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Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

ericmigi.com

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Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#71

Post by [deleted] »

michaelmior wrote: post #31
dewey wrote: post #3

The mentioned blog post ( https://rebble.io/2025/11/17/core-devices-keeps-stealing-our... ) is a pretty great example why using Discord as your main communication tool for an open source project is the wrong choice. The only way to read about the decisions ("Shortly after, Core forked PebbleOS1 away from public maintainership. Back in June, they said that they would merge back periodically2;") is to read the manual t…

There are solutions such as Answer Overflow[0] that allow public indexing and search of Discord content that solve this problem. [0] https://www.answeroverflow.com/

[deleted]

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#72

Post by [deleted] »

apparent wrote: post #56
evil-olive wrote: post #47

this part of the response doesn't pass the smell test for me: > Accusation 4: ‘[Eric] scraped our app store, in violation of the agreement that we reached with him previously’ > Here’s what happened. I wanted to highlight some of my favourite watchfaces on the Pebble Appstore. Last Monday Nov 10, after I put my kids to sleep and between long calls with factories in Asia, I started building a webapp to help me quickly…

I think the key question is whether the automated actions resulted in information being retained by Pebble. If it was just going through a motion and pulling some data (or pulling all data but only keeping some of it), then that would be consistent with Eric's story and not be the kind of scraping that Rebble is worried about. They're worried about the content being archived somewhere else, and they seem to think tha…

[deleted]

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#73

Post by ryandrake »

apparent wrote: post #68
fphhotchips wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I'm confused about in this whole thing is what makes Rebble think they have a right to the data in the first place? They scraped it! "We don't like you scraping the data we scraped" doesn't hold water for me, whether Eric retained it or not.

Yeah, they definitely started by scraping. Apparently 500 of the 13,500 apps were submitted post-Pebble, and Rebble also apparently did a bunch of other upgrades over time. But you're right that there's some hypocrisy here, given their roots, and they don't really acknowledge that.

I think the whole conversation shows how ridiculous it is to be worried so much about who's "scraping" what. The open web is designed to be public and permissive. If you don't want someone accessing "your" content, then don't serve it to the public. And if you do decide to serve to the public, don't complain when someone accesses that data in a way you don't like. The Internet would be so much better without all these people obsessed about how their bits were being accessed and about whether X counts as "scraping" or Y counts as "scraping." Good grief, people! Find something else to worry about.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#74

Post by apparent »

ryandrake wrote: post #73
apparent wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they definitely started by scraping. Apparently 500 of the 13,500 apps were submitted post-Pebble, and Rebble also apparently did a bunch of other upgrades over time. But you're right that there's some hypocrisy here, given their roots, and they don't really acknowledge that.

I think the whole conversation shows how ridiculous it is to be worried so much about who's "scraping" what. The open web is designed to be public and permissive. If you don't want someone accessing "your" content, then don't serve it to the public. And if you do decide to serve to the public, don't complain when someone accesses that data in a way you don't like. The Internet would be so much better without all thes…

Perhaps in general, but in this case it seems like they did have an agreement not to scrape, which overrides the general scrape-at-will ethos that you're describing.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#75

Post by margalabargala »

apparent wrote: post #54
margalabargala wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They fear being replaced/made irrelevant after Core builds their own infrastructure using Rebble's work. They want guarantees that if they give Core access to the app store data, Core won't build a proprietary/walled garden that cuts Rebble out. It's understandable that Rebble fears someone doing this, since this is what Rebble did. Rebble took the original open-source Pebble work of thousands of independent develo…

> Both Rebble and Core Devices are for-profit companies, neither is a non-profit, so I'm not actually sure which you're referring to here. Looks like Rebble is now a nonprofit? > have evolved along the way from a loose collection of co-conspirators, to Rebble Alliance, LLC, to our current non-profit Rebble Foundation [1] 1: https://rebble.io/2025/10/09/rebbles-in-a-world-with-core.ht...

I did some digging in a reply to a sibling comment.

