It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I think the default trust should be with him, or at least it is for me.
The default trust should be with him instead of _the community_ that built and maintained Rebble for a decade?
As I understand it, they almost came to an agreement on this:
> We want to give Core’s users access to the Rebble App Store. (We thought we agreed on that last month.) We’re happy to commit to maintaining the Web Services. We’d be happy to let them contribute and build new features. And what we want in return is simple: if we give Core access to our data, we want to make sure they’re not just going to build a walled garden app store around our hard work.
To be clear, the Rebble app store includes more than just things uploaded to Pebble - many apps have been created and uploaded since Pebble OG shutdown.
Unless there’s an accusation that Eric / Core is violating license, I don’t see a lot of merit to Rebble’s position.
‘We’re happy to let them build whatever they want as long as it doesn’t hurt Rebble’
At the end of the day, Rebble built a business on top of scraped Pebble App Store data & open source code. They continued to keep their code open source. Eric paid fees to gain the rights to any code that wasn't open source.
The Pebble App Store data was never theirs. The underlying Pebble code was never theirs. The common library isn't theirs, Eric bought it from the maintainers.
It really does suck that the Rebble developers could lose a decent source of income. But that's what happens when you build your business on open source technology that you don't own.
But also, they must have some big balls to claim that all of the data they scraped from the Pebble App Store is THEIR data. I'd like to see the agreements from the pre-Rebble devs attesting to that.
> But also, they must have some big balls to claim that all of the data they scraped from the Pebble App Store is THEIR data. I'd like to see the agreements from the pre-Rebble devs attesting to that.
Agreed with this, but if it's not theirs, they also probably are not legally permitted to release it to Pebble (or host their app store, of course.) I am curious what the original terms were when they uploaded their apps to the OG Pebble app store.
This feels like it shouldn’t be difficult to hash out.
Part of the excitement of the Pebble OS being open sourced is that someone else could cook up their own watch, either for a different physical style, weird niche features, a successor to Pebble Time Round that Core Devices so far hasn't shown interest in making, etc. Will that happen? Who knows. But I like that it could!
If Core Devices vacuums up the Rebble store, puts Rebble out of business, and says any 3rd party Pebble OS devices aren't allowed to download apps from the main source, that's not good for the open community. I have no idea if Core Devices intends to do that, but it would be nice if they agreed that the store will stay open for everyone with compatible devices.
Whether Rebble has any legal leverage to do that since the data they archived from the original Pebble store isn't legally theirs to begin with, I have no idea. But given that the store's contents only survived because of their efforts, it feels like the right thing to do.
Is data removed from their server when somebody else copies it? That's a new computing paradigm in that case.
That's the way open source works. Do you think the Linux Kernel or Python communities are better?
Btw, that's also the way democracy works. Dictatorships don't have drama because they repress it.
The heart rate and oxygen saturation seem accurate compared to other devices measuring it.
I wouldn't mind a new watch that was more expensive than my current one if it was more accurate and had better setup compared to how I had to pair my current device. I'm not talking google watch or apple watch, but sub $300 device.
Rebble's "one red line" is "there has to be a future for Rebble in there." They fear being replaced/made irrelevant after Core builds their own infrastructure using Rebble's work. They want guarantees that if they give Core access to the app store data, Core won't build a proprietary/walled garden that cuts Rebble out. There's also emphasis on "our work," "we built this," "we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars." They feel Eric isn't acknowledging where his infrastructure came from.
Core Devices' thing is explicitly stating concern about relying on a third party (Rebble) for "critical services" his customers depend on. If "Rebble leadership changes their mind," they can't guarantee customer experience. They wants the app store archive to be "freely available" and "not controlled by one organization." They don't want to need "permission from Rebble" before building features (like free weather, voice-to-text) that might compete with Rebble's paid services. The fundamental fear seems to be business risk: being at the mercy of a nonprofit's decisions when his company has customers and obligations.
Neither side seems to trust the other's long-term intentions, creating an impasse where both feel existentially threatened by the other's preferred arrangement.
My take: I bought a watch in 2014. After the pebble 2 duo black fiasco (they ran out of stock, offered a white instead which I accepted 2 weeks ago, never shipped, and have ghosted my emails asking for shipping timelines.) I had high hopes, but given the messy interaction with the OSS world I'm considering cancelling my order for the duo and time two.
