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

781–790 of 1001 posts

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

#781

Post by rurabe »

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…

pretty weird/low class move to build a free clone of the product you just worked on.

pretty petty decision to threaten to sue your former intern for his weird move.

also, threatening someone with money is a pretty surefire way to look like an asshole.

similarly petty decision to spend hours documenting everything to post on HN and start throwing mud in public.

everyone seems well within their legal rights but ethically seems like there were a lot of off-ramps for someone to be the bigger person and none were taken.

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

#782

Post by cjv »

dharmaturtle wrote: post #778
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…

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

PG seems to agree with Amjad's decisions.

https://imgur.com/a/WkpHk0n

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

#783

Post by marcinzm »

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…

I've seen multiple tweets from you the last day regarding this where you definitely showed no regret and simply kept trying to prove you were in the right. Even this response tries to make people feel bad for you and divert empathy away from the person you attacked. And also implies the only reason you are relenting is because it's making the company you represent look bad.

So apologies are good but this seems the weakest sort of apology possible.

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

#784

Post by CheezeIt »

catillac wrote: post #769
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…

“ 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…

> You still are saying the intern is wrong, which isn’t good.

That’s a good thing. That’s what happens when you have integrity. There is no reason to change his position on the subject of ex-employees making clones of the product.

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

#786

Post by vincentmarle »

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…

Is this the best apology that $20M will buy you?

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

#787

Post by jkhdigital »

LocalH wrote: post #705
cduzz wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want justice, be prepared to pay for it. If you're unable to pay for it, you will not receive justice. I am aware that this is not the 1950's superman definition of justice. It is the "welcome to America" version of justice, that you often can't even get if you can pay for it, depending on who you are. So, you pick that fight. I've got a family and a life I need to protect; I'll stand on the sidelines and watc…

It's absolutely disgusting for that to be the case. Tell me again why we should treat America's government as anything other than evil and despotic?

Because it’s not North Korea’s government? You say that as if organizing and running a beneficent and just government is a trivial matter. People are evil and despotic, and every government is full of people.

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

#788

Post by anand-bala »

archibaldJ wrote: post #157
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.

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.

Well, the author did post the entire email thread (redacting information that may be proprietary) on Imgur.

Personally, I think the Replit CEO could have explained what the specific issues were before threatening to sue. Since there was no explanation on the CEO's part, I think it's perfectly warranted for the author to make this public.

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

#789

Post by catillac »

CheezeIt wrote: post #784
catillac wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ 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…

> You still are saying the intern is wrong, which isn’t good. That’s a good thing. That’s what happens when you have integrity. There is no reason to change his position on the subject of ex-employees making clones of the product.

> There is no reason to change his position on the subject of ex-employees making clones of the product.

Obviously I completely agree with this in a vacuum, but you seem to imply that that is what happened in this case. It was pretty clear from all the emails posted, assuming they were materially unaltered, that this isn’t what happened here. So your comment seems like a bit of a non sequitur, unless you’re saying that is what happened here?

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

#790

Post by sudosysgen »

hashbig wrote: post #303
risyachka wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I unfollowed him after he tweeted that Repl.it is the most innovative company in the world. Yeah, not SpaceX or Neuralink or Pfizer. A company that runs docker images is the most innovative company.

Pfizer doesn't really belong in that list. They applied money to an already made invention and scaled up an existing manufacturing process along with a dozen other companies. Pfizer is not even the only manufacturer of the BioNTech vaccine, nor is it the first manufacturer to express interest, nor did it take any risk.

I'd say the most innovative company in the world is probably Alphabet or Samsung.

Post reply on HN