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Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

ericmigi.com

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Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#191

Post by jamesbelchamber »

mmastrac wrote: post #186

Publishing private correspondence with single board member(s) is super distasteful because the opinion of one member is not the opinion of the whole board. Sure, he got tacit agreement from one, but that's not agreement with the organization as a whole. That's putting aside how gross it is for your personal comms to leak in public when you might be a little more candid about what's going on. How can you trust someone…

I think the attitude here was "you've publicly accused me of impropriety, so here come the receipts". Specifically the accusations that he's not communicating with them (the messages prove he is).

You could argue the extent to which this was necessary but he's got to publicly defend himself against accusations ("Core Devices Keeps Stealing Our Work") that appear to be false.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#192

Post by arghwhat »

mmastrac wrote: post #186

Publishing private correspondence with single board member(s) is super distasteful because the opinion of one member is not the opinion of the whole board. Sure, he got tacit agreement from one, but that's not agreement with the organization as a whole. That's putting aside how gross it is for your personal comms to leak in public when you might be a little more candid about what's going on. How can you trust someone…

The board falsely accused someone of a crime. The board members must take responsibility of that decision, which involves their interactions being evidence in claims of said crime. That responsibility is part of what it means to lead something.

It's a little gross it had come to that, but ugh. Sure rebble did good for the community, but that past tense is important. Now they're trying to do bad, and that cannot be justified. Accusations require a defense, so here we are.

The Pebble community is not and never was Rebble. I briefly used Cobble as an open source project, and used their app store mirror that they decided to host to download the same old apps and watch faces I used while Pebble lived, but I was not using a Rebble watch. The open source apps I want were never Rebble apps. No one expected Rebble to be anything than infrastructure life-support, but as no one thought the dream of new life in Pebble was never going to happen, it was the light we swarmed.

Now the life support task has ended with an appreciation for their efforts, and Rebble starts acting like a company running a smearing campaign trying and make up IP ownership and justification for royalties.

Rebble no longer represents any of the community, just a misguided and greedy board. What the community wanted now exists, so that is where we have gone.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#193

Post by totetsu »

infotainment wrote: post #103
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10

I 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…

Agreed -- While I admire their work in keeping the lights on, Rebble doesn't necessarily make sense in a world where the "real" Pebble company has returned. Keep in mind that this is their goal statement (straight from their FAQ): > Our goal is to maintain and advance Pebble functionality, in the absence of Pebble Technology Corp. Eric's new company, by effectively re-creating Pebble Technology Corp, is an existentia…

Maybe they need a secret ‘Second Rebble’, hidden within Pebble, to take over if it collapses again.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#194

Post by repeekad »

whyenot wrote: post #158
Anonbrit wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Updated themselves

Are they still open source? If so, why does it matter who updated them?

I think that’s the crux of the issue is rebble isn’t under any obligation distribute them open source, unless say the original app had a “copyleft” policy?

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#195

Post by IshKebab »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #148
IshKebab wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's not how copyright works.

Yes it is. I mean you gave no specifics so by all means, pick any statement and say what's incorrect about it.

You aren't allowed to distribute copyright works without permission just because the copyright holders haven't asked you to stop yet.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#196

Post by teekert »

protocolture wrote: post #145
apparent wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pebble went out of business but Core is set up very differently. They have an incredibly lean team and Eric appears to have self-funded much of the HW and SW development before taking a dime from customers. There's a chance that some awful fate will befall Eric, of course, but other than that I am not especially concerned that the new company will fold. Eric seems to understand what caused that outcome, and is specif…

It could sell, it could enshittify. Trusting a founder seems daft in the year of our lord 2025.

Does it? I'm more about trusting persons than ever. When the shareholders comes, thats when the enshitification process really starts. I also wish Tony Fadell would take over Nest again.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#197

Post by Brian_K_White »

Defletter wrote: post #150
Brian_K_White wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Core doesn not have any rights to it. Pebble did, and Pebble threw it away. Rebble honors copyright by taking anything down that a rightsholder says to. That's all copyright grants, and they are doing it. If you own an app and don't want Rebble to redistribute it, they won't. Core has no claim to anything. This is CoreTube coming along years later "Hey I used to work for Youtube. Give me your copy of all those videos…

You keep repeating that Core has no rights to that data, which is true, but it's a refutation to an argument no-one in this thread has made. What we're saying is that Rebble has no rights to that data either. Rebble's theft of that data was 'allowed' in the same way that Nickelback allow those "look at this graph" memes ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7aqZyRuP1Q ): it's copyright infringement but they don't care s…

What exactly are Rebble supposedly "hoarding to exclusion" again? The apps? https://github.com/aveao/PebbleArchive/tree/master/PebbleApp...

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#198

Post by calgoo »

pokoleo wrote: post #43
pokoleo wrote: post #9

Summarizing the dispute, for anyone interested: Rebble's "one red line" is "there has to be a future for Rebble in there." They fear being replaced/made irrelevant after Core builds their own infrastructure using Rebble's work. They want guarantees that if they give Core access to the app store data, Core won't build a proprietary/walled garden that cuts Rebble out. There's also emphasis on "our work," "we built this…

They sent an email a few minutes after I posted, saying that their fulfillment centre dropped the ball and they're escalating internally. I guess complaining on HN worked. Hope they can figure out the dispute with Rebble. Maybe they end up hosting apps on a package manager and create some binding contract?

There are also a bunch of cancelled order right now, so maybe they suddenly had a surplus of available devices...

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#200

Post by lopis »

827a wrote: post #44

The amount of internet drama a smartwatch that stopped being produced ten years ago generates even to this day is truly incredible. Nothing that's happening here is so important as to make enemies, and the fact that Core Devices even wants to use the open source app store and is willing to pay for it should have been an immediate "Yes, that's incredible, lets make it work" from Rebble. So what if they get bought by F…

Exactly. The fact that Rebble is against trying to make Pebble completely open made me lose trust in them. I thought that was the whole point of Rebble.
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