Hope they can figure out the dispute with Rebble. Maybe they end up hosting apps on a package manager and create some binding contract?
It's understandable that Rebble fears someone doing this, since this is what Rebble did.
Rebble took the original open-source Pebble work of thousands of independent developers, scraped it off the original store, and is re-offering it within their own walled garden and calling it "theirs".
It's great Rebble kept things alive but they seem to be fearing a second one of themselves.
> being at the mercy of a nonprofit's decisions when his company has customers and obligations.
Both Rebble and Core Devices are for-profit companies, neither is a non-profit, so I'm not actually sure which you're referring to here.
Looks like Rebble is now a nonprofit?
> have evolved along the way from a loose collection of co-conspirators, to Rebble Alliance, LLC, to our current non-profit Rebble Foundation [1]
1: https://rebble.io/2025/10/09/rebbles-in-a-world-with-core.ht...
Basically, they are not a 501c3. They are a Michigan state specific nonprofit. My original comment was made after a 501c3 search turned up nothing.
I don't know why they would decline to be a 501c3 and instead only be a Michigan nonprofit.
Any chance they recently changed status, and it's just not showing up yet?
The Rebble Foundation incorporated in 2023, so I don't think so.
I agree it's strange. The advantages of being a 501c3 in the US are immense, and if you meet the criteria, it is not difficult to become one. Essentially every organization larger than 6 people in the US that could be a 501c3, is one, for this reason.
So if they aren't, I assume it's because they can't be. Which makes me wonder why.
I have dealt with 501(c)(7) (basically a club), and I suspect there are others.
Rebble is not that. One of the key defining features of a 501c6 is that it exists to support other businesses that are associated, like a Chamber of Commerce. If Rebble did this then this whole issue we're commenting on the thread for wouldn't be an issue.
Groups dedicated to scientific, literary or educational purposes also quality.
The reason this is a problem is that Rebble is using their being a "non-profit" as a point of advertisement but there is essentially no difference between someone owning a for-profit company, and someone controlling and heading a non-profit company where they set their own salary and are not a 501c3.
> The Rebble Foundation is a non-profit organization that keeps the Pebble community alive. rebble.io
I looked closer after your comment. They appear to be a "Michigan Domestic Non-Profit Corporation".
Why aren't they a 501c3? I have no idea. It makes me trust them less to be honest, that they are some sort of nonprofit but not a 501c3.
If they're not soliciting donations from you I'm not sure why you'd care about their federal tax status.
Well, if they portray themselves as a "nonprofit" then most people who read that will think they are a 501c3, which is almost always the case. I don't know why they don't qualify for that status (if they don't), but it's possible that it's a reason I would care about when deciding whom to side with on issues like this one.
The battle of for-profit versus non-profit comes across differently than for-profit versus Michigan Domestic Non-Profit Corporation (which for some reason does not qualify for IRS nonprofit designation).
It looks like Michigan Domestic Non-Profit Corporations cannot allow their proceeds to benefit private parties. So they are a nonprofit if that helps you pick a side. It seems like an asinine point to pivot on, though.
Whether or not they are a nonprofit is not a point I care about on its own.
What is a point to pivot on, is if they claim to be a nonprofit, but make that claim in a misleading way.
It is highly unusual to be a 501c3-compatible state nonprofit but not actually bother to become a 501c3. You're essentially opting to pay federal taxes unnecessarily. It makes one wonder why.
Because if they appear to be a normal company but call themselves a non-profit, I want to know what that actually means to them.
Being a non-profit is generally a reason for community goodwill towards a company. Therefore being a nonprofit is attractive both to companies doing good, and charlatans seeking to capitalize on that goodwill.
If you call yourself a nonprofit but don't talk anywhere about what that means to you and why, then you look like that second option.
I think you have a misunderstanding of how that works. In many cases, you need both the state and federal non-profit designation (i.e. a Michigan domestic non-profit corporation would not pay state income taxes on charitable income + that same corporation would need the 501c3 designation from the IRS to have the same benefit at the federal level).
Do you have positive confirmation that they are not filing as a 501c3?
