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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

#771

Post by jcrites »

amasad wrote: post #682
tommoor wrote: post #634

> we’re also excited to announce one of the first (of many!) projects that Amjad has worked on with us: Codecademy Labs, the easiest way to play with JavaScript, Ruby, and Python online I'll just leave this here so we can all bask in the insane hypocrisy of this entire episode. https://www.codecademy.com/resources/blog/amjad-joins-codeca... Edit: See Amjad's response below – seems Repl.it may have pre-dated this hiri…

That was a clone of Replit that we made work at Codecademy. I started working on Replit (or repl.it) back when I was a student in Jordan. I didn't have a laptop so every time I wanted to get some programming done I had to setup a development environment at the university or at work. The idea for Replit was when you needed a repl to do some coding you should easily get one from anywhere including a mobile device. I th…

California law does not recognize non-compete agreements. Your heardquarters are in San Francisco. Good luck. Unless you have ironclad evidence that he stole intellectual property from your company you don't have a legal case to stand on.

I have offered to pay the student's legal fees in exchange for putting the GitHub repository back up, with the provision of reviewing the contracts he signed with you to ensure there is no terms that he could be violating, after review with my own lawyers.

I was also considering working for your company when considering changing forms, but I never would after hearing about this episode.

Your remarks about "YC shouldn't fund copycats" are especially ironic given that Repl.it is by far not the first company to make programming online easy to do. I was involved in acquisition of Cloud9.io (now AWS Cloud9 IDE – the original site has been taken down from the Wayback Machine but you can see plenty of their work in articles if you search Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=cloud9+io+startup ) – they provided an online IDE, terminal, full Linux environment, and the ability to program in many different programming languages.

Personally, I don't have an enmity against copying. If you copy what another company does and execute better, that's progress. Amazon.com was just the Sears catalog with a website and faster shipping. But it's sadly ironic that you have this negative view against idea-copying while your own company is dense in a space of competitors that offer online code editing and evaluation – some of which have already exited, as I mentioned above.

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

#772

Post by philosopher1234 »

truetraveller wrote: post #743
simonhamp wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaters always watching over their shoulder. How can you trust people if you know they can't trust you? Or worse, you can't trust yourself!

Simon, this is a wrong reply. Tone down the rhetoric a notch, please.

It's "wrong"? Laughable. How, exactly, is it "wrong"? It comes off to me as very plausible, and appropriate.

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

#773

Post by oliverx0 »

amasad wrote: post #757

Hey everyone, I want to apologize for the inappropriate use of power here. While I do believe there is an ethical line that was crossed here, I should have called him to understand his point of view and work it out. Which is what I'll try to do now, and see if we can get his project back up again. I'm sorry Radon. The lesson for me here is to internalize how I'm no longer the struggling kid from Jordan fighting for m…

This apology reminds me of TripleByte's CEO first comments to the Hacker News thread from a few months ago, you are still placing blame on the blogger and do not show you are genuinely sorry for screwing up.

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

#774

Post by mmastrac »

simonhamp wrote: post #656
tommoor wrote: post #634

> we’re also excited to announce one of the first (of many!) projects that Amjad has worked on with us: Codecademy Labs, the easiest way to play with JavaScript, Ruby, and Python online I'll just leave this here so we can all bask in the insane hypocrisy of this entire episode. https://www.codecademy.com/resources/blog/amjad-joins-codeca... Edit: See Amjad's response below – seems Repl.it may have pre-dated this hiri…

Cheaters always watching over their shoulder. How can you trust people if you know they can't trust you? Or worse, you can't trust yourself!

I don't agree with @amasad's actions at all, but I think this is a very uncivil comment.

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

#775

Post by shubik22 »

I don't have much to add about the behavior of Repl.it's CEO, but I find it amusing that he used "demanding" as a pejorative for the intern. "Entitled" or "unreasonable", sure, those characteristics are bad, but my initial reaction is that a "demanding" intern is one that I'd want to hire. In my experience, the worst characteristics of an intern are complacency and lack of initiative, and between a complacent intern and one who's "demanding", I'd choose the latter 10 times out of 10.

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

#776

Post by b0afc375b5 »

elashri wrote: post #659

The CEO instead of even representing his side in a proper way and justify his accusation of source code copying, he instead retweeted another random guy tweet complaining that people here at HN are shredding him. He seem to consider himself a victim. https://twitter.com/amasad I think it is good thing that people start punish these CEOs who believe they can do whatever they want and that world revolve around their pr…

> He seem to consider himself a victim.

This isn't surprising given Dale Carnegie's first principle from "How to win friends and influence people"

1. Do not criticize, condemn, or complain

> people do not blame themselves for anything, and therefore they don’t take criticism well

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

#777

Post by griffinmb »

amasad wrote: post #757

Hey everyone, I want to apologize for the inappropriate use of power here. While I do believe there is an ethical line that was crossed here, I should have called him to understand his point of view and work it out. Which is what I'll try to do now, and see if we can get his project back up again. I'm sorry Radon. The lesson for me here is to internalize how I'm no longer the struggling kid from Jordan fighting for m…

Based on your retweet[1], you still seem to be publicly punching down.

[1]: https://twitter.com/pnegahdar/status/1402018604233732098?s=2...

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

#778

Post by dharmaturtle »

amasad wrote: post #682
tommoor wrote: post #634

> we’re also excited to announce one of the first (of many!) projects that Amjad has worked on with us: Codecademy Labs, the easiest way to play with JavaScript, Ruby, and Python online I'll just leave this here so we can all bask in the insane hypocrisy of this entire episode. https://www.codecademy.com/resources/blog/amjad-joins-codeca... Edit: See Amjad's response below – seems Repl.it may have pre-dated this hiri…

That was a clone of Replit that we made work at Codecademy. I started working on Replit (or repl.it) back when I was a student in Jordan. I didn't have a laptop so every time I wanted to get some programming done I had to setup a development environment at the university or at work. The idea for Replit was when you needed a repl to do some coding you should easily get one from anywhere including a mobile device. I th…

Hey dude. I understand things might be running a bit emotional for everyone right now. You might find it interesting that PG has written tangentially on this topic a few years ago. Might be an interesting take, given the distance in space/time.

http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/patentpledge.html

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

#779

Post by indigodaddy »

rizpanjwani wrote: post #707
amasad wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a clone of Replit that we made work at Codecademy. I started working on Replit (or repl.it) back when I was a student in Jordan. I didn't have a laptop so every time I wanted to get some programming done I had to setup a development environment at the university or at work. The idea for Replit was when you needed a repl to do some coding you should easily get one from anywhere including a mobile device. I th…

this is disappointing behaviour. are there any alternatives to repl.it one can recommend? I don't want to use it anymore.

codesandbox.io is quite good too

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

#780

Post by heavyset_go »

chasebro wrote: post #758
amasad wrote: post #757

Hey everyone, I want to apologize for the inappropriate use of power here. While I do believe there is an ethical line that was crossed here, I should have called him to understand his point of view and work it out. Which is what I'll try to do now, and see if we can get his project back up again. I'm sorry Radon. The lesson for me here is to internalize how I'm no longer the struggling kid from Jordan fighting for m…

Wait, so after all that your position is that the intern is still in the wrong?

It's really quite amazing how tone deaf and transparent it is. This submission has resulted in some great content.
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