[HN Gopher] Delve allegedly forked an open-source tool and sold ...
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Delve allegedly forked an open-source tool and sold it as its own
Author : nickvec
Score : 260 points
Date : 2026-04-02 15:03 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| The project is Apache licensed, so even if they took it, outside
| of lacking attribution / retaining copyright, I don't see a
| problem? They would be require to add it to an "About" tab or
| something.
|
| The project in question is here:
|
| https://github.com/simstudioai/sim
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I think the problem is more that they weren't honest about the
| origins, even if we disregard the point where they themselves
| break the license terms.
|
| > DeepDelver recognized that Pathways looked a lot like
| Sim.ai's open source agent-building product called SimStudio
| and asked Delve if it was based on SimStudio. The Delve folks
| said they built it themselves, the whistleblower contends.
|
| If they were upfront about that it was a fork, and attributed
| it, sounds like there wouldn't have been any issues here at
| all.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| That's fair, and a bit ridiculous considering the license
| allows them to do what they are doing, minus lacking the
| attribution. People are too illiterate on software licenses.
| If you're going to use open source software, learn the
| licenses you're using! I'm pretty sure GitHub literally shows
| you what you can and cannot do with specific licenses.
|
| Edit: Yeah they do. There's no excuse for goofing this up.
|
| https://github.com/simstudioai/sim/blob/main/LICENSE
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I barely finished high school and I can understand them,
| not sure why some find it so hard to, even the license
| texts themselves are relatively easy to read, understand
| and reason about, and there is tons of further reading
| material all over the web, some from actual law-firms that
| can help you understand how it applies in your country too.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| I can maybe understand not fully grasping how the GPLs
| work (I sometimes have to look at GNUs page of compatible
| and incompatible licenses myself) but something as simple
| as apache or MIT should be so dead simple it hurts
| balamatom wrote:
| The uncomfortable truth is that people aren't half as
| dumb as they give themselves credit for. Not being able
| to understand something is rarely, if ever, a skill
| issue.
| swingboy wrote:
| They assume if people knew it was just a fork of an open
| source tool then they would use the free, open source
| version instead of paying for the fork.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I don't disagree, but actively lying about it is still a
| violation of the license.
| i_am_jl wrote:
| I think you're missing the crux of the problem here.
|
| "We didn't understand the licensing!" isnt usually an
| incredible claim, but it becomes so when it's being made by
| a company that manages software licensing compliance.
| bawolff wrote:
| > license allows them to do what they are doing, minus
| lacking the attribution.
|
| That's a hell of a caveat though. That is basically the
| entire license.
|
| Its like saying you are allowed to kill people minus that
| whole law about murder. Well like obviously. You are
| allowed to do anything minus the rules that forbid you from
| doing the thing.
| gzread wrote:
| And if you're releasing open source software, learn the
| licenses you're using! You probably didn't intend a
| multimillion dollar AI startup to be able to just take your
| thing and call it their own.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| It's possible their spokesperson was not informed about
| SimStudio being the basis for Delve. Lots of people in sales
| and marketing do not know little about how open source
| software works.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I'm not sure "Person who answered a question didn't
| actually know the answer" is such a good defense, almost
| worse than "We didn't understand the license", because the
| implications of having such people in your company seems
| way wider then.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| That is very much true. Lack of knowledge in a legal
| context is a very weak defense.
|
| Generally speaking, open source ecosystem knowledge is
| not something that shows up in job descriptions,
| interviews, or regular training for non-technical staff
| in most software companies. Hopefully that will one day
| be the case but until then there is a high likelihood
| that misleading statements can be made accidentally.
| buremba wrote:
| Compliance tech company who doesn't know about open-
| source. Interesting.
| echoangle wrote:
| Then maybe say ,,I don't know, let me get back to you"
| instead of ,,no, we built it ourselves"?
| 9rx wrote:
| Understandably it can be difficult for the machines of HN
| to truly understand, but humans don't normally have that
| kind of exacting control over what comes out of their
| mouth. Those who have carefully developed the skill of
| having that control don't waste their time working at
| struggling startups.
| echoangle wrote:
| If you're the spokesperson, I kind of expect you to think
| before you speak. I don't think that's a HN machine
| thing.
