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MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

blog.meshcore.io

51–60 of 190 posts

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#51

I would absolutely encourage everyone reading this to check out Reticulum [1] if you haven't already. I believe the base project might be in need of new maintainers(?) at the moment and the main dev has some very strong takes, but it is a very well-thought out approach to distributed networking at the protocol layer. The existing implementations out there include a desktop app which can function over the internet (IP…

Which frequency do you get? Does it matter?

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#52
Ah, the cliche story of most open source projects! Still, that was a dick move to hijack the project just because you were the “front end” or the promoter, and found that AI can help so you backstabbed the team and hijacked the trademark as well, class A a-hole!

Just a word of caution, claude code might look impressive if your knowledge is shallow or intermediate in a topic, but if you know what you’re doing, once you dig deeper it starts to introduce plenty of scope creeps into your code base, piling one on top of another that you won’t even recognize your own code shortly.

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IYKYK. Hams are known for a distinctive personality type that can be at strong odds from other tech people and other comms people. Usually in ways that clash with consequences. I know a few hams that are chill and they are precious doves. I know quite a few more who I won't even engage with for fear of crossing them and them dedicating their lives to making mine hell. Because I've seen them do it to others. That's no…

I have an amateur radio licence and I agree. One reason I rarely operate... I always found it interesting how many useful little apps hams write, keep them closed source and then...die.

It's kind of alarming how much more enjoyable the less legal communities in the radio hobby are to spend time around.

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#54

I would absolutely encourage everyone reading this to check out Reticulum [1] if you haven't already. I believe the base project might be in need of new maintainers(?) at the moment and the main dev has some very strong takes, but it is a very well-thought out approach to distributed networking at the protocol layer. The existing implementations out there include a desktop app which can function over the internet (IP…

Which frequency do you get? Does it matter?

It matters legally.

Different countries allow unlicensed use on different frequencies. Look up which is correct for your location.

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IYKYK. Hams are known for a distinctive personality type that can be at strong odds from other tech people and other comms people. Usually in ways that clash with consequences. I know a few hams that are chill and they are precious doves. I know quite a few more who I won't even engage with for fear of crossing them and them dedicating their lives to making mine hell. Because I've seen them do it to others. That's no…

I don't really think its fair to lump hams into that behavioral bucket. It's certainly a personality type that tends to get attracted to lots of different technical hobbies.

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Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#56
post #44

>We have always been wary of AI generated code, but felt everyone is free to do what they want and experiment, etc. But, one of our own, Andy Kirby, decided to branch out and extensively use Claude Code, and has decided to aggressively take over all of the components of the MeshCore ecosystem: standalone devices, mobile app, web flasher and web config tools. >And, he’s kept that small detail a secret - that it’s all…

Agreed. I use meshcore and have multiple repeaters setup. I don't care about people using ai assisted coding but I think it should be disclosed especially if its closed source. Now the trademark take over seems crazy especially given Andy hasn't contributed to the github project, only personal for profit add ons. I do also think that the meshcore core team have "tacked on" and tried to enforce a stronger narrative wi…

> only personal for profit add ons

In that context it is quite logical to take a trademark out once the project is mature enough so you can profit off other people's work.

Considering their user base does not like the hidden vibe coded idea I don't think this is bias but a sane rationalisation.

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#57

>We have always been wary of AI generated code, but felt everyone is free to do what they want and experiment, etc. But, one of our own, Andy Kirby, decided to branch out and extensively use Claude Code, and has decided to aggressively take over all of the components of the MeshCore ecosystem: standalone devices, mobile app, web flasher and web config tools. >And, he’s kept that small detail a secret - that it’s all…

> Is the code bad? It sounds like they had no idea he was using AI. That seems to imply there was nothing wrong with the code as-is. Why not judge it on it's merits?

Anyone that has used AI at all knows this isn't how it works. AI is extremely good at producing plausible-but-wrong outputs. It's literally optimised for plausibility, which happens to coincide with correctness a lot of the time. When it doesn't you get code that seems good and is therefore very difficult to judge on its merits.

With human written code it's a lot easier to tell if it's good or not.

There are exceptions to this - usually if you have some kind of oracle like that security work that used AddressSanitizer to verify security bugs, or if you're cloning a project you can easily compare the behaviour to the original project. Most of the time you don't have that luxury though.

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#58
post #14

I've played with MeshCore and Meshtastic a bit, and while they are fun, the general hype seems overblown. The "SHTF" types that get involved with this tend to just taint the whole concept for me. I was/am interested in the use cases for building sensor networks, but most of the chatter seems to be around people who just want to send Hello World type texts back and forth, without realizing how poorly a network like th…

I got to participate in a game that used Meshtastic and GPS where you walk around a large camp and "capture" different regions. It worked great for that and was a lot of fun.

If there ever where a more serious situation where my life depended on one of these meshes, I would be feeling pretty uneasy. They are absolutely not reliable enough to even consider such a thing. I suppose they might be better than nothing.

To say nothing of what is required to set up the devices. I wanted to put a full dev system on a raspberry pi 3 just so it would all be in one place and I could work on it when in a location with no internet - it ran out of memory trying to compile the massive web app that is the default client interface.

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#59
post #14

I've played with MeshCore and Meshtastic a bit, and while they are fun, the general hype seems overblown. The "SHTF" types that get involved with this tend to just taint the whole concept for me. I was/am interested in the use cases for building sensor networks, but most of the chatter seems to be around people who just want to send Hello World type texts back and forth, without realizing how poorly a network like th…

I largely agree and want to add more,I also think the lack of standards also will effect it's usability in a real shtf scenario. why should I use meshstastic over meshcore for example. I also don't think lora will be in my mind in that kind of scenario.

Re: MeshCore development team splits over trademark dispute and AI-generated code

#60

What is it with mesh projects and having these super draconian trademark enforcers? Meshtastic is the same. One of the main reasons I got interested in MeshCore was reading the Meshtastic trademark rules and just finding them... really really over the top.

> What is it with mesh projects and having these super draconian trademark enforcers?

Simple. Follow the money. Meshcore has more than 100k of users, repeaters are cropping up like weeds across the world. And that means there is a serious incentive to "cash out".

Notably, the person "cashing out" here wasn't involved in Meshcore firmware or app development, but in marketing.

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