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Context: PearAI evidently forked an OSS code editor, then later got funding from Y Combinator for it. (relevant discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/it
by minimaxir 2y ago
Context: PearAI evidently forked an OSS code editor, then later got funding from Y Combinator for it. (relevant discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41697032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41697032)
As an aside, I'm starting to get annoyed with the "we moved fast and broke things, we're smol indie hackers" defense that has been popping up more lately in various contexts. The whole incident started because they got venture capital for their fork and were in a startup accelerator for several months: that's not moving fast or being indie.
- ActionHank 2y ago"We moved fast, stole someone else's work, claimed it was our own, sold it to investors, we're smol indie hackers, just like you uwu."
- yard2010 2y agoUwU
- enva2712 2y agoi agree with your sentiment, and them botching the license was clearly a problem, but at the same time i think a dev waives their right to be indignant about someone forking and commercializing their code when they provide a perpetual, irrevocable, commercial license to do so. if continue was GPL’d or something i would respect the uproar more
- jsheard 2y ago> PearAI evidently forked an OSS code editor, then later got funding from Y Combinator for it. More specifically PearAI forked the OSS code editor Continue, which was itself funded by YC, and got YC funding for it. Also the editor they forked is itself a fork of VS Code, but is not to be confused with Void Editor, which is a third YC funded VS Code fork with AI features. It's YC funded VS Code forks with AI all the way down.
- aniviacat 2y ago> OSS code editor Continue Are you talking about continue.dev? That's not an editor itself, nor is if a fork of VS Code; it's an extension for VS Code (and JetBrains).
- jsheard 2y agoMy mistake, I haven't used Continue and was led to believe they have their own VS Code distro. PearAI forked VS Code and forked Continues VS Code extension and smushed them together then. They also just wired Continues code up to Claude/GPT4 so the models aren't novel either.
- satvikpendem 2y agoMaybe you're thinking of Cursor, which did fork VSCode.
- hbn 2y agoAlso of note, someone linked a video from 3 months ago where one of the co-founders was talking about using both Cursor and Continue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0OylwLzBQw&t=257s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0OylwLzBQw&t=257s Which I suppose isn't necessarily a gotcha, it's totally possible to be a user of software and figure out ways it could be improved. But the way they pitched themselves was they're building an AI code editor, whereas it seems like they're just making some changes to a free, open-source project. If I had any guess, the reason they got accepted is from their YouTube followings, and this was essentially a marketing experiment. These guys have audiences of young aspiring developers who could be potential customers if their favorite youtuber were to start claiming they "built" an AI code editor. Not a crazy idea but certainly doesn't smell of an attempt to make an honest and good product.
- bluelightning2k 2y agoWell said! That last sentence was very elegant.
- 2y ago
- bachmeier 2y agoI kind of see your point, but they're clearly learning on the job, and AFAICT the mistakes didn't damage anyone else too badly.
- winwang 2y agoimo, the way you first do something + your first responses to serious criticism are the most telling regarding character. because afterwards, you can just play the act of "we're sorry because the backlash was really big and we have to clean up".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dtquad 2y ago>they're clearly learning on their job They are experienced software developers coming from $300K jobs at Coinbase. As experienced developers they know the requirements in the Apache License 2.0. As former employees at highly regulated Fintech companies like Coinbase they know better than letting ChatGPT make up new legal texts. They are cynical manipulators hiding behind a made up fictive "careless Gen Z tech bros" image.
- Animats 2y ago> highly regulated Fintech companies like Coinbase Um.
- 4ndrewl 2y agoThey're VC funded software developers, gods in the image of mere mortals. There's probably nothing they are not experts in.
- dijksterhuis 2y ago> [they worked at] Coinbase I mean... crypto companies are well known for being chock full of decent and honest employees who aren’t zealots or bandwagon jumpers in any way, shape or form. Just like a lot of recently created “AI” companies.
- hcks 2y agoThis outrage talk is ridiculous, you don’t have the morale high ground to judge people, they didn’t break anything, taking VC money isn’t bad, the incident was caused by sore losers looking for drama, etc etc
- digging 2y agoThey very clearly did break something because a lot of people got upset and said they broke something, and then they admitted they broke something.
- raverbashing 2y agoSounds like YC could improve in their due diligence.
- rchaud 2y agoMaybe they hired the Sequoia people that vetted SBF.
- wg0 2y agoNo no who says we're smal indide hackers. It has to be that we're the genius god gifted visionaries fixated on a future for humanity that is invisible to mere mortal peasants hence mistakes are inevitable. That's in general not specific to any situation.
- open-listings 2y ago[dead]
- x0x0 2y agoThey appear to be 2 people. I kinda of think folks should cut two people, one of whom just publicly apologized, a little slack re: how buttoned up they are about licensing. Particularly when they appear to have started sharing source code before YC's investment, and the last time I spoke to an attorney who advises on open source licensing he was expensive.
- klabb3 2y ago> They appear to be 2 people. I kinda of think folks should cut two people, one of whom just publicly apologized, a little slack Reading the room, people are upset about grifters, scams and fakery in general. The outrage is obviously built up over seeing our industry decline to buzzwords, bait and switch, and general enshittification. This is just one particularly clear-cut instance of opportunistic grift caught in the act. It’s like that IoT juice press – it’s not that harmful, but it’s a symbol of what people hate.
- fwip 2y agoNah. YC should cut them. It doesn't take an expert to know that you shouldn't ask AI to generate legal documents for you.
- yard2010 2y agoMy bet is: this won't age well. It's like saying 25 years ago that it doesn't take an expert to know that you shouldn't put your credit card on the internet.
- fwip 2y agoWhether AI becomes capable of doing this 25 years from now has no bearing on the current idiocy of the founders.
- hbn 2y agoI'd take you up on that bet. The AI can get as good as you want, but the reason you get a human to write and verify legal documents is so there's someone accountable. Their own job and reputation is on the line if they're doing bad work. Unless the company providing LawyerBot As A Service and writing everyone's legal documents is going to take all accountability, but that's a massive liability.
- rchaud 2y ago> I'm starting to get annoyed with the "we moved fast and broke things, we're smol indie hackers" defense It's worse than that; this whole kerfuffle came to people's attention after the founder posted a brag tweet about leaving a $300k job at Coinbase to go YC. Only to claim ignorance about the license and everything else later.
- tmpz22 2y ago"Sorry officer I didn't know I couldn't just rewrite a license to whatever I wanted despite having ample access to legal resources. Yes officer I am a CEO. No officer I will not remain silent."
- Narhem 2y agoTerrifying, always afraid to touch unlicensed code. Tried to give most of my public code extremely open licenses because I’d assume some guy crawling the internet for a piece of code probably has enough stress in his life.