Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai • Hacker News Board

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#271

Post by bbourn » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 4:12 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #47

karmicthreat wrote: post #18

Adafruit probably did a review of AI PCB tools. I've used Flux.ai before; it was a pretty bad experience. After about 50-100$ in tokens a couple of times, I couldn't get more than a couple of simple components on the schematic. And not in sensible positions. The product just grinds tokens for little return, in my opinion. I had far better luck wiring together KiCad MCP, SKIDL. There are some AI-driven autorouters out…

> There are some AI-driven autorouters out there now. Placement is probably the big issue that needs to be solved now. Interesting that within an IC this is basically "solved", or at least properly automated with classical numeric techniques such as simulated annealing. I would have thought there's a big opportunity in a mixed-technique approach, where you use AI to extract unstructured data from datasheets and then…

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Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#272

Post by bbourn » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 4:15 AM UTC

monuszero wrote: post #126

pjc50 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some AI-driven autorouters out there now. Placement is probably the big issue that needs to be solved now. Interesting that within an IC this is basically "solved", or at least properly automated with classical numeric techniques such as simulated annealing. I would have thought there's a big opportunity in a mixed-technique approach, where you use AI to extract unstructured data from datasheets and then…

That precise mixed technique approach has worked well for me. I’ve been using JITX (python based circuit design with a powerful auto router). Free for personal use, and has been discussed a few times here in HN. Edit: it’s almost assumed at this point but for completeness Claude / Codex were the ones driving the OO python code and datasheet research and parsing. https://www.jitx.com/

Can you elaborate on what you mean by “it’s almost assumed..”? I’m actively working on datasheet parsing at scale at Zenode.ai, and I haven’t read anything specifically about this…

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#273

Post by otterley » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:17 AM UTC

AviationAtom wrote: post #247

otterley wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we see the demand letter, please? If not, why not? My concern here is that this is like a child going to their parents to complain their sibling hit them, only to find out when you ask the sibling that the first one pushed them off their bicycle. If you don't share it, I think it's a reasonable assumption that you're coming in with unclean hands, trying to use the court of opinion to gain sympathy while denying u…

Their legal council may have advised them not to publish it at this moment

As an attorney myself, I wonder why. Something about this smells super fishy to me. If I were their counsel, I'd advise them to be consistent: either publish the demand letter along with their blog post, or remain silent about the matter entirely until the dispute is resolved.

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#274

Post by otterley » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:17 AM UTC

4Humboldt wrote: post #264

otterley wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we see the demand letter, please? If not, why not? My concern here is that this is like a child going to their parents to complain their sibling hit them, only to find out when you ask the sibling that the first one pushed them off their bicycle. If you don't share it, I think it's a reasonable assumption that you're coming in with unclean hands, trying to use the court of opinion to gain sympathy while denying u…

While usually legal to do so, it is typically also equally unwise to do so. That may displease you and others, but I don’t think that aspect is a highly relevant factor here.

What's "unwise" about it? If you're on the right side of both the facts and the law, what harm or prejudice can come from doing so?

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#275

Post by mrandish » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:19 AM UTC

otterley wrote: post #243

ladyada wrote: post #161

hi everyone, its me 'ladyada. we're very much looking forward to telling our story, i have reached out to the founder of flux.ai (Matthias Wagner - Founder & CEO at Flux), in hopes we can resolve this together and set a good example for the community. looking forward to maybe seeing this resolved on a podcast together, or something

Can we see the demand letter, please? If not, why not? My concern here is that this is like a child going to their parents to complain their sibling hit them, only to find out when you ask the sibling that the first one pushed them off their bicycle. If you don't share it, I think it's a reasonable assumption that you're coming in with unclean hands, trying to use the court of opinion to gain sympathy while denying u…

Ladyada mentions in the current top post of this thread that they've reached out to the Flux.ai founder to hopefully discuss a mutually satisfactory resolution.

Unilaterally publishing Flux's demand letter probably isn't prohibited but doing so prior to discussion or any notice IS a signal. And it's a signal that could be interpreted by Flux as non-constructive, escalation or possibly even combative. In the absence of clear communication, things can be interpreted incorrectly.

I've been in far too many of these potentially contentious, early-lawyer-letter loops over the decades. It's actually shocking how easily things can spiral into unintended escalation over essentially nothing, especially very early on. And the more things start amping up, even if only in one party's imagination, it's absurd how hard to can be to climb back down. Especially with lawyers in the loop who are incentivized to fully preserve all their client's rights, posture aggressively for tactical position and burn retainer 12 minutes at a time.

