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Comment by IvanK_net

13 days ago

Hey guys, I am the creator of Photopea, I just woke up! I did not expect that it will blow up like this.

Thank you all for your support! Many repositories like this one exist on GitHub, I tried to report in in the past, but I was completely ignored by Github / Microsoft. I feel pretty powerless here :( I tried to call them out publicly - https://x.com/photopeacom/status/2106877355738140875

This "PhotoSuite" thing got me a bit angry, since the author presented it as an original work, when I clearly see that such a project can be made from my "pp.js" file in two hours using Claude. Also, I believe that their README.md did not mention Photopea before I wrote my first comment there.

Thousands of people shared "PhotoSuite" on social media and nobody minded the fact that they don't know who the creator is. The creator is still offering it on their website as their original work: https://www.photosuite.app/

We live in interesting times. AI can (or will be able to) de-obfuscate every bit of code that was ever published, convert binaries to readable C++ and so on. So, in theory, AI models will train on the source code that we consider "closed-source" now, and will be able to recreate this software if asked. But it wouldn't be possible if a real person did not spend thousands of hours of their life to write that software years sooner.

I have always been excided to see people make AI create something new, what didn't exist before. But so far, I mostly saw only "approximations" of expensive software, when AI tries to recreate each feature and each button according to what it thinks it should do, or "forks", when AI takes the full code of something and tries to "bend" it to hide the similarity with the original work.

10 comments

IvanK_net

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tonyedgecombe  13 days ago

>I tried to report in in the past, but I was completely ignored by Github / Microsoft.

This is the second time we have heard this complaint in the last week. Previously it was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49832406

It feels like we need to be more and more vigilant about relying on tools from these big technology companies. Especially if you are running a small business. They really don't give a shit about you unless you have enough pull to get on the front page of HN.

vdfs  13 days ago

> But so far, I mostly saw only "approximations" of expensive software

Genuine question: isn't this what photopea did to photoshop?

  • mrandish  13 days ago

    > isn't this what photopea did to photoshop?

    There's no evidence the PhotoPea author ever decompiled PhotoShop binaries. He emulated a desktop program's functions, menu structure and look in a web app by writing original code. Even if you had the PS source code, delivering a PhotoShop-like experience in a web page requires a lot of original work (especially in 2013). Before PhotoPea, Adobe had said that making PhotoShop browser-based would be extremely difficult, if not impossible and never be performant.

    PhotoPea proved that with enough work and skill it was possible. Having an LLM coding agent look at PhotoPea itself and turn it into a copy of PhotoPea and then representing it as your own work is not at all the same.

  • IvanK_net  13 days ago

    Yes, and I totally support it! They start "from zero" and build everything piece by piece by testing the input / output of each feature. I just hope they use Photoshop / Photopea / Other software only from the users perspective and not by analyzing the code (source code or "binaries" - it probably does not matter to AI nowadays).

    In this case, it was a clear copy-paste of my code, whith the variable names changed by the AI.

    • uurrnn  13 days ago

      I use photopea every day. I can only imagine the complex emotions you're going through. I am not nearly as attached to my software, I imagine, just because of how "unimportant" it is.

      I am still very attached to it though. For no good reason other than "it's mine", I think.

      Isn't it a good thing software can't be closed? We have to use someone's tool though, and ego is inevitable, so idk? 100s of separate "open source" versions and people use what they think is the best?

      Is it just about accountability? and having an author/human attached to the product to direct it? Choosing the person you have the most faith in?

      /rambling