Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Fairly certain the Rebble folk know the answer they'll get from their users.

I'm certain the EFF would probably be very interested in pursuing this.

Not cool. I can't help but think this must be pretty self-defeating. The market for the Pebble watches is not general consumers who will never see things like this going on in the background, it's relatively technical people who know a lot about the devices they are using, almost by definition. I can only assume that this will be widely known quickly in the customer base.

There may be another side to this story, but it's so far not a good look for Pebble/Core, and this post is well reasoned and written enough that I doubt there are many places for alternate explanations to hide.

>Core took Rebble’s work, added to it, and then paid us back by putting a more restrictive license on their contributions and wrapping a closed-source UI around it.

Is that legal?

Pretty damning. There goes any interest I had in the Pebble revival until this is sorted fairly.

If that’s true, it’s disappointing to see community efforts reused without credit. Open projects rely on transparency and respect for contributors, so some clarification from both sides would help clear this up.

I'm now considering canceling my pre-order. I want the Pebble ecosystem to succeed, but I won't buy another closed-source device.

Wow.

> We made it absolutely clear to Eric that scraping for commercial purposes was not an authorized use of the Rebble Web Services.

> We’d already agreed to give Core a license to our database to build a recommendation engine on. Then, Eric said that he instead demanded that we give them all of the data that we’ve curated, unrestricted, for him to do whatever he’d like with. We asked to have a conversation last week; he said that was busy and could meet the following week. Instead, the same day, our logs show that he went and scraped our servers.

Seriously uncool. I don't really consider myself a part of the Pebble community anymore (despite having two of the OG Pebble) but I'd def lean towards getting legal input on this...

What is this data that Core wants exactly? Are old pebble apps compatible with the new devices?

Assuming Eric / Core doesn't come out with some scathing "real story":

Well, it's better to figure this out today (that Eric / Core are not so great) rather than a year or two down the line when I'd have already bought a new Pebble. Still sucks, I was excited. Never had one but I want something in the same niche.

Does anyone have suggestions for other good low-capability, long battery, hackable eink watches?

I used Rebble for many years and bought the new Core Devices watches. The truth is Rebble will die without new hardware. It was declining in usage and I myself stopped using it when my old Pebble hardware gave out, until the prospect of new hardware came around.

There needs to be a business making money to build the hardware to support this community. I appreciate that Rebble kept the flame alive, but I support Eric and Core Devices in building a business that makes enough money to fund new development of both hardware and software.

I wonder if there is a third option. Partner with someone like Pine64 and release your own watches. I find it hard to believe that the market is that big to begin with. If you have a small batch that can attract the tinkers and engineers like us, it’ll be a self fulfilling cycle. More users, more contributors, more income.

Wow. Yielding to a benevolent dictator requires a lot of trust, and it seems Eric is doing his best to exhaust any he might have had. Want to hear more from those involved, but seriously considering cancelling my order.

I'm new to Pebble and have been excited about joining the community; I have a Pebble Time 2 on preorder. I will certainly cancel the pre-order unless Rebble affirmatively says they are satisfied with the arrangement.

The author sounds like a pushover who can't stand up for themselves.

Oh... oh no :(

I was really looking forward to my pre-ordered Time 2, as a Pebble Steel then Time Round owner.

But you cannot do this to Rebble. You just can't, this is unacceptable. Cancelling my preorder :(

What a bummer. It seems like what they're asking for here (a written agreement that users will be able to access 3rd party app stores) would be a win win win for Core Devices, Rebble, and users. Core Devices gets to look like a super good guy (ideally driving interest in the product), Rebble gets to look like a huge winner maintaining something for the community (as they are), and users get an open ecosystem.

There's still a chance for a win here, but looks like the door is closing.

I don't think _anyone_ who's buying the new pebble watches is to some degree not interested in software, and probably pretty interested in open-source community work. It's a wildly niche userbase, and this sort of thing is going to put crazy pressure on Eric and co, I imagine.

Still keeping my preorder, but damn dude this kinda sucks.

I'm torn here. I love that Rebble folks have kept things alive. I also love that Eric underwent the effort to make new hardware.

I'm also a bit sad that this is the first we're hearing of this tension, because it likely would've changed my decision to purchase a new Core 2 Duo watch, and I would've preferred this sort of falling out happen before a lot of devices have been purchased.

Looks like it went from Apache license to dual AGPLv3 and commercial.

I think apache is fine for commercial use.

It seems to me the terms of the apache license weren't followed? In there it says to include the apache license file, not throw it away.

(I am not a lawyer)

AGPLv3 seems decent - if you run it on a server, the users of that server can get the software I think.

Once again, we have the situation where someone uses an Apache or BSD licence, only to then wonder why others do exactly what the licence allows. If you want others, especially companies, to play nice, you have to make them do so. Use GPL or AGPL.

Let's hope Rebble doesn't get steamrollered. They did good work when the original company failed its users.

I've always considered these people to be scam artists after they promised sapphire crystal faces in the original kickstarter and then shipped cheap garbage.