Comment by bsjxh
5 years ago
> If he had at least come up with something original based on that knowledge
Repl.it itself is completely unoriginal... there's been websites doing this stuff for decades now. Of course, the CEO has to live in denial of this, and is easily threatened/offended when confronted by this reality.
> there's been websites doing this stuff for decades now.
Would this hold up in case of a lawsuit? I mean, can Replit's CEO accuse the guy of copying some of their work if there's evidence of prior art that predates both projects?
In theory no that's exactly the sort of thing you'd need to make it go away, the mechanism exactly depending on the case.
e.g. if they had a patent on something and were accusing infringement you'd countersue to say the patent's invalid (which I think in a nicely engineering appealing way is conceptually separate from the question of whether or not an awarded patent has been infringed upon).
Trademarks, being a de facto recognisably you mark, are not if they are in widespread use - which is why you get a lot of big guys suing tiny little guys and tabloids pick it up outraged they'd pick a fight so below their weight - but at some point enough little guys diluting your brand is going to mean it's no longer your brand, your trademark, and then it's too late to fight it.
(IANAL.) I assume this isn't about a non-compete clause otherwise he would've just said that instead of this vaguer message. (And it was two years ago OP worked there anyway.) So unless there's a patent supposedly infringed on, or closed source code copied out, I don't know what the complaint could even be in the first place? Just reads like an empty threat to me. That 'repl.it superiority' commit message is unfortunate though.