| 9rx wrote:
| No, it is. Humans understand that to err is human and
| thus have compassion for other humans. Human expectations
| are placed on full timelines, not instants in time. A
| human saying the wrong thing simply doesn't matter to
| other humans as they know that words are part of a larger
| dialog and surrounded by a vast array of other context.
| forgotaccount3 wrote:
| Yes, great response. But is the failing here an
| individual one 'This person is bad at their job and needs
| more training/be replaced' or a company one 'This company
| only hires bad people and we shouldn't use them'
|
| Every company of non-trivial sizes will eventually hire
| someone who is a bad hire.
| CodingJeebus wrote:
| I'd be more concerned about a shareholder lawsuit if Delve
| told their investors that they owned the IP of said platform.
| wredcoll wrote:
| Sometimes people consider morality instead of legality.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Good thing our legal system doesn't.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| There is no implication in the parent comment that it
| should.
|
| The fact that we can't comprehend even talking about
| anything beyond legality sometimes is just mind-boggling.
| We are sick.
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| Really feels like there is a moral collapse all around.
|
| Seeing some people's post about prediction (gambling)
| markets is another eye opener on this topic.
|
| Also the latest elected government of US is another one.
|
| Not sure if it was always like this or I grew up. But it
| for sure seems like there is a collapse.
| plant-ian wrote:
| Yeah I'm not sure if it's collapse or just the bad that
| was there all along has been let off the leash. I guess
| my point is I'm not sure that people lost their morals as
| much as the people with the morals lost the power.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I would say it was a collapse of ethics, not morality.
| Most people have morals (their own belief system on what
| is fair), but their morals may not be ethical (rule-based
| morals to achieve fairness). I personally attribute it to
| cars and the internet.
|
| The internet removed consequences. You can say the most
| vile thing imaginable to another human being and...
| nothing happens. No social cost, no awkward eye contact
| at the grocery store, no reputation hit in your actual
| community. Just a dopamine hit and a notification count.
|
| Cars did something sneakier. We spend hours every week
| sealed in a metal box, alone or with the same people. No
| random encounters, no friction with people who think
| differently. Just you, your podcast, and whatever is
| important in your tiny echo chamber.
|
| Put those two together and you get people with deeply
| held morals and zero framework for applying them to
| anyone outside their bubble. Ethics requires seeing
| strangers as real. We've engineered that out of daily
| life.
| cwmoore wrote:
| Agreed, the ultimate state-monopoly on use of force,
| right to private property, legislated penalties and
| remedies, the time and expense of pursuing fairness, in
| the absence of full moral consideration, or common sense
| for lack of a better term, is a giveaway to entrenched
| authority, attorneys or deep-pockets, and not a sensible
| approach to dynamic real world right and wrong.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| In what _possible_ world is "our legal system cares more
| about law than morality" a good thing?
|
| Shouldn't morality be the basis for all of the laws?
| LocalH wrote:
| Maybe it should
| mvkel wrote:
| Yep. While maybe it's "not cool," (I guess, depending on how
| much work Delve did in their fork, in which case it could be
| "totally cool"), there is no legal problem with doing this and
| if someone is "blowing the whistle" about this, they don't
| really understand open source.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| > A permissive license whose main conditions require
| preservation of copyright and license notices.
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| How is there no legal problem with violating the license
| terms, which explicitly require attribution?
| NewJazz wrote:
| It's not a copyright violation because the readme says open
| source somewhere!!! /s
| nickvec wrote:
| You clearly did not read the article. Why post something so
| confidently when you're not even informed on the topic?
| solid_fuel wrote:
| > there is no legal problem with doing this
|
| They are explicitly forbidden from doing this _without
| attribution_. So yes, there is a legal problem with this. All
| they needed to do to avoid that was provide attribution, but
| Delve was staffed with such morally bankrupt and incompetent
| individuals that they _couldn 't even do that_.
| mvkel wrote:
| Replying to my own comment -- didn't realize it was Apache,
| thought it was MIT. Flame on!!
| elashri wrote:
| But MIT also requires Attribution, it is actually the only
| thing asked in MIT licence.
| PhilipRoman wrote:
| This hilarious meme continues to prove itself correct again and
| again https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/why-i-use-the-gpl-and-not-
| cuc...