Basically, they are not a 501c3. They are a Michigan state specific nonprofit. My original comment was made after a 501c3 search turned up nothing.

I don't know why they would decline to be a 501c3 and instead only be a Michigan nonprofit.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#76

Post by jazzyjackson »

Zetaphor wrote: post #50

If you're looking for an alternative to all of this, the BangleJS v2 is both cheaper and more hackable than the Pebble watches. It doesn't tick all of the same boxes, but it's performed well for me over the last 6 months. Here's what it offers: * Screen is fully visible under direct sunlight * With the screen always on the battery lasts me well over a week * Heart rate monitor * EXTREMELY hackable, everything can be…

Thanks for posting, I love getting gadgets with niche displays, a 3 bit color sun readable display, how peculiar!

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#77

Post by apparent »

margalabargala wrote: post #75
apparent wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both Rebble and Core Devices are for-profit companies, neither is a non-profit, so I'm not actually sure which you're referring to here. Looks like Rebble is now a nonprofit? > have evolved along the way from a loose collection of co-conspirators, to Rebble Alliance, LLC, to our current non-profit Rebble Foundation [1] 1: https://rebble.io/2025/10/09/rebbles-in-a-world-with-core.ht...

I did some digging in a reply to a sibling comment. Basically, they are not a 501c3. They are a Michigan state specific nonprofit. My original comment was made after a 501c3 search turned up nothing. I don't know why they would decline to be a 501c3 and instead only be a Michigan nonprofit.

Huh that seems very odd. And it's strange (and possibly misleading) to say you are a "non-profit" under these circumstances.

Any chance they recently changed status, and it's just not showing up yet?

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#78

Post by margalabargala »

apparent wrote: post #77
margalabargala wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some digging in a reply to a sibling comment. Basically, they are not a 501c3. They are a Michigan state specific nonprofit. My original comment was made after a 501c3 search turned up nothing. I don't know why they would decline to be a 501c3 and instead only be a Michigan nonprofit.

Huh that seems very odd. And it's strange (and possibly misleading) to say you are a "non-profit" under these circumstances. Any chance they recently changed status, and it's just not showing up yet?

> Any chance they recently changed status, and it's just not showing up yet?

The Rebble Foundation incorporated in 2023, so I don't think so.

I agree it's strange. The advantages of being a 501c3 in the US are immense, and if you meet the criteria, it is not difficult to become one. Essentially every organization larger than 6 people in the US that could be a 501c3, is one, for this reason.

So if they aren't, I assume it's because they can't be. Which makes me wonder why.

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#79

Post by intrasight »

Dayshine wrote: post #65
evil-olive wrote: post #47

this part of the response doesn't pass the smell test for me: > Accusation 4: ‘[Eric] scraped our app store, in violation of the agreement that we reached with him previously’ > Here’s what happened. I wanted to highlight some of my favourite watchfaces on the Pebble Appstore. Last Monday Nov 10, after I put my kids to sleep and between long calls with factories in Asia, I started building a webapp to help me quickly…

Scraping is about harvesting data. Just using the API like any other user is clearly not scraping. Is browsing linkedin scraping? Is browsing hacker news through an alternate client scraping? No, scraping is rehosting hacker news.

I do not believe that's the proper definition of "scraping"

Re: Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

#80

Post by nosrepa »

modeless wrote: post #18
radlad wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subscription fee was what enabled them to host these services. From their blog post, they mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure and software. I expect that the connections and skills involved in running the Rebble web services don't directly translate to creating a hardware product. That said, I think you are right that Rebble is feeling left out - and that it is hard to figure out e…

Core doesn't want Rebble's data. They want the data from the original Pebble store, which is not owned by Rebble. It's the work of thousands of independent developers and it should be shared freely, not kept in a walled garden with "no scraping" terms added on. It's actually offensive that Rebble is using other developers' data (that they originally scraped from Pebble) as a bargaining chip in their contract negotiat…

So, this?

https://github.com/aveao/PebbleArchive/tree/master/PebbleApp...

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