 posts
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#12Why is Rebble so set on protecting this code that would have an incredibly limited shelf life if not for the new Pebble devices? It seems like an incredibly short-sighted fight against someone who (legally) owes them 0 unless they can substantiate the allegation that Pebble stole their code (theirs not being code they themselves scraped after Pebble's initial failure).
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#13Now I am glad I didn't order a new one. Drama everywhere nowadays.
> Drama everywhere nowadays.
That's the way open source works. Do you think the Linux Kernel or Python communities are better?
Btw, that's also the way democracy works. Dictatorships don't have drama because they repress it.
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eric has been a pretty stand-up guy when it comes to Pebble. He could have been content with an exit (though sad to see it wither in the hands of Fitbit => Google), but instead kept the dream alive. He bought it back and made another refreshed attempt, despite being a YC partner and repeat founder. It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I thin…
> It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I think the default trust should be with him, or at least it is for me. The default trust should be with him instead of _the community_ that built and maintained Rebble for a decade?
It's not clear why the community refuses to make the app store archive public. It's an archive of other developers' work. Doesn't make any sense to say "you can only get these from the Rebble website". Just do requester-pays on the S3 bucket.
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#15I view this entire thing through an extremely simple, reductive lens: Rebble effectively had free reign on this ecosystem for years, and could have at any time decided to try and capitalize on it further. They still can! But instead they're apparently interested in rent seeking while Core makes real headway. It's clear that Eric and Core want to make something now. It's not clear what Rebble wants, but it's clear the…
The subscription fee was what enabled them to host these services. From their blog post, they mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure and software. I expect that the connections and skills involved in running the Rebble web services don't directly translate to creating a hardware product.
That said, I think you are right that Rebble is feeling left out - and that it is hard to figure out exactly how they can fit into Core's vision. But I think there are a couple of primary and immediate issues:
1. Core wants Rebble's data - so clearly there is value here, but Core is framing this debacle like Rebble is irrelevant. Also, I don't know that Google would've ever released PebbleOS if Rebble didn't exist
2. Rebble wants to see the future of Pebble remain open-source or at least compatible with their services, so that if Pebble goes bust again, the community can continue on
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I think the default trust should be with him, or at least it is for me. The default trust should be with him instead of _the community_ that built and maintained Rebble for a decade?
It's not clear why the community refuses to make the app store archive public. It's an archive of other developers' work. Doesn't make any sense to say "you can only get these from the Rebble website". Just do requester-pays on the S3 bucket.
The concern is that it will be imported into a separate app store owned by Pebble, which Pebble will lock Rebble out of (i.e. block scraping and refuse to release this data), and then if Pebble goes bust again, Rebble is left with less than they started with.
As I understand it, they almost came to an agreement on this:
> We want to give Core’s users access to the Rebble App Store. (We thought we agreed on that last month.) We’re happy to commit to maintaining the Web Services. We’d be happy to let them contribute and build new features. And what we want in return is simple: if we give Core access to our data, we want to make sure they’re not just going to build a walled garden app store around our hard work.
To be clear, the Rebble app store includes more than just things uploaded to Pebble - many apps have been created and uploaded since Pebble OG shutdown.
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#17What an entirely avoidable lose-lose bust-up.
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#18I view this entire thing through an extremely simple, reductive lens: Rebble effectively had free reign on this ecosystem for years, and could have at any time decided to try and capitalize on it further. They still can! But instead they're apparently interested in rent seeking while Core makes real headway. It's clear that Eric and Core want to make something now. It's not clear what Rebble wants, but it's clear the…
The subscription fee was what enabled them to host these services. From their blog post, they mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure and software. I expect that the connections and skills involved in running the Rebble web services don't directly translate to creating a hardware product. That said, I think you are right that Rebble is feeling left out - and that it is hard to figure out e…
Core doesn't want Rebble's data. They want the data from the original Pebble store, which is not owned by Rebble. It's the work of thousands of independent developers and it should be shared freely, not kept in a walled garden with "no scraping" terms added on. It's actually offensive that Rebble is using other developers' data (that they originally scraped from Pebble) as a bargaining chip in their contract negotiation that they made into a public squabble.
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#19I view this entire thing through an extremely simple, reductive lens: Rebble effectively had free reign on this ecosystem for years, and could have at any time decided to try and capitalize on it further. They still can! But instead they're apparently interested in rent seeking while Core makes real headway. It's clear that Eric and Core want to make something now. It's not clear what Rebble wants, but it's clear the…
The subscription fee was what enabled them to host these services. From their blog post, they mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure and software. I expect that the connections and skills involved in running the Rebble web services don't directly translate to creating a hardware product. That said, I think you are right that Rebble is feeling left out - and that it is hard to figure out e…
I'll be totally honest: I have no idea what they possibly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on. That seems totally absurd and reckless.
Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward
#20This is a bit of a what-if, but I had a Pebble watch back then and was considering trying to make an app for it. The idea that, if I had succeeded and published the app, that Rebble would be claiming ownership over my binary and threatening legal action against the original Pebble creator, to be really quite ridiculous and affronting.