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Personally I like GPL for core systems type of software, like
| an OS. I don't care what license you put desktop applications
| under, could be MIT, could be proprietary. I make software
| for a living, open source has a cost. If you want to profit
| off your open source software and have a competitive
| advantage against people forking it, you should 100% license
| it accordingly. I put a lot of thought into my projects
| before licensing them, I would hope others do as well.
|
| My default is almost always MIT though.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| In reality, GPL is also a cuck license. There is absolutely
| nothing stopping somebody in India forking your open source
| game, throwing ads in it, and uploading it to an app store.
| You cannot prevent people from making money off your free
| work, and the fact that it is a profitable endeavour for them
| will lead to them spending money on marketing, "outcompeting"
| your non-product and providing a strictly worse experience to
| people who don't know they could get it for free / without
| ads.
|
| It doesn't even really need to be India, it could just as
| well be stolen by someone in your country. The vast majority
| of open source developers don't have the time to invest into
| copyright protection. Trying to actually enforce your license
| is signing up for a years-long nightmare of wasting your
| time, energy, and money dealing with the legal system for, in
| the end, no real value to yourself. If you release something
| as open source, you pretty much need to be ready to accept
| that your license is meaningless when it meets contact with
| reality.
|
| This is all the more true with LLMs existing now, which are
| freely used to launder copyright licenses. Maybe in the past
| GPL would've made Microsoft or Google, at least, think twice
| about using your code, but now their developers will prompt
| GPT to reimplement your code.
| withinboredom wrote:
| This is why I prefer the AGPL over the GPL. But isn't this
| the entire point of open source? So long as it is
| attributed/following the license, who cares if they're
| selling it or not?
| delfinom wrote:
| >. You cannot prevent people from making money off your
| free work, and the fact that it is a profitable endeavour
| for them will lead to them spending money on marketing
|
| You can in-fact file a copyright claim against them if they
| fail to provide the source and attribution.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| I agree with your analogy, but as an aside... "Cuck
| license" is not a phrase that's a term of art outside this
| blog post and I don't think it's a useful lens for
| understanding how software licenses work.
|
| It also seems divorced from the practice of intentional
| cuckoldry. Any "bulls" would know that a more apt analogue
| would put Amazon and Delve and others as the cucks
| (expending energy to create arrangements where they can sit
| back and watch others do the work), and the open source
| contributors as the 'bulls' or 'cuckqueans' (the ones who
| actually do the work, but they do it because they find it
| enjoyable).
|
| Luckily, software licenses aren't really so difficult to
| understand, and it behooves us to understand them in
| specifics. So I don't think it serves an illustrative
| purpose to insist on an analogy where writing software is
| like being physically intimate with someone elses spouse. I
| think the author just intends to signal political
| affiliation through the soft-shibboleth of Being the Type
| of Guy to Say Cuck A Lot.
| f33d5173 wrote:
| > outside this blog post
|
| It's a /g/ meme, from where luke presumably got it.
| zem wrote:
| > I think the author just intends to signal political
| affiliation through the soft-shibboleth of Being the Type
| of Guy to Say Cuck A Lot
|
| agreed, I got strong edgelord vibes off that. completely
| distracted from any message the poster wanted to convey.
| gzread wrote:
| You can submit a DMCA takedown notice to the app store, and
| they must take it offline for 14 days and give you the
| contact details of the perpetrator, or else you can sue the
| app store for not doing that.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| > they must take it offline for 14 days and give you the
| contact details of the perpetrator
|
| These specific actions are definitely not part of the
| DMCA. In fact, it's basically the reverse. Unless you
| hire a lawyer to represent you, you must dox yourself to
| file a DMCA claim, which will involve handing over your
| name, address, and phone number to the platform
| committing the infringement against you, with the DMCA
| complaint requiring swearing under penalty of perjury
| that you are not falsifying any details.
|
| > else you can [sue] the app store for not doing that.
