Comment by adventureadmin
5 years ago
I'm surprised that others don't find mentioning your former company's name in a commit message, for similar software, an admission that you were inspired or thinking of that company's design.
When software is both your hobby and your profession, you have to think carefully about what you mix and how. The developer also goes onto state that what he did is nothing new and he decides what repl.it's IP is on their behalf. Is this hinting that he wrote his new project in a similar way, but he believes it to be nothing special?
Obviously the CEO's response was deplorable, but also probably a lesson to a new developer about mixing work and hobby.
But if source code was copied repl.it could have said "this is our code and their code side to side, spot the difference". Especially given the current (negative) mood that would have won them the public opinion. The fact that they didn't do such a thing suggests to me that they know they don't have a true case. Because if they had, it would be a entirely different discussion by now
In our adversarial judicial system, you really don't have to disclose that until discovery. A lawyer may want to keep some of those similarities "close to the chest" to see how the other side responds first to some discovery requests. (this system is far from perfect).
Never said you have to legally. But given the PR fallout your incentive to still do it might be not insifnificant.