Is Replit right?
Replit claimed that my open-source project was:
- a clone of Replit
- based on their trade secrets (“internal design decisions”)
- unethical to build
Let’s examine this claim, part by part:
- In developing my project, was I making a clone of Replit?
- In developing my project, did I make use of any trade secrets of Replit?
- Was it unethical for me to develop an open-source project that’s similar to Replit, after working for them?
Looks very messy tbh.
When some developers from the forum platform vBulletin left and started a competing platform at Xenforo, vBulletin sued them - and won, or at least made a deal where they now get a share of profits from Xenforo. Defending legal actions like this can cost a lot of money, which is why most people just give in or agree to a deal…
This comment alone tells me that they were wading into very dangerous waters. I haven’t read the entire article yet to make a more informed decision though.
I agree Dwayne, lawyers would have a field day with that…
Except the FOSS project was extremely basic, not scaleable by design, and there are, quite literally, hundreds of not thousands of other similar projects as well (including many commercial projects that do the same just on the same google search results).