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Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

intuitiveexplanations.com

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Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

#22

Post by zemo »

so they said "we're gonna talk to some lawyers" and your response is to write a lengthy public blog post without any legal counsel, in which you publish private correspondence along with the other person's contact info without their consent, and in which you essentially document all of the evidence against you -and- admit you understood your actions? huh. That's probably not how I would have responded.

Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

#23

Post by vidarh »

rd wrote: post #7

If I’m reading those emails correctly, Amjad the CEO directly emailed you occasionally. It is pretty stunning that as the CEO of the company, he would stoop to what I interpret as pretty unprofessional communication and petty threats. I also am failing to connect the dots about why Replit would even feel threatened - if you were as helpful of an intern as described, you’d think they would recognize that you had good…

I mean, this was a marketing opportunity. They could've asked nicely if he'd be willing to link to repl.it for anyone who wants something more solid and scalable. It sounds from the early e-mails as if OP started out very positively predisposed towards them.

Instead they've now broadcast to their potential customer base that they're litigious and petty.

Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

#24

Post by danuker »

They realized you had the potential of taking away some of their traffic.

Traffic lets them sell data, charm investors, and maybe improve their service to a limited extent by analyzing that data.

What do they have to lose by bullying you, since they have lawyers on the payroll already?

You could ask a lawyer if you have a chance to win in court.

Perhaps the EFF would like to grind their teeth on Replit and create a precedent: https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance

Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

#25

Post by anm89 »

Sad that this is my expectation these days. In the past I'd say I'd no longer use repl.it but if I ruled out interacting with every company that did unethical stuff I had have to lock myself in an empty room.

But still I'll make an effort to stop using repl.it going forward. What a scumbag move.

Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

#26

Post by dimgl »

sitzkrieg wrote: post #20
dimgl wrote: post #12

Yeah, not sure about this one chief. I don't know the legal aspects here, but I think it makes sense to not create an open-source project that competes with your previous employer and then correspond with them letting them know you did it...

this is not reddit

I'm not sure I follow. How is this a Reddit comment?

I don't think the author of this post is in the right here. Most people are piling on saying Repl.it is behaving irrationally. But to me it seems... in line with what an employer should think?

Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

#28

Post by spoonjim »

I could understand an over eager lawyer but this is the CEO of a company with $20 million in funding personally threatening to sic the lawyers on a one man open source project. This is evidence that: 1) he doesn’t have anything better to do, bad news for Replit, 2) he’s afraid of this little project, also bad news for Replit.
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