Y Combinator is being criticized after it backed an AI startup that admits it basically cloned another AI startup | TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/30/y-combinator-is-being-criticized-after-it-backed-an-ai-startup-that-admits-it-basically-cloned-another-ai-startup

61 points · 14 comments · view on lemmy.world

14 Comments

raoul@lemmy.sdf.org · 19 pts · 1y (6 replies)

[He cloned] another AI editor ... covered under the Apache open source license [and] slapped its own made-up closed license ... which Pan admitted was written by ChatGPT.

Who gives a shit, rigth?

db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 1y (4 replies)

Apache explicitly allows this. I don't get why OSI bros are endlessly surprised by this.

dgerard@awful.systems · 17 pts · 1y

They apparently copied without attribution in a manner that was a violation? I'm still looking for precise wording of the PEL.

It's very hard to violate the Apache license, but these are the sort of bozos who could manage it.

EDIT: Here is the PEL. It lacks the attribution requirements of section 4 of the Apache Licence 2.0. So yeah, they managed it.

This is a small technical violation that's easily remedied, but I understand that's what got people pissed off.

Soyweiser@awful.systems · 13 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I'm a little bit in the camp of 'it might be legal, but that doesn't mean it is ok'. So I get why people are annoyed. Also copying a whole project and then slamming a different license on it and going 'jobs done' very much fits the promptfondler vibe, so im not mad, more of a 'lol, of course they did' thing. But that is me.

dgerard@awful.systems · 12 pts · 1y

It's a little illegal and a lot christ what assholes

conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 1y

Yeah, pretty bad coverage of that by the article.

Apache isn't GPL, and it isn't an oversight that it allows closed source derivative works.

slopjockey@awful.systems · 7 pts · 1y

The way he admitted it was hilarious too

sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 17 pts · 1y (3 replies)

The license stuff is whatever, but Imagine seeing this sort of sloppiness in the revision history and thinking "Yeah these guys seem legit let's give them a million dollars!" We are in such a bubble.

slopjockey@awful.systems · 8 pts · 1y (2 replies)

That's amazing. Do you think they crtl-f'd the name changes or ChatGPT'd them?

dgerard@awful.systems · 8 pts · 1y (1 reply)

founder mode, mate

froztbyte@awful.systems · 7 pts · 1y

I endorse this usage, and am now 100% in favour of popularising "founder mode" as a term if we do this

cwood@awful.systems · 7 pts · 1y (1 reply)

That startup founder. Is he okay?

CluckN@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y

He’s alright but his clone is taking this personally.

dgerard@awful.systems · 6 pts · 1y

pivot to AI here

turns out Continue was less than happy with their own backer YC paying another company to take credit for their work