Yes, I'm aware. And since the lions share of taxes is often federal, the 501c3 step does not generally get skipped, like it does here. Why would they voluntarily give themselves federal tax exposure if they were able to avoid it?
> Do you have positive confirmation that they are not filing as a 501c3?
I am positive that it has been over 2 years since they filed as a Michigan domestic non-profit. Therefore we all have positive confirmation that they did not attempt to become a 501c3 with an organization capable of doing so, at the time they became a nonprofit. It does not take 2 years to become a 501c3.
I can't speak to their plans for the future.
Right. That wouldn't be particularly smart, even to someone who doesn't fully understand the ins and outs of tax/corporate law. Is it possible that perhaps they _do_ have their 501c3 designation and are just communicating it poorly?
Lack of positive confirmation that they are a 501c3 != positive confirmation that they are _not_ a 501c3
All 501c3 are publicly listed. They are not on the list. We have positive confirmation that they are not a 501c3, right now, nor have they ever been one.
The possibility suggested earlier was that they have applied but are not yet a 501c3. I lack positive confirmation that they have never attempted to become a 501c3.
Since it has been two years since they became a nonprofit, I think that implies they either have no intention of becoming a 501c3 or else tried to become one and failed because they did not meet the criteria. But technically it is possible that it is just delayed.
> It's understandable that Rebble fears someone doing this, since this is what Rebble did.
That's an extremely uncharitable take. It's not like Rebble drove Pebble out of business. What I gather is basically Pebble fell apart on its own, and Rebble picked up the pieces to keep things working.
It seems what Core wants do here is take what Rebble build/maintained and drive Rebble into irrelevance.
Why do you think that Pebble wants to drive Rebble into irrelevance if they're keeping the app store and Pebble is paying them to do that?
There's a chance that some awful fate will befall Eric, of course, but other than that I am not especially concerned that the new company will fold. Eric seems to understand what caused that outcome, and is specifically looking to avoid making the same mistakes.
Founders are the people who get money in exchange for taking the business public. The guy will be on his yacht when the shareholders arrive to screw things up.
Here, Rebble says Core is profiting from their work (hey, look at your licenses). It would be a direct violation of their ToS though, since there is this clause:
> 4. Services Usage Limits > > You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, access to the Service, or Content accessed through use of the Service, without Rebble’s express written permission.
So I don't know what to think honestly, I don't see any bad actors here...
Rebble effectively had free reign on this ecosystem for years, and could have at any time decided to try and capitalize on it further. They still can! But instead they're apparently interested in rent seeking while Core makes real headway.
It's clear that Eric and Core want to make something now. It's not clear what Rebble wants, but it's clear they are feeling left out. That obviously sucks but it's clear from what both sides are saying that Core has been trying to involve Rebble in their efforts. That's certainly noble and I'm not sure others would do the same.
Would Eric be able to do this all without Rebble? Lots of commenters have been saying "no" but I'm skeptic. I was an early Pebble user. I stopped using it before they went bust, and while I was aware of Rebble, there was nothing compelling there for me. It's neat that they have maintained a copy of the original watchfaces but beyond that I don't perceive a ton of value. I don't like the subscription fee. I'm sad they never took a serious crack at making a Rebble watch.
I hope everyone finds a way forward, together, but I'm not optimistic.
That said, I think you are right that Rebble is feeling left out - and that it is hard to figure out exactly how they can fit into Core's vision. But I think there are a couple of primary and immediate issues:
1. Core wants Rebble's data - so clearly there is value here, but Core is framing this debacle like Rebble is irrelevant. Also, I don't know that Google would've ever released PebbleOS if Rebble didn't exist
2. Rebble wants to see the future of Pebble remain open-source or at least compatible with their services, so that if Pebble goes bust again, the community can continue on
> Since then, we built a replacement app store API that was compatible with the old app store front end. We built a storage backend for it, and then we spent enormous effort to import the data that we salvaged. We’ve built a totally new dev portal, where y’all submitted brand new apps that never existed while Pebble was around. [...] And the App Store that we’ve built together is much more than it was when Pebble stopped existing. We’ve patched hundreds of apps with Timeline and weather endpoint updates. We’ve curated removal requests from people who wanted to unpublish their apps. And it has new versions of old apps, and brand new apps from the two hackathons we’ve run!