|
| This is, I think, the fantasy belief of someone who has
| never engaged with the legal system. You submit a notice
| of copyright infringement. They ignore it. Now what? Are
| you, as an independent developer, prepared to spend years
| of your life fighting to have it taken offline, out of
| pure spite, because you aren't going to get anything near
| the effort you put in? Even if you "win", you still lose,
| because it's just not worth it.
|
| This is assuming you're even aware of the infringement.
| It was pure luck that I happened to discover the
| copyright infringement, in my case. It would be very easy
| for somebody to never discover that their game was re-
| labelled with a new name in a foreign app store. And once
| aware of it, actually trying to enforce my copyright
| quickly disabused me of the notion that copyright law
| could ever benefit individuals in any meaningful way.
| Jiro wrote:
| Using the GPL like this doesn't help unless you are willing
| to sue people. If you can't or won't sue people, all that
| happens is that the software with the GPL license is avoided
| by people who want to use it in GPL-incompatible ways but
| have a conscience, while bad people still take it and use it
| anyway, and since you're not going to sue them, they don't
| care that they're violating the license.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Does that blog post have a glowing smiley face with "A BUNCH
| OF N***ERS" written in on it in pixelated text?
|
| Would think twice about linking that one in polite company.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Not defending it, but the meme itself is derivative quote
| from the developer of TempleOS. He suffered from
| Schizophrenia and believed the CIA was tracking him. He
| believed you could tell a CIA agent due to them glowing,
| and would refer to them as "glowy nwords" very regularly.
|
| The term "glowy" has taken on a life of its own despite the
| original context. The image itself is from it's 4chan days.
| Probably poor taste to include a version with Terry's full
| quote.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to Terry saying that. The guy had
| measurable brain damage, and it's hard to blame someone
| for doing things when it's their damaged brain that
| decides to do them. It's like getting mad at a diabetic
| for having high blood sugar.
|
| But I can certainly squint at other people when they
| spread Terry's quotes and memes.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > But I can certainly squint at other people when they
| spread Terry's quotes and memes
|
| Someone can use language you disagree with but still have
| a point if you dig past it. I also happen to personally
| think it's important to engage with this sort of thinker
| at least sometimes
|
| Insisting on polite, formal language can be a type of
| bigotry too you know. It's historically pretty classist,
| and lately also indicates a sort of neuronormative
| bigotry.
|
| Idk, some food for thought
| switchbak wrote:
| Wait - not conversing with someone who thinks it's fine
| to post the N word is now classist and some kind of
| neuro-whateverthefuck bigotry?
|
| No it's not, it's enforcing the norms of civil discourse.
| If they have some kind of actual underlying issue that
| causes this and it's legit beyond their control - then
| sure, go the extra mile and try to meet them where they
| are.
|
| If on the other hand, it's some annoying person who likes
| ruffling feathers on purpose - I really think they ought
| to be ostracized for such behaviour.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Right?! I feel like we _must_ be being trolled.
|
| Short of something like the recent event with the chap
| with Tourette's saying awful things at the BAFTA awards,
| or Terry Davis with schizophrenia saying outlandish
| stuff, there aren't many scenarios where I'd be willing
| to give someone a pass on this.
|
| If you have the ability to choose not to use the n-word,
| and you're not in a group that can use it self-
| referentially among your peers, and you use it anyway,
| then you're an asshole and I don't really care to hear
| what else you have to say. I feel pretty OK with that
| blanket assessment.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > Short of something like the recent event with the chap
| with Tourette's saying awful things at the BAFTA awards,
| or Terry Davis with schizophrenia saying outlandish
| stuff, there aren't many scenarios where I'd be willing
| to give someone a pass on this.
|
| "There are some scenarios where you might want to give
| people a pass for reasons outside their control" is
| literally the only point I was trying to make
|
| So I guess we are in violent agreement?
|
| Edit: also, you will never actually discover which people
| you should give the benefit of the doubt if you
| categorically dismiss anyone who uses language you
| dislike
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > No it's not, it's enforcing the norms of civil
| discourse
|
| You don't see how that is exclusionary to people who
| struggle with norms?
|
| I guess if you're born neurodivergent and can't handle
| social norms, you don't deserve any kind of grace. You
| can't ever contribute anything worthwhile or meaningful
| if you don't live up to all of society's polite norms.
