Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

intuitiveexplanations.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 1001 posts

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

#491

Post by piemadd »

robertkrahn01 wrote: post #437
tzs wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did any of the Replit people work on Lively Kernel? I think what has the Replit guy upset is not that some random person did something similar, but rather that someone who worked at Replit did something similar. As far as Lively Kernel goes, is there a list of languages it supports? All I got from your links is that it is a JavaScript-based web development environment, seems to have a lot of Smalltalk related stuff,…

> Did any of the Replit people work on Lively Kernel? No, and I wasn't suggesting that. Though Lively was a project at YC Research in 2016/2017 and replit is a YC 18 company I think. So they might have heard about it but I do not remember giving any demos to folks involved with it. And even if, we actually invited folks to copy the ideas. The Lively project was not a product but trying to carry forward a set of ideas…

> Though Lively was a project at YC Research in 2016/2017 and replit is a YC 18 company I think.

You're right about Replit going to YC after Lively, but Replit actually started much earlier (2009ish)

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

#492

Post by clevergadget »

samatman wrote: post #333
johnwheeler wrote: post #113

Situation sounds like to me is: CEO keeps in touch with beast mode 10x'er intern who both impressed him and needed to be kept at arms length. Beast mode intern flirts with the idea of launching a competing startup under the guise of innocent open source project and transparency with a passing mention of project in email. CEO realizes he needs to shut intern down otherwise any communication that looks supportive might…

Yep, that's the first thing I do when I'm running off with my former company's IP to launch a competitor: send an email to my erstwhile CEO with a link and ask him "so what do you think?"

I shouldn't have had to scroll so far to read this

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

#493

Post by trevor-e »

pbecotte wrote: post #226

I...am on the side of the company here? wierd... An employee of a company left, and then made an open source clone of the company's software. The fact that the software was easy to clone or that others had done it previously doesn't seem really relevant. Several times I have left a company, and I could replicate a good percentage of it in a couple days too, not because it was easy, but because the months/years of exp…

I'm with you on this, reading the article I can't help but think the author is being intentionally naive about the situation and feelings on both sides. If anything, to me this reads like viral marketing to get the project off the ground.

The author builds a clone of a product for a former company, shares the project with the CEO, and expects them to be happy with it? And "out of nowhere" they are suddenly displeased with the project and (rightfully IMO) feel like some of it was copied from their business. What universe does this person live in? It's a fair point that several other competitors copy the UI and I'm not suggesting this is illegal or disallowed, just that there's a huge lack of common sense to think a former company would be happy to see a project like this.

The author is digging a further hole by making all this public, it's not a good look IMO. I'm all for competition but there's a severe lack of tact here.

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

#494

Post by mypalmike »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #474
mypalmike wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is not too difficult to find a decent employment or IP lawyer to spend an hour with you for a few hundred dollars to go over a document and advise you on how to respond.

A few hundred dollars? For a new grad that is a ton of money!

No doubt. My point was to provide an approximate bounds based on my experience in doing this for one-off legal matters.

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

#495

Post by forgotpwd16 »

detaro wrote: post #190
Yoofie wrote: post #136

Beside the whole legal threat drama, is anyone else surprised that replit got $20 million in VC funding for what essentially is a script that can be made by an intern in a day? And the idea has been around forever and is not even unique. Is it really that easy to get VC funding for these types of things? Like Jesus, if all it takes is some ideas and moving to SF to secure funding like this, then I have a whole bunch…

It's not something you do in "essentially a day" if you want it be secure and reliable. (E.g. the example toy project they link literally just runs python directly on the server: https://github.com/raxod502/python-in-a-box/blob/master/serv... - you'll need to stop doing that very quickly if public). The parts of their stack that repl.it has put on their own Github looks loads more valuable (and I assume are also not…

>Which makes the reaction weird.

Consider that funders and investors like the parent reply will say "huh, that's so easy it isn't worth that much money" and it won't be that weird.

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

#496

Post by clevergadget »

jpxw wrote: post #144

> despite being the most demanding intern we’ve ever had This is unprofessional and downright nasty and vindictive to a degree that I find almost unbelievable. God that little comment has really made my blood boil. I’m going to be avoiding repl.it from now onwards.

what a bully. he really punched down. some Weinstein style "You'll never work in this town again!" energy.

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

#498

Post by clevergadget »

klohto wrote: post #30

Pretty serious accusation with petty comments from the CEO. Feel like we are missing some crucial part of the story though. Doesn’t make sense why would they go out of their way to threaten a small open-source project.

I am so jealous of your lived experience

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

#499

Post by michaelmrose »

arp242 wrote: post #262
archibaldJ wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless there was an NDA or some such (and since this isn't mentioned anywhere in the emails or post, I assume there's not) you can hardly sue someone for re-using knowledge they acquired during their job. How are you even supposed to know what the supposed super-magic super-secret sauce is if you never agreed to an NDA? If that was the case almost everyone with a GitHub project could be sued to infinity, because almo…

They are probably making hand wavey threats because in actuality they have nothing.

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

#500

Post by zenlikethat »

phkahler wrote: post #436
drusepth wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

especially a "new grad with no company, no funding, and no commercial ambitions"

.. doing an open source project that does what a bunch of other sites are doing to some extent. It looks like he was about a week into it. Choose your battles. I'm guessing this really isn't a big ambition for this guy, but he probably wanted to flesh-out the concept for his own satisfaction having not gotten that far during his internship. That motivation is not new to me, but I think standing down and moving on to…

Eh, personally I appreciate the blog. It's good to know who to avoid in the industry, and the accusation about trade secrets seems way overblown and egotistical. It's not that hard to figure out how to run a container when you push a button, or else said sites wouldn't be so common.
Post reply on HN