All of these things take time and money.
They funded some software development, they paid hosting bills, and they paid third party services for weather data, etc.
Stated elsewhere in thread, I believe the primary concern is that Rebble will import the data into a separate, closed app store owned by Pebble, which Pebble will lock Rebble out of (i.e. block scraping and refuse to release this data), and then if Pebble goes bust again, Rebble is left with less than they started with.
This is what Rebble is doing right now.
The proposal as per the article by Pebble is for Rebble to keep hosting, and for Pebble to pay them to do that. Why would Pebble move things into a closed store when their openness last time is what allowed Rebble to scrape all the apps in the first place? Only Rebble has behaved like this.
They did good work in absence of anyone maintaining the product, but they're running software on a product they literally did nothing to build.
Core could easily say "actually we won't support Rebble at all it's too complicated to maintain this relationship"... and Rebble would then only exist as long as people are willing to maintain the now decade-old original watches... which is a difficult task given the availability of superior hardware from the original manufacturer.
With the Core deal they could actually grow and they get a significantly longer lease on life even if the hardware company fails again.
This seems a little silly, no? rent seeking behavior for maintaining code they didn't write to begin with?
They're entitled to it just because in some sense Core is a successor to Pebble? No, not really.
No one's actually entitled to anything here on either end (legally), I see 0 work being done to actually contact the original authors to seek permission or licensing details.
AFAIK, there wasn't a blanket license that covered all apps in the ecosystem... so each app would vary. In the absence of a license all rights are held by the original developers.
Again, if that's all it were, Core could and should just take that old Pebble dump and use that. Why bother Rebble if they haven't done anything as you imply.
If Core were to do the same thing here, it's not the same, because Rebble is still active. You can't kill what's already dead (Pebble), but Rebble is very much still alive.
And how would this prevent Rebble from continuing to operate in the event that Pebble failed again?
Open sourcing the OS makes continuity in the event of a failure much easier for Rebble right?
They embraced the the pebble community with a copy of the App Store, extended it with their own weather apis and the like, and then now are trying to extinguish any ability for Core to implement their own solution without paying them more.
Keep in mind that this is their goal statement (straight from their FAQ):
> Our goal is to maintain and advance Pebble functionality, in the absence of Pebble Technology Corp.
Eric's new company, by effectively re-creating Pebble Technology Corp, is an existential threat to that mission: If there is someone else maintaining and advancing Pebble functionality, then what is the purpose of Rebble? It does seem unfortunate though -- I hope they can all work something out.
Their missions conflict because Pebble2's potential customers largely overlap with Rebble's current users, but I would say their aims are quite different.
The way this reads, is a group of enthusiasts got together to create a lifeboat for people who wanted to keep their pebble devices alive... But are now building a moat around said life raft.
If they truly cared about the devices, the users, and the developers.. they would just drop this attitude and move forward.
Another interpretation is that for rebble the worst thing that could happen, was Eric coming back and restarting pebble.
> We’re aiming to start shipping in January.
Today is the day I found out Rebble is claiming the ownership of my app's binaries. All I can say is that they don't have it.
I stumbled across your watchface recently and absolutely love it. It's remarkable how much information density you've achieved while still maintaining "at a glance" clarity. Thank you for the work you put into it!
Isn't this the exact point of copyleft licenses?
Relicense PebbleOS as GPL, relicense Rebble as AGPL.
Problem is then solved, no?
CLAs may have a place, but as long as they hadn't planned on a bait and switch all along they wouldn't need a CLA literally copied from Oracle's playbook.
If both sides don't trust each other, no amount license nor contract would suffice.
It would be a headache to prove the other side violate licenses.
In fact, they are already fighting on whether Eric was scraping data illegally or not, and people's opinions are divided. This would be an expensive lawsuit for both sides.
At the current level of trust, it's better not to do any business together at all.
I hate to say this but I have to agree with Eric. I want to side with Rebble But they are clearly misguided. The goal should not be to have an ongoing revenue stream for Rebble.
