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Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project

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

#501

Post by bryanrasmussen »

smnrchrds wrote: post #344
codingdave wrote: post #111

> 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…

Counterpoint: be afraid of lawyers. They may not be able to win s judgment against you, but they can easily bankrupt you. Remember the case where a man criticized Proctorio and was hit with a SLAPP lawsuit aimed to silence him. He ended up spending 100k on legal costs and the case is only beginning. He would have been bankrupt despite being 100% legally in the right. Fortunately for him, EFF decided to support him af…

>They may not be able to win a judgment against you, but they can easily bankrupt you.

this depends on where the case is brought really. and if they can get any money from you there. Which is often partially effected by where you live.

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

#502

Post by michaelmrose »

blazespin wrote: post #216
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.

Yeah, we are just getting one side. That said, all the possible IP in something like this is in security, reliability, scalability and good UX. Severely doubt the OP spent much time on that. The CEO is probably just having trouble dealing with stress and is acting out. It happens.

Why are we making excuses for highly paid professionals behavior in the public performance of their job.

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

#503

Post by ClumsyPilot »

plank_time wrote: post #453
Shicholas wrote: post #405

Unpopular opinion, IAAL and frankly Replit has a case that will pass the "motion to dismiss" stage when litigation starts getting expensive b/c of discovery. The OP worked for Replit and therefore had access to private source code or "trade secrets" before creating his project. It'd take expert testimony for the OP to prove in court that his OSS project was not influenced in any way by Replit's closed-source code, wh…

lol you don’t know what you’re talking about in the least

Do you?

Please, offer something material as a contibution instead of making fun of other people.

My understanding that it this will probably pass a lawyers sniff test and expert testimony means that developers have to testify that the codebases are different.

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

#504

Post by clevergadget »

aparsons wrote: post #395

Amjad comes off as super insecure in this- and it’s not all that surprising considering REPL.it really has little or no competitive moat

lets be real, his response is the kind of thing you hear from someone whose ship is sinking and starts lashing out in every direction

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

#505

Post by zenlikethat »

jtouri wrote: post #490
whymauri wrote: post #43

Earlier 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.

Reading this part really made my head shake. Attacking a former intern like that, why would anyone want to intern there after this?

That's why I'm glad the OP spoke up. Abusive behavior like this shouldn't be tolerated in the industry and is sadly common. Now I know to avoid this company and individual.

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

#506

Post by zenlikethat »

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…

There are usually trade secret clauses with lots of potential for abuse.

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

#507

Post by ignoramous »

whimsicalism wrote: post #327
normac2 wrote: post #146

I'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

Replit's to be a new-age cloud company (ala fly.io) rather than Lynda.com for code. At least, thats what I gather from its founder's posts on Twitter.

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

#508

Post by acid__ »

Amjad has tweeted about this:

> There is a difference between copying a feature and actually getting intro a contract, and access to the code, copying it and calling it open-source.

> As a matter of principle, when someone goes into your home and steals from you, even if it's not material, you have to respond.

https://twitter.com/amasad/status/1401957368510906369

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

#509

Post by zo1 »

tiltrus wrote: post #384
codingdave wrote: post #111

> 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…

amasad is a regular HN'er who's very active in all posts related to repl.it. Very immature behavior on Amjad's part. I'm considering pulling our corporations subscription and moving to Stackblitz now....

Agreed - this is very immature behavior and they will lose lots of goodwill and clients as a result of ego.

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

#510

Post by karagenit »

gabeio wrote: post #386
jwilber wrote: post #166

If the CEO didn’t throw a tantrum over the exact things his company claims to support (OSS, creativity, etc.), nobody would know about the intern’s weekend project. But he did, and now we’ll see something of a Streisand effect [0]. To be fair, it is kind of suspect to intern for a company and, at the end of that internship, turn around and create effectively the same thing. And OP’s dismissive tone and propensity to…

I had nearly the same feeling while reading this and specifically finally getting to the part where the author mentions they were an intern. Being an intern at the company is kinda important to this story, had they not been an intern at the company I think this would have been a vastly different conversation. I honestly think both are in the wrong here, the CEO should have been a bit more relaxed about the handling o…

I think for something to be legal defamation, it has to be demonstrably false. This article seems pretty safe, since it's mostly direct screenshots of the emails sent by the CEO.
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