Comment by WiiManic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WiiManic | Hacker News Reader

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Something that I've really not seen mentioned, is that they are also (and still!) ignoring the licensing that Microsoft has around VSCode.

VSCode is built on open source of course, but the the OSS version is "Code - OSS". When Microsoft builds it and releases it, it becomes VSCode with the Visual Studio trademark and what not.

PearAI's Code fork is using the real VSCode marketplace which has strict "This has to be used with Visual Studio products" (well, and some other MS / GitHub bits), so they can't use that. If you look at other VSCode-adjacent editors, they all use open-vsix.org instead.

They also use extensions that are licensed in the same way:

https://trypear.ai/blog/wsl-setup

They have instructions on setting up the WSL extension...which has a "This can only be used in Visual Studio Code" License too, so it can't be used in their PearAI fork.

You can see some examples of the terms of use / LICENSEs here:

https://cdn.vsassets.io/v/M190_20210811.1/_content/Microsoft...

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items/ms-vscode-remote....

It just shows a complete lack of regard for licensing...

The "dawg I chatgpt'd the license" tweet was absolutely egregious.

Honestly it also reflects equally badly on Coinbase if they were paying these guys $300k.

One positive outcome is that this might have cured a lot of people's imposter syndrome.

I've interviewed for Coinbase and it was a shit show. The recruiter initially said my interviews went well but then never got back to me, even after me reaching out multiple times. Plus there are lots of reports from people working there that things are held together by strings and glue, and the work life balance is terrible.

So, “it was a shit show” was “the recruiter ghosted me”?

that is indeed one of the signs that a recruitment process is a shitshow

I imagine coinbase has a legal department and these guys were paid to code.

Using chatgpt to write a license is a ridiculously dumb thing to do since there are so many public templates to choose from, it sounds like they're just overly enthusiastic about AI.

I think there's a line where AI enthusiasm becomes disdain for human expertise. If you can't be bothered to learn about licenses, what else are you just going to assume chatgpt can figure out for you?

It was less work to just leave the license alone

The bad reflection goes both ways: Working for Coinbase already reflects badly on anyone no matter what they're paid.

How so?

One might hold the position that crypto coin companies (particularly those working with POW coins) add very little value to the world in exchange for significant social and environmental cost.

One who held this position would see working at Coinbase as an indicator of a moral failing.

This had some real SBF playing lol during meetings vibes.

It's been said that YC invests in the founders and not the ideas, these oranges don't seem worth the squeeze.

I thought the crazy part was "I don't have time for legal", but he did have time to change the license, lol.

even working face to face with relatively incompetent people has never helped with my imposter syndrome.

If anything this is a stark reminder of the hiring bubble we were in the past few years..

They also lied about having 100+ contributors to PearAI.

> It just shows a complete lack of regard for licensing

This is the MO of all AI companies

Wait, isn't WSL extension also available on Cursor? Did they reach an agreement with MS?

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