| Good to know
|
| Never change Hacker News
| kstrauser wrote:
| Oh behalf of the neurodivergent people surrounding me,
| 100% of whom successfully resist any temptation to say
| the n-word in my presence that they may ever feel, it's
| reprehensible that you're conflating racism and
| neurodiversity. I've never, not once, ever, heard someone
| blame their racism on ADHD.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| You've never encountered someone who is pretty autistic
| and doesn't care about (or perhaps understand) the social
| consequences of using slurs?
|
| Or someone bipolar who gets kind of erratic and can say
| really out of character stuff when they are going through
| a manic episode?
|
| Or someone with tourettes that might say something that
| pops in their head unexpectedly?
|
| Sure thing about ADHD. You're right that people with the
| executive function disorder don't tend to blurt wild
| social faux pas. But there are also people with _social
| function disorders_ who might.
|
| It doesn't necessarily mean they are terrible people
| kstrauser wrote:
| This is an insultingly narrow definition of
| "neurodivergent" limited to people with profound
| impediments to social functions.
|
| I'd already explicitly excluded people with Tourette's
| and other major challenges, but you knew that, so now I
| presume you're arguing for the sake of arguing. Have a
| nice day.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Speaking as one, I have found that I have _never_ gotten
| "grace" from most folks. A few folks have been especially
| patient with me, over the years, and for that, I'm
| grateful; but they haven't been the norm.
|
| I used to go to Japan, quite often, and watched Americans
| violating societal norms, all the time. The Japanese were
| usually fairly good at not lashing back, but I could
| often see them visibly restraining themselves. Over the
| course of about a decade, I learned to at least respect
| their ways. I found the Germans to be less accepting of
| annoying Americans (and I was one). I learned a lot
| quicker, there.
|
| I know that many folks think that self-diagnosing as "on
| the spectrum" is considered some kind of "get out of jail
| asshole" card, but that's just an urban myth. If you're
| an asshole, you'll usually be treated like one; no matter
| the reason.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrblUUIG8So
| kstrauser wrote:
| Ahem, _bullshit_.
|
| No. There's a huge, eye-wateringly vast gap between
| impolite, informal language and racial slurs. I happen to
| personally think it's completely unimportant to engage
| with someone actively calling someone else the n-word.
|
| That's not classist, and in no way neuronormative
| bigotry, unless we're classifying racism and generalized
| bastardry as a mental illness.
| switchbak wrote:
| "Probably poor taste" ... it's the fuckin N word, in the
| context of software licenses. Of course it's in poor
| taste, that's putting it mildly.
|
| The whole thing reeks of 14 year old turned 38 year old
| smelly edgelord nonsense, not something I would post,
| that's for sure.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| In the most generous interpretation possible, I still
| would not say it has taken on a "life of its own", it's
| still very well rooted in the context of the belief the
| CIA plants black people in locations for gangstalking.
| PhilipRoman wrote:
| Didn't notice it, to be honest.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| he's gone way off the /pol/tard deepend. He used to be a
| pretty good source for GNU/Linux tutorials but man he's
| insufferable
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Hot damn, I did not notice the Terry Davis meme on the blog
| post had that. I wonder if they noticed the font at all or
| not.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| In case it is pertinent for anyone clicking, the source
| article does not censor the text, but it is a little blurry
| in the image.
| gzread wrote:
| No, it doesn't, and honestly, your comment comes off as
| trying to steer people away from clicking the link and
| learning the actual point of what's being linked to.
| axus wrote:
| If you start a business relationship with people who rip-off
| and cover-up, you're going to have a bad time.
| neilv wrote:
| Unless you're playing a numbers game by in investing in
| "naughty" people, and aligning them to mutually-beneficial
| exit.
|
| You still have to be careful not to invest in imbeciles, but
| unethical is OK.
| Steve16384 wrote:
| But they didn't attribute it. Or does this not really matter?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| It does matter, that's one of the requirements.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Exactly the article brushes over this too, painting it as not
| abbig deal. But IMO it is a huge deal. Open source licensees
| have very few terms usually, making the terms that do exist
| extremely important to satisfy so that a user is in good
| standing.
|
| This phrase in the article in particular is frustrating:
|
| _DeepDelver calls this "stealing intellectual property,"
| which is a bit of a stretch, since open source tools are
| freely available to be used, if they are properly credited._
|
| Oh because my license terms are more liberal, it doesn't
| matter as much when you break them?? Really? Bonkers that
| they would publish that.
| starkparker wrote:
| You don't see a problem with a startup dedicated to handling
| legal compliance for customers repeatedly botching even
| rudimentary legal compliance of its own?
