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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

#621

Post by AlwaysRock »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #420
smnrchrds wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It goes both ways. Imagine Replit’s attorney going after OP. If OP didn’t take down the site, then suing them is going to be a huge expense & waste of time. Is Replit really gonna pay some corporate attorney $600-ish per hour to harass someone? You don’t even need a lawyer to show up in court and say “I’m a broke ass new grad, and these guys are trying to take down my website. I don’t even know why, but I’m dragging…

>> It goes both ways. Imagine Replit’s attorney going after OP. If OP didn’t take down the site, then suing them is going to be a huge expense & waste of time. Is Replit really gonna pay some corporate attorney $600-ish per hour to harass someone? You don’t even need a lawyer to show up in court and say “I’m a broke ass new grad, and these guys are trying to take down my website. I don’t even know why, but I’m dragging it out because I don’t like being bullied.”

You are really underestimating how petty a lot of people are. I was sued for way less than this and the company suing me stood to gain nothing. Companies often have lawyers on retainer for this reason.

You also underestimate the massive stress a lawsuit entails.

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

#622

Post by jjeaff »

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #165
abricot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not get the part about him being an intern. Everything you write would apply for someone on vp level with opportunities and stock option. Get down from there.

What do stock options have to do with anything? The engineers (interns or not) working on the code base are more capable of copying the product that a VP who can't write software. A VP would be capable of stealing employees, connections, or clients from the company, which (at least compared to this case) would be much more damaging, sure, but that's just a strawman you created to detract from OP's argument, which is…

The only thing morally ambiguous here is the idea that a previous employer gets to somehow own everything you learned while in their employ in perpetuity and can decide whether you are allowed to try to make a living or not.

If he didn't directly copy code or steal IP or some amazing trade secrets that he contracted never to share, then there is nothing wrong either legally or ethically.

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

#623

Post by hellbannedguy »

risyachka wrote: post #80
yellow_lead wrote: post #3

A fancy funded company like Replit getting scared by an intern's weekend project is entertaining. If your moat is so low it can be replicated in a few days, I think this open source project is the least of their worries.

It's kinda funny how their CEO writes on Twitter all the time that they are the best company in the world, with the best product, do most innovations in tech etc and 10 minutes later he is threatened by a small open-source project that wasn't even created to compete.

It's crazy how a little bit of money can turn people into jerks.

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

#624

Post by jfrunyon »

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…

It is extremely unlikely that there was no NDA. I've literally only ever had one job that didn't make me sign an NDA, and the company had a whopping <10 employees.

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

#626

Post by jascii »

jascii wrote: post #602
stOneskull wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep. we just won't ever use replit. their name is mud now.

I'm still hoping the CEO will come out of the woods with something like: "I'm sorry, I had a shitty day and acted like an ass." But that might be more grown-up than is realistic...

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

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

#627

Post by sintaxi »

wutbrodo wrote: post #316
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.

It's not the whole picture, but the article links to the full email exchange. It's difficult for me to imagine what missing information would lead to the CEO's messages being appropriate.

OP did take the project offline - which shows there is at least some doubt in his own mind.

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

#628

Post by samatman »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #363
bravura wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but supporting remote by offering $0 - 0 salary and 0.00% - 0.00% equity seems legit and completely transparent: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/repl-it/jobs/aihA75TQr...

This seems like an illegal job listing in Colorado.

A cursory glance[0] suggests this only applies if a company has at least one employee in Colorado.

[0]: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/colorado-pay-transparen...

To follow a tangent for a second, this doesn't seem wise on Colorado's part. It doesn't strike me as great law to begin with, but I'm willing to concede that point: the problem is that it creates a considerable regulatory burden for an all-remote company which takes on a single Colorado employee.

As someone who works remotely since well before the pandemic, I'd be pretty upset about this if I were a Colorado resident. I have family in Colorado as well, and while I've never seriously considered moving there this law makes it even less likely.

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

#629

Post by lynxaegon »

mmastrac wrote: post #551
cwkoss wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be against HN's rules to reply to Who's Hiring posts from Replit with a link to this article?

It would likely go against the spirit of the community to hound a job posting like that. I don't disagree with the sentiment, but turning the hiring posts into any sort of flamewar/off-topic discussion dilutes the value of those threads.

I do think it should be allowed to post the link of a related thread. If I see the hiring post on HN, I would like to know more about that company. It's true that I would search the company to find out more about them, but it would be easier to just scroll a bit and find a few threads about them.

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

#630

Post by iabacu »

teraflop wrote: post #391
samatman wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't look to me like one of those cases where new information is going to come to light. Nor do I want to commit the fundamental attribution error, like 80% of this thread. Even though there are a few other people offering personal experiences of Amjad rubbing them the wrong way. That tends to happen in a thread of this character. Here's my best guess: your friend had a bad day and fucked up. Then he doubled…

> I think a simple apology and some self reflection would go a long way here. The CEO is continuing to double down today, more than 2 months after the original conversation, so I'm not sure that's likely: https://twitter.com/amasad/status/1401957368510906369

This is bizarre.

If the intern did steal code, the CEO only wants the project to be taken down?

Any IP agreement worth their salt would require Replit to send a formal/legal request asking the intern to destroy and return any stolen IP.

So I call bullshit on the CEO, and the intern should probably sue Replit for slander.

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