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by rayhanadev 1341 days ago
Well the open source project did actually use similar Replit internals, I don't even work for Replit but with a lot of poking at their previous APIs and their own open source softwares I was able to figure that out. TBH that whole ordeal felt like a bar brawl between and employer and a fired employee, though. Neither handled the situation correctly and both were in the wrong.
1 comments
girvo 1341 days ago
> both were in the wrong

Alright, let's assume that's true for a moment, for sake of argument. One of the parties we're talking about has massively more power than the other, so I'm inclined to have higher standards for them than that of an intern.

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LMYahooTFY 1341 days ago
How would you say this affects the ethics of each person's actions?

Also, it's worth noting that the replit founder issued a pretty substantial mea culpa, and explicitly let Radon put the project back up.

It didn't seem like Radon made much of a concession at all, and it's not obvious to me that he was totally in the right.

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rayhanadev 1341 days ago
And in that you are correct! :) I 100% agree that there were better ways for Amjad to have handled that.

That being said Radon did copy some Replit internal design choices for Riju, which was completely overlooked because he was able to play off as the weaker individual. I'm sure in most other situations open-sourcing the work of another company, even if its something you designed as an intern, is not ethical in any case. Furthermore, Radon did not make any concession to the incident. He went on with life, after the incident and continues to portray Replit as the villain with references to the blog post and the way it was written to incriminate, not objectively oversee the problem.

In short, he used pathos to play y'all.

Meanwhile Amjad apologized _extensively_ for his actions and allowed Riju to continue, despite using what was previously (not anymore) Replit's internal design.

In the world of OSS people love the underdog and hate "big tech", when there's more gray area that could be explored. Not that this is a defense of Amjad or an attack on Radon, but there's more to this story that needs to be seen in order to get the bigger picture :).

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