I finally started to "get it" after maybe the third time in three years where I discovered after several months, $15,000 and a bunch of stress that the whole stupid thing could have been sorted in the first week by acting slowly, dismissing my assumptions and resisting all my instincts about how to respond. Let's just give these folks a week to see if there's a way to hit CTRL+Z, before we start demanding details just so we can pass meaningless mob judgement on who's right or wrong.

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#276

Post by otterley » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 6:27 AM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #275

otterley wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we see the demand letter, please? If not, why not? My concern here is that this is like a child going to their parents to complain their sibling hit them, only to find out when you ask the sibling that the first one pushed them off their bicycle. If you don't share it, I think it's a reasonable assumption that you're coming in with unclean hands, trying to use the court of opinion to gain sympathy while denying u…

Ladyada mentions in the current top post of this thread that they've reached out to the Flux.ai founder to hopefully discuss a mutually satisfactory resolution. Unilaterally publishing Flux's demand letter probably isn't prohibited but doing so prior to discussion or any notice IS a signal. And it's a signal that could be interpreted by Flux as non-constructive, escalation or possibly even combative. In the absence o…

I don’t disagree with you, but if we’re talking about the wisest course of action here—assuming what you’re saying is true—it would be to resolve the matter privately and abstain from publishing this blog post in the first place. Perhaps publishing the letter is an escalation, but so is this. It’s just passive aggressive.

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#277

Post by hamburglar » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:02 AM UTC

sleepybrett wrote: post #240

evntdrvn wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it helps, I've found that using context (Claude.md etc) is way less effective for this type of pattern compared to using PreToolHook to capture "bad patterns" and either transparently rewriting them to "do the right thing" if that is possible statically, or if not then rejecting the tool use with a message that tells the agent "how" to use the intended tooling itself.

and/or write a skill

I wrote a skill and included the instruction in Claude.md to always use this skill if it ever feels like grepping around in Unity files. It still took a lot of reminding it before it did it consistently. I’d interrupt it and say “it looks like you’re using grep for something you have an explicit tool for” and it would go “oh, my bad” and do it right. Took a few days to really sink in.

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#278

Post by hamburglar » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:03 AM UTC

murphyslaw wrote: post #208

hamburglar wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in Unity and I got frustrated with Claude constantly doing gross bash/grep/awk/sed/grep nested loops that took forever that I finally described (and had Claude implement and install) a tool that could, in a single pass, gather all this info from a Unity forest of scenes at once and answer all the questions Claude ever wanted to ask about a Unity project in a single pass that takes 50ms instead of 10 30 second…

Shouldn't it be possible to simply state in the contract to use that tool only? I've had good success with that in my coding.

Sure, but it turns out it isn’t guaranteed to listen. :)

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#279

Post by mrandish » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:50 AM UTC

otterley wrote: post #276

mrandish wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ladyada mentions in the current top post of this thread that they've reached out to the Flux.ai founder to hopefully discuss a mutually satisfactory resolution. Unilaterally publishing Flux's demand letter probably isn't prohibited but doing so prior to discussion or any notice IS a signal. And it's a signal that could be interpreted by Flux as non-constructive, escalation or possibly even combative. In the absence o…

I don’t disagree with you, but if we’re talking about the wisest course of action here—assuming what you’re saying is true—it would be to resolve the matter privately and abstain from publishing this blog post in the first place. Perhaps publishing the letter is an escalation, but so is this. It’s just passive aggressive.

While I haven't followed this situation, I assumed based on this...

> we have temporarily stopped publishing on the Adafruit blog

That they needed to explain to their audience why they stopped publishing on their blog, and I inferred they might have previously mentioned on social media that an article was in the works, as many blogs do (which might also explain the demand letter). But I don't know for sure, and apparently neither do you.

The only difference is I didn't demand any documents, post uninformed speculation or "reasonably assume" lack of compliance with my demands would be "unclean hands" and "passive aggressive" behavior. I clearly need to work harder at being a more engaged uninformed bystander. I haven't even slung any accusations or roused any rabble yet.

Re: Adafruit receives demand letter from Fenwick legal counsel on behalf of Flux.ai

#280

Post by Courty » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:58 AM UTC

This whole think is crazy. We’re being expected to pay to develop their tools which quite frankly are fairly poor. I’m sure at some point they will get better but like the AI code, its volume over quantity. Code and PCB design is part science and part art. The AI boy do neither well. I have had several frustrating sessions trying to explain a simple concept to it and burning through tokens to do something an intern would be able to do in an hour. For code it’s a good sounding board and for PCB’s it’s a waste of a good designers time. And if you point this out? A desist letter.. that says to me they know the systems are floored, buggy and not value for money..