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > The project is Apache licensed, so even if they took it,
| outside of lacking attribution / retaining copyright, I don't
| see a problem? They would be require to add it to an "About"
| tab or something.
|
| They used it without having a license. The apache license would
| have allowed them to use it, but they didn't meet the
| conditions.
|
| This sounds equivalent to using paid software without paying to
| me.
|
| The original author could well claim that "the cost of a
| license under the terms which they used it is $2M". After all,
| the cost of software licenses is entirely arbitrary and set by
| the author (copyright owner).
| deng wrote:
| > outside of lacking attribution / retaining copyright, I don't
| see a problem?
|
| That's a bit like a shoplifter saying "well, outside of not
| paying for it, I don't see a problem?".
|
| Apache 2.0 clearly says you must include the license, include
| copyright, state any changes you've made and include the NOTICE
| file. None of that was done, so this is a pretty clear
| violation of the license. The copyright holders can demand that
| this is fixed immediately, seek at least an injunction if that
| does not happen, and maybe even claim profits made from selling
| the software while violating the license.
| croes wrote:
| Ask yourself why they didn't do that in the first place.
| cestith wrote:
| Copyright infringement is always a problem.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| The scrubbing of old posts says much
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| If they really did, they just need to attribute to the original
| project, its Apache 2 licensed, not AGPL or something that
| requires sharing code. I swear Software License Literacy needs
| to be a require course for all CS students.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| You do not get to "just" retroactively fix copyright
| infringement (which is what this was). Try it with Disney
| sometimes.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I'm not a legal expert to be fair, but it would definitely
| be the bare legal requirement, though them lying about it
| is probably what will get them in bigger trouble.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I encourage you to try selling copies of some Disney
| movies and Nintendo game rips on your website,
| representing them as your own work, and when they notice,
| to offer to "just delete them".
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| This is beyond what we're talking about though, you're
| referring to copyright infringement. I'm referring to an
| open source licensed software that ALLOWS commercial use,
| the only requirement is attribution.
|
| Your example only makes sense if the company stole the
| code from a proprietary repo, like a hostile former
| employee.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| All copyleft licenses are built on top of copyright law.
| That is their one and only enforcement strategy, by
| design. So we are in fact talking about the very same
| thing. Here, read:
| https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-
| enforcement/#...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That analogy only works if there was a place you could
| signup for free to _allow_ you to host and sell those
| files.
|
| As-is, it's so far off it's useless. Even though both
| situations involve copyright in some manner.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I again point out that ALL copyleft licenses are built on
| copyright, so my example is perfectly valid - one way or
| another it is copyright infringement,
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-
| enforcement/#...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| What am I supposed to say here. I already acknowledged
| that and said it's not good enough to make the analogy
| work. If you repeat that point with no elaboration,
| you're basically just saying "nuh uh".
| kbelder wrote:
| They'll definitely be required to either add the
| attribution or stop using the code.
|
| There can be punitive fines for copyright violation,
| moreso if the copyright is registered. I think there's
| some leeway there for the court.
|
| There also may be damages. In the case of, for instance,
| illegal distribution of a Disney movie, Disney may be
| entitled to the amount of sales they supposedly lost.
|
| It makes me think that open-source projects should
| routinely offer their product for sale, without the
| attribution requirements. Then, if another company
| violates their license, they have a tangible dollar
| figure they can point to and say exactly how much revenue
| was stolen.
| torginus wrote:
| The thing that strikes me as odd is how is it that Delve becomes
| an unicorn superstar (by iself), and the company they steal stuff
| off of, is much much less of a success story.
|
| It would make more sense that the people who actually built the
| thing would do the thing better and do it first.
