6 ms·

What boundary do you think they pushed though? I understand the sentiment in general, but I didn't get it here at all because I can't see anything wrong, bad or

by mcintyre1994 5y ago

What boundary do you think they pushed though? I understand the sentiment in general, but I didn't get it here at all because I can't see anything wrong, bad or questionable that OP did.

Exuma 5y ago
The area that seemed gray here particularly was the "internal decisions part." As someone who has designed maybe... 40+ interfaces, I know the tremendous amount of effort and thought that goes into the simple placement of a button being on the left or the right, with huge impacts to usability and user experience. So when he posts a few images of other sites that "look" similar, I don't quite buy the fact that he didn't liberally borrow from the many hours of decisions by Repli. Thats purely a guess though, and I could absolutely be wrong. I would imagine it would be easy for the author to rationalize it in his head that "well, lots of other sites have a button in the top row I can do it too!" and in effect, ends up copying a lot of Replit features without innovating on them simply because other sites "look similar" I picture myself as a CEO seeing a previous employee with something that is very clearly using a lot of the decisions we worked out together, and then see a list of 20 bullet points trying to rationalize why it's ok, that would be super irritating to me, but that would be the limit of it. Definitely not worthy of anything more than a polite conversation, that's for sure.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Assume I am an employee. Assume I take a year or two of these internal decisions during my tenure at an org to my next employer. Would you be equally upset that my work experience was used elsewhere? Where is the line between your trade secret and my hard earned work experience? Because that’s what work experience is: showing future employers where not to make mistakes that were previously learned in the course of work. That knowledge (that has a half life) is part of my compensation, arguably the most valuable of my total comp.
  - Exuma 5y ago
    That wouldn't upset me because that is simply knowledge not implementation. As I said in the other reply, my post is at an emotional/personal level (as an owner/creator and also employer), not necessarily a legal or more political one. On that basis i 100% side with the author here. I was merely saying this situation definitely smells like one where there's more to the story than "big bad replit picking on poor innocent open source guy". Just the tone of his writing seems, and the "one of most difficult interns" gives me gut reaction that he might actually be someone who tries to be pushy while being nice.
    - ctvo 5y ago
      > Just the tone of his writing seems, and the "one of most difficult interns" gives me gut reaction that he might actually be someone who tries to be pushy while being nice. You took a single sentence out of an entire article with plenty of other supporting evidence to construct a reality where someone in a similar position as you would have cover. It's extraordinary.
      - Exuma 5y ago
        You're acting as if my reaction is based on one sentence. It's most certainly not. I read the entire post, looked at all the screenshots, looked between the lines of the words, looked at the emotion behind why/what is being said. My current "constructed reality" is that the author built something in a very short time, likely liberally re-using design decisions from his previous employer. And that the CEO, who is a douche, got emotionally upset over this, probably from his perspective/shared history which is something NO ONE ON HN CAN SEE, and there's likely more to the story. Emotionally I can understand why this might upset Replit CEO. One can be frustrated, while still being mature enough to not let it affect action, and certainly not threatening to sue or any of that. HN is so black and white sometimes it's painful. Just because I can relate emotionally to one person being frustrated, doesn't suddenly mean I fully support all their actions or live in some fantasy land tiny projects should be sued for exaggerated claims
        5y ago
- ww520 5y ago
  But the UI is public. Did Replit copyright or patent the UI design?
  - Exuma 5y ago
    I'm not saying anything on legal basis. I'm saying simply emotionally, the perspective of someone using something I have designed, regardless of patent, after we work together... that would be a negative situation for me. That's on a personal level, which is why I said "its worth nothing more than a polite conversation" I think the CEO is an absolute knob jockey for threatening to sue. That's ludicrous to me.
    - hoistbypetard 5y ago
      > I think the CEO is an absolute knob jockey for threatening to sue. "knob jockey"? WTF? Why would you comment on what you think the CEO's sexuality is in this context? That's awful and seems really out of place here.
    - redflagsTA 5y ago
      Please refrain from using homophobic language.
  - beckler 5y ago
    Copyright doesn’t really apply to UI designs. Patents can apply, but it’s really only used in novel and unique situations. Even if Replit had a patient on its UI/UX design, if you were able to find evidence of prior art, you could petition to invalidate.
    - ww520 5y ago
      Not to disagree with you. Didn't Apple sue Microsoft for copying the Mac UI on copyright ground? I know they settled, not sure what's the real legal outcome of it. Edit: Ok, just looked it up. Apple lost all claims on copyrighting the Mac UI.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jonny_eh 5y ago
The author's excuses about "not intended to compete" or "it's free and open-source" (paraphrasing) aren't relevant when it comes to whether he stole anything or is competing. That said, the CEO is out of line IMO.
zmmmmm 5y ago
Honestly there is nothing technically or legally wrong but I would say this was bad faith by the intern in a minor way. Like, its just not nice nor smart to do things that act against the interests of those that have put faith and trust in you. In this case, he's created a web site that at a surface level makes Replit look trivial to implement - boasts that in a weekend or two he's supported massively more languages. And absolutely, part of his knowledge as to how to do it came from what he probably learned there. So intentionally or not, he's done something that hurts the interests of his former employer. So if you hired an electrician to fix a light bulb and then after they left they told everyone your house sucked. Illegal? no. Unprofessional? yes, slightly. Would you hire them again? no. Would you sue them? that would be ridiculous. On balance, the CEO is clearly the one more in the wrong here and definitely acting in a dumb way. I would run away from investing in this company with him at the helm. But I would say there is a little bit of bad faith on the other side here too.
- Exuma 5y ago
  Wow, someone who sees more clearly than black and white. I said the same thing and get downvoted into oblivion.
  - IA21 5y ago
    yeah the downvotes were quite unfair
- mavelikara 5y ago
  This is the best summary of the situation, on this thread. Thanks!