The goals should be
If and when Eric sells out again, there is a way for
1. all pebble and core devices to continue to get updates somehow (Rebble or otherwise)
2. all apps and metadata will continue to be available somehow (Rebble or otherwise)
The otherwise is key here. If someone wants to not use Rebble, they should be able to do that.
Rebble is not the end goal. Core is not the end goal. The users are.
And with all the people replying to the original Rebble post with "I'm canceling my preorder", I'm pretty worried that Rebble has created a self-fulfilling prophecy situation. :(
It makes me incredibly suspicious of Eric's motivations for some of this, and makes me less inclined to trust him.
Was I the only one to get excited when I saw "time round" in a sentence written on Eric's blog? It took a second for me to realize this had nothing to do with the amazing PTR.
The downside of the old one was the battery life, on the order of 2 days when the battery is new compared to a week with the larger models. But they've been talking about how the new bluetooth hardware is more efficient and should let them get the Pebble Time battery life up to 30 days this time. One imagines that efficiency would get a new PTR up to a week which is plenty. Frankly with monthly charging I'm a little worried I'll lose the charger between uses.
One thing I'm worried about is the thickness of the heart rate sensor, which could be even trickier with how small a Round should be. And that feels like table stakes for a wearable today, I'd buy one without it but I might be in the minority.
How can they be back to where they are if it goes closed source ?
Looks like they were not consulted by Eric before this post.
Look, I am a bit of a hypocrite on this, I had a fun time when OpenAI dropped the musk emails.
But this is not a great look for pebble.
> Accusation 4: ‘[Eric] scraped our app store, in violation of the agreement that we reached with him previously’
> Here’s what happened. I wanted to highlight some of my favourite watchfaces on the Pebble Appstore. Last Monday Nov 10, after I put my kids to sleep and between long calls with factories in Asia, I started building a webapp to help me quickly go through Pebble Appstore and decide which were my top picks.
> Let me be crystal clear - my little webapp did not download apps or ‘scrape’ anything from Rebble. The webapp displayed the name of each watchface and screenshots and let me click on my favs. I used it to manually look through 6000 watchfaces with my own eyes. I still have 7,000 to go. Post your server logs, they will match up identically to the app I (well…Claude) wrote (source code here)
so it wasn't "scraping"...it was just a vibe-coded webapp that made at least 6,000 requests to Rebble's servers in a short period of time? possibly more, depending on how many intermediate versions of the app he tested, and possibly many more, if one of those intermediate versions had a vibe-coded "feature" like prefetching a bunch of data for performance reasons?
he agreed not to scrape their services. and then scraped their services. and his excuse seems to boil down to "but I was doing it for a cool reason"
and he tosses in completely unrelated details about putting his kids to bed and having long calls with factories in Asia. those seem calculated to make him sound more relatable - an honest, hardworking, humble family man.
this seems like a relatively minor point in the overall dispute, but if he's unwilling or unable to take any responsibility there, it doesn't boost my confidence that he's being honest about the rest of it.
The most reasonable solution would have been for Eric to send an email first, but few contract disputes start with everyone doing the most reasonable thing.
But you're right that there's some hypocrisy here, given their roots, and they don't really acknowledge that.
We can buy that hardware from Core, today.
That gives them quite a few rights.
I asked Rebble weeks (!!) ago to give me back access to my own account and binaries on their store and to this day, I heard nothing from them. Nada.
If Core start a new store, I will immediately put the new, much improved version of my old watch face on their store. Rebble can keep the old, non-functional one in their archive if they want.
Is browsing linkedin scraping? Is browsing hacker news through an alternate client scraping?
No, scraping is rehosting hacker news.
(I suppose you could argue that the information ending up in a post or notification is "non-volatile" storage but honestly? People will laugh at you.)
> We made it absolutely clear to Eric that scraping for commercial purposes was not an authorized use of the Rebble Web Services.
So, another point of consideration is whether looking at names and pictures so you can personally favorite them constitutes as commercial use. Based on what Eric said, I don't really think so.
It was for a commercial purpose. Not a personal one.
Saying this is scraping is so pedantic, and given that Eric’s company is paying for access to the API, they should kick rocks.