| MeetingsBrowser wrote:
| I think in real life, cheaters win.
|
| Without proper punishment, groups who "play fair" are at a
| strict disadvantage against those willing to break the rules.
|
| At least in the US, we seem to be rapidly moving away from
| punishing groups for breaking the rules. All the mega
| successful companies (and people) seem to break a lot of rules
| to get there.
|
| Conversely, the honest "play by the rules" groups can't be mega
| successful. Without punishment, the cheater always wins.
| superxpro12 wrote:
| The words for this is "regulatory capture" and
| "deregulation". And yes, its been happening for a long time.
|
| And now that right-wing groups are buying up all the media,
| we wont be hearing about it for much longer.
| altairprime wrote:
| The U.S. has always idolized charismatic grifters. Tech
| revolutionized charisma, by showing that interpersonal
| charisma isn't the correct filter: asociability, or perhaps
| the more familiar amorality, is. The ability of someone to
| extract and upstream value without engaging in ethics is
| correctly labeled as more important than being warm and
| friendly.
| mikert89 wrote:
| Basically YC + MIT background is a license to raise infinite
| capital. So they just needed to check some revenue boxes etc.
| input_sh wrote:
| Actually building something useful and fun and spending your
| time convincing investors to give you enough money to _maybe_
| turn it into a profitable business some day are not really
| complimentary personality traits.
|
| Steve Wozniak alone could've maybe built Apple without Steve
| Jobs, but his time would be wasted by doing something he
| (presumably) didn't enjoy very much and it would've been a much
| bumpier road.
| nikanj wrote:
| Even if the prospective investors smell a rat, they might
| decide that it's likely that a greater fool will arrive on the
| scene later - justifying investing in a known scam
| chuckadams wrote:
| In the long list of Delve's misdeeds, this is probably the least
| of them.
| acdha wrote:
| Perhaps but it's quite informative as a cultural indicator:
| someone who sells open source code for millions despite not
| having a license to do so is almost certainly cheating in other
| areas as well. Like if my CFO was cheating on their spouse, it
| wouldn't directly tell me that they were cheating the company
| but given that prior it's significantly more likely that they
| view other promises as only binding if you get caught.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Packaging up open source projects and selling them is done all
| the time is done all the time and is a good business model since
| you can outsource a lot of the work and bug fixing to people who
| will do it for free instead of having to pay someone.
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| The selling wasn't the problem here. The problem was lying
| about what they were doing and violating the terms of the
| license.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| Old news.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47609310
| nickvec wrote:
| Sorry your thread didn't gain traction, but this isn't old news
| by any means. No need to be salty.
| acdha wrote:
| Recent news, but I do sympathize that your earlier thread
| didn't get attention. One thing I think helped this one is that
| HN has more people who care about open source abuse than Delve
| specifically so this headline gets more attention.
| nickvec wrote:
| Yeah, I felt like the TechCrunch title was a bit clickbaity
| ("The reputation of troubled YC startup Delve has gotten even
| worse"), so I opted to write my own title, which I feel
| helped get this thread on the front page.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That was posted 12 hours earlier. What's your definition of
| old?
| kikitaffner wrote:
| a private fork is a huge maintenance liability. good luck when a
| CVE drops for the upstream repo and you have to scramble to
| backport the patch to your snowflake version before customers are
| compromised
| randyrand wrote:
| So they added marketing and support on top. Sounds like how you
| run a business.
| AIorNot wrote:
| instead of calling this corporate malfeasance lets call it what
| it for what it really is:
|
| its Bunch of inexperienced people (kids really) stealing stuff
| from each other. (Not a proper 'Compliance' company) -The CEO is
| like 22 years old!!! WTF guys you think this guy knows
| compliance??? lol
|
| Ie in a fast high pressure environment called Y Combinator where
| the 'adults' are pressuring and hyping each other's products and
| stealing open source, AI generating and in general trying to
| productize every crappy idea they can think of to capture some VC
| or investor who is too dumb to do proper due diligence in the AI
| gold-rush and hype train
|
| On top of that engineering is so high pressured and awful these
| days e.g this video from the kids in silicon valley:
| https://youtu.be/0tLEszJs7hc?si=OXrJqPg-5PhVGnYT
| wg0 wrote:
| More on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahDQ6SSK1Y0
| saadn92 wrote:
| What probably happened here is depressingly common in early-stage
| startups. Someone finds an open source tool that does 80% of what
| they need, forks it, strips the branding, and then ships it.