What boundary do you think they pushed though? I understand the sentiment in general, but I didn't get it here at all because I can't see anything wrong, bad or questionable that OP did.

Exuma 5y ago

The area that seemed gray here particularly was the "internal decisions part." As someone who has designed maybe... 40+ interfaces, I know the tremendous amount of effort and thought that goes into the simple placement of a button being on the left or the right, with huge impacts to usability and user experience. So when he posts a few images of other sites that "look" similar, I don't quite buy the fact that he didn't liberally borrow from the many hours of decisions by Repli. Thats purely a guess though, and I could absolutely be wrong. I would imagine it would be easy for the author to rationalize it in his head that "well, lots of other sites have a button in the top row I can do it too!" and in effect, ends up copying a lot of Replit features without innovating on them simply because other sites "look similar" I picture myself as a CEO seeing a previous employee with something that is very clearly using a lot of the decisions we worked out together, and then see a list of 20 bullet points trying to rationalize why it's ok, that would be super irritating to me, but that would be the limit of it. Definitely not worthy of anything more than a polite conversation, that's for sure.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Assume I am an employee. Assume I take a year or two of these internal decisions during my tenure at an org to my next employer. Would you be equally upset that my work experience was used elsewhere? Where is the line between your trade secret and my hard earned work experience? Because that’s what work experience is: showing future employers where not to make mistakes that were previously learned in the course of work. That knowledge (that has a half life) is part of my compensation, arguably the most valuable of my total comp.
- Exuma 5y ago
  That wouldn't upset me because that is simply knowledge not implementation. As I said in the other reply, my post is at an emotional/personal level (as an owner/creator and also employer), not necessarily a legal or more political one. On that basis i 100% side with the author here. I was merely saying this situation definitely smells like one where there's more to the story than "big bad replit picking on poor innocent open source guy". Just the tone of his writing seems, and the "one of most difficult interns" gives me gut reaction that he might actually be someone who tries to be pushy while being nice.
  - ctvo 5y ago
    > Just the tone of his writing seems, and the "one of most difficult interns" gives me gut reaction that he might actually be someone who tries to be pushy while being nice. You took a single sentence out of an entire article with plenty of other supporting evidence to construct a reality where someone in a similar position as you would have cover. It's extraordinary.
    - Exuma 5y ago
      You're acting as if my reaction is based on one sentence. It's most certainly not. I read the entire post, looked at all the screenshots, looked between the lines of the words, looked at the emotion behind why/what is being said. My current "constructed reality" is that the author built something in a very short time, likely liberally re-using design decisions from his previous employer. And that the CEO, who is a douche, got emotionally upset over this, probably from his perspective/shared history which is something NO ONE ON HN CAN SEE, and there's likely more to the story. Emotionally I can understand why this might upset Replit CEO. One can be frustrated, while still being mature enough to not let it affect action, and certainly not threatening to sue or any of that. HN is so black and white sometimes it's painful. Just because I can relate emotionally to one person being frustrated, doesn't suddenly mean I fully support all their actions or live in some fantasy land tiny projects should be sued for exaggerated claims
      - 5y ago
ww520 5y ago
But the UI is public. Did Replit copyright or patent the UI design?
- Exuma 5y ago
  I'm not saying anything on legal basis. I'm saying simply emotionally, the perspective of someone using something I have designed, regardless of patent, after we work together... that would be a negative situation for me. That's on a personal level, which is why I said "its worth nothing more than a polite conversation" I think the CEO is an absolute knob jockey for threatening to sue. That's ludicrous to me.
  - hoistbypetard 5y ago
    > I think the CEO is an absolute knob jockey for threatening to sue. "knob jockey"? WTF? Why would you comment on what you think the CEO's sexuality is in this context? That's awful and seems really out of place here.
  - redflagsTA 5y ago
    Please refrain from using homophobic language.
- beckler 5y ago
  Copyright doesn’t really apply to UI designs. Patents can apply, but it’s really only used in novel and unique situations. Even if Replit had a patient on its UI/UX design, if you were able to find evidence of prior art, you could petition to invalidate.
  - ww520 5y ago
    Not to disagree with you. Didn't Apple sue Microsoft for copying the Mac UI on copyright ground? I know they settled, not sure what's the real legal outcome of it. Edit: Ok, just looked it up. Apple lost all claims on copyrighting the Mac UI.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jonny_eh 5y ago

The author's excuses about "not intended to compete" or "it's free and open-source" (paraphrasing) aren't relevant when it comes to whether he stole anything or is competing. That said, the CEO is out of line IMO.

zmmmmm 5y ago

Honestly there is nothing technically or legally wrong but I would say this was bad faith by the intern in a minor way. Like, its just not nice nor smart to do things that act against the interests of those that have put faith and trust in you. In this case, he's created a web site that at a surface level makes Replit look trivial to implement - boasts that in a weekend or two he's supported massively more languages. And absolutely, part of his knowledge as to how to do it came from what he probably learned there. So intentionally or not, he's done something that hurts the interests of his former employer. So if you hired an electrician to fix a light bulb and then after they left they told everyone your house sucked. Illegal? no. Unprofessional? yes, slightly. Would you hire them again? no. Would you sue them? that would be ridiculous. On balance, the CEO is clearly the one more in the wrong here and definitely acting in a dumb way. I would run away from investing in this company with him at the helm. But I would say there is a little bit of bad faith on the other side here too.

Exuma 5y ago
Wow, someone who sees more clearly than black and white. I said the same thing and get downvoted into oblivion.
- IA21 5y ago
  yeah the downvotes were quite unfair
mavelikara 5y ago
This is the best summary of the situation, on this thread. Thanks!