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Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
321–330 of 1001 posts
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#322> Naturally, I took down my project right away... So a CEO bullied you. He threatened to have lawyers look at something, accused you of behaving poorly, and accused you of being difficult. He is being manipulative. He is trying to guilt / scare you into stopping. And it worked. For all readers... do not be afraid of lawyers. Especially if nobody has even talked to them yet. Lawyers do not like to lose cases, so will…
I'm not afraid of lawyers, but I've been sued (a real estate matter) and I am definitely afraid of the U.S. civil law process.
I was on the jury for a civil real estate case that was rather open and shut from the jury's point of view. Maximum damages awarded would have been in the 5 figures. It was on the docket for 4 years.
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#323Did the author disclose the work on Riju as a prior invention before joining Repl.it? If so that puts him in the clear. I would also check your hiring contract to see what kind of clauses are in there about prior inventions. For larger companies, I don't think this company behavior would surprise anyone. I think I can understand where Repl.it is coming from. All I know is this behavior (by Riju author) isn't somethin…
Even if Repl.it rightly felt it was a breach of their IP, the CEO could have assumed good faith, explained his concerns kindly, and politely requested the project be taken down. The interesting thing is that he seemingly panicked, resorted to legal threats almost immediately, and even stooped to warning the kid that they have deep pockets. It’s like something you’d expect from 90s Microsoft, just more scrappy and tra…
I agree the interaction could have gone more smoothly. I also still think Repl.it and Amjad have reasonable viewpoints. I didn't see a panicky or instant legal threat reply from the emails. I saw an email pointing out the copying issue clearly, then a strong and lengthy pushback email from Riju author, and _then_ a reply about lawyers. The "I did nothing wrong" email from Riju author probably seemed benign, but seemed like strong pushback from Amjad.
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#324The most frustrating thing about this to me is the implication that whether the OP was right or wrong is irrelevant because Repl.it has "lots of money" to spend on "top lawyers."
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#325Slightly off-topic - what is a secure way to run arbitrary code in arbitrary languages in a server? I know replit's polygott docker container allows it.
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#326> Naturally, I took down my project right away... So a CEO bullied you. He threatened to have lawyers look at something, accused you of behaving poorly, and accused you of being difficult. He is being manipulative. He is trying to guilt / scare you into stopping. And it worked. For all readers... do not be afraid of lawyers. Especially if nobody has even talked to them yet. Lawyers do not like to lose cases, so will…
> It only becomes meaningful if and when ... your own lawyer believes they have a case
That is true, but most people don't have their "own lawyer" to ask.
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#327I'm on a job search, and Replit is one of the places I was going to apply, off of their listings on HN Who is Hiring?. So much for that, and I suspect a lot of devs are going to feel the same. (I don't think I'm good enough to get in, but there're a lot of really good devs who read HN who are.) In a seller's market for developers, this could hurt them in the form of less good talent applying. That said, my gut feelin…
which is hilarious given that the CEO of repl.it is literally building something similar to a product that he worked on at codeacademy
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#328It would be helpful if you could post the designs side by side so we could all judge if you have copied the design. If you haven't, they are simply in the wrong and you should re-publish you site. If your design is a copy, then most of your arguments are not very relevant. > Every similarity between my project and Replit can be explained by looking only at GitHub repositories and blog posts that were published online…
> I don't see how this is an argument. You're not allowed to copy their design even if it is public. That's not true. This depends entirely on the license of the relevant (repl.it) GitHub projects that the author is referencing. I don't know of any open source license that allows you to copy & modify code but somehow forbids you from reusing intangible design elements. This case is a little confusing, since it sounds…
> again, assuming a FOSS license
replit is not open source though. Only some parts of it are.
You can infringe copyright without copy-pasting code. If I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, burn my only copy of the book, then write and publish Jerry Schmotter and the Alchemist's Gem, a novel about a teenage boy with a star-shaped scar, etc., I'm probably infringing copyright even if I didn't word-for-word copy any part of a Harry Potter book.
There's a reason why "clean room" design exists; to maximally protect yourself against claims of infringement, you want the implementers of your copycat product to not even have seen the original implementation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
Copy-pasted code is a smoking gun but it's not necessary.
(I really have no idea if replit would have a case though. Seems dubious. But generally Copyright law is murkier than what some programmers think.)
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#329I agree the CEO is being very silly and stupid, but author is a bit ambiguous about whether he is or isn't making a replit clone. "they say they make it easy to share and remix your creations—but when I tried to remix Replit itself" OK this makes it sound like the author is writing a replit clone, or as he calls it "remix." Referencing repl.it by name in commit messages: probably good to avoid this.
Re: Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
They offered to hire him before insinuating he was a bad/demanding intern, as well. This is standard manipulative behavior and has little benefit to anyone besides attempting to make the intern feel bad. This isn't the first time I've seen a founder resort to this exact type of behavior before threatening legal action.
I would play devil's advocate here and say that the situation is probably muddier than it is presented in the blog. Also there appers to be a level of trust here (at least the Replit CEO trusted that OP will not make this go viral on HN and spiral into a PR nightmare I suppose, which though is the most entertaining path it can take) Not sure how talented OP is. This can as well be a case study of who not to hire.
> Not sure how talented OP is.
Based on the commit log in the article, he added support for running code in 79 programming languages in 4 days. I'd say he's probably pretty talented.