| Nobody thinks about the license because the company is in "move
| fast" mode and there's no process for it yet.
|
| Sure, the Apache 2.0 allows this, but the mistake is that when
| someone asked "is this based on SimStudio?" the answer was "we
| built it ourselves" instead of "yes, it's a fork, here's what we
| added." It went from a fixable attribution oversight to a
| credibility problem. You can retroactively add a LICENSE file,
| but can't take the lie back.
| tikhonj wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is posturing (less charitably, lying
| to outsiders) and how much is the organization effectively
| lying to itself.
|
| Both are indictment of today's ambient startup culture, and I'm
| not sure which is ultimately worse.
| nickvec wrote:
| Based on DeepDelve's recent follow-up article, I would assume
| the former. https://deepdelver.substack.com/p/delve-fake-
| compliance-as-a...
| redanddead wrote:
| this is nuts
| nikanj wrote:
| Every layer of the organization tells a more rosy version of
| the truth up the chain of command. The programmer might tell
| the PM that they're running Apache software with the serials
| filed off, but by the time that filters up the chain to the
| CEO / Board, the product is "fully proprietary and 100% built
| in-house"
| GorbachevyChase wrote:
| This is why I hope AI will destroy the entire SaaS market.
| These people should be selling used cars or life insurance and
| have no access to finance.
| tptacek wrote:
| Wait, the thing we're talking about is Apache 2.0?
| wg0 wrote:
| Don' think SoC compliance is as automatable as much as investors
| hoped to. This mistrust and over trust in AI is based on a
| technology that Google invented and didn't pay much attention to
| themselves because they knew it isn't as reliable or that useful
| to the point where its output is so definitely reliable that it
| requires zero human input.
|
| The coding agents succeeds because apart from wanna be SaaS indie
| vibe coders, other serious users of AI agents for coding are
| themselves pretty strong and competent software engineers that
| won't let slip things easily and have years of experience and a
| taste in what is architecturally correct and what is nonsense and
| when and how to steer in what direction.
|
| Other fields - if they have to review every output of the LLM
| such as in finance running totals and such to verify the results
| of an LLM makes their usage not as much useful.
| nikanj wrote:
| It's fully automatable. The secret ingredient is fraud.
| theturtletalks wrote:
| That's one thing I'm loving about AI adoption and everyone vibe
| coding, the importance of open-source. When I was learning how to
| code, it blew my mind when I realized proprietary companies were
| built on the shoulders of great open-source projects. These
| provide a nice UI/UX and the marketing, but AI coding is making
| that less and less of a moat.
| gclawes wrote:
| Delved too greedily and too deep, it sounds like
| jwilber wrote:
| No shame rewarded as expected in the post-cluely world of
| contemporary VC.
| yboris wrote:
| I had someone steal my MIT open source software (that I sell for
| $5) and they are selling it for $11 or more. My software is 8+
| years old; they are lying to the customers that they have been
| developing theirs for years. Very frustrating.
|
| mine: https://videohubapp.com/
|
| my GitHub: https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App
|
| grifter: https://videocliplibrary.com/
| simantel wrote:
| How can someone steal MIT-licensed software? The license says:
|
| Permission is hereby granted [...] to use, copy, modify, merge,
| publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the
| Software [...]
|
| If you don't want other people to be able to sell it, don't use
| an MIT license.
| tasuki wrote:
| Also you didn't mention you send $3.5 of the $5 to charity!
| Their Discord has three members, so perhaps it's not very
| popular? The "creator" lists themselves as "Peoples Grocers"
| and their website is a weird not-even-half-assed copy of Simon
| Willison's Weblog: https://peoplesgrocers.com/
| bitwize wrote:
| With all these shenanigans surrounding Delve it's a good thing I
| switched to YoureAbsolutelyRight.io.
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| Seems to be encouraged at YC
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