Here's what it offers:
* Screen is fully visible under direct sunlight
* With the screen always on the battery lasts me well over a week
* Heart rate monitor
* EXTREMELY hackable, everything can be hacked on with JS, even the launcher you're using for apps
* 108 Euros shipped to the US
* Fully supported by GadgetBridge (open source mobile app)
But it is absolutely nowhere near as polished a user experience as Pebble was. I have had constant disconnects for months at a time with Gadgetbridge, loads of edge-case bug-like behavior that is in fact documented but in a weird location that nobody would look at or consider reasonable behavior, three hardware failures in three years (I'm still using one of them with a busted vibration motor), and on-device UX and tap accuracy and freezing that really only works out if you're sold on everything else about the device.
I haven't found anything else I'd recommend for a Pebble fan though, it really is the closest. I'm begrudgingly happy with it because I have no better alternative, not because it's an actually-good product.
I also tried Watchy, the eink, esp32 powered smartwatch. I got hardware v2 and I remember struggling a bit with firmware.
I had a Pebble back in the day and I'm currently wearing one from the new batch. It's the best combo of hardware and software in a smartwatch I've personally experienced.
* Hackable - Only using Chrome. I haven't discovered any other method but I'd love to be corrected on this.
* Totally touchscreen based and the touchscreen ain't that good.
* Screen might be visible but any Pebble, past or present, is way better
But it's still super fun.
You need to use the forked custom Gadgetbridge to make the most of it too.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens when solid state batteries become available and increase how much energy you can store in a watch. They're high cost, but if you're powering a watch, not a car, probably affordable. That could make standalone watches more effective. Maybe eliminate the need to carry a phone all the time.
Battery life was great, upwards of a week between charges, because connectivity features were very limited. It gets notifications, but you're not taking phone calls or checking email through it.
The newer Pebbles do have a better battery life, lasting multiple weeks maybe thanks of better battery tech.
I personally understand Rebble fears, for example when we forked and kept development under Core Github. However, I think we tried to be as transparent as possible and explained the reasons behind. While Liam (ex-Pebble) did an excellent job integrating NimBLE, it is also true that we also offered to do the work. However he had more availability by then to do so. At the same time, we fixed quite a few bugs after integration, or implemented many missing non-trivial features to make it functional. If you also check Github statistics, you will see that as of today ~93% of commits are from Core employees or paid contractors.
All development is happening in the open, and released under Apache-2.0 license. This is an exception in the industry, specially for core product components. It is also common for companies to fork when developing new products because you need to move fast (check our commit rate!). Think about Linux, can you use upstream Kernel on most new ARM SoCs? No. Core took a risk here because Rebble could have kept adding new features, adding overhead for us with upmerges. Reality is that Rebble repository has been dead since we forked. Nobody except Core, and Liam were contributing by then.
Another fear I've heard is about PebbleOS being sold to another company. Well, the company doing that would be pretty dumb as they could clone it for 0$. And thanks to Apache-2.0, they could even add new proprietary features! Not only that, but if Core winds up, the IP will stay open forever!
I think the best, fair long-term solution is to join a well established OSS organization. Rebble lacks many formalities that are common in many OSS projects: board elections, open and regular meetings, public accounts, voting rules, etc. This makes it a dysfunctional community to me. It is up to Rebble to fix these problems or join forces in a new OSS org. Core can't do much more than that. It is also not bad that the two parts have different views, e.g. Core may think a local voice-to-text model is better but Rebble may disagree because that could imply a revenue loss. That's unavoidable, in the end, people could choose at that point.
I know it's not your focus, but what's your take on the Core app frontend being closed source? I know libpebble3 is open and has the important bits, but it still feels bad to be unable to build an APK or grab that from F-Droid.
I had initially assumed it was because of some kind of dependency redistribution issue, but I think I read somewhere it was to stymie clones being developed and using the app. But that's part of an open ecosystem, no? That anyone can integrate into it?
I'd definitely have doubts about the partnership too
That must be making Rebble upset?
Eric wants the App Store data.
Rebble doesn’t want all their work used to enrich a company that has already failed once at the expense of the work they have put in.
It seems like both parties somehow feel like they’re holding the winning hand and can bend the other to their will.
Neither party seems to realize they’re dependent on the other for their success.
Both sides are slinging mud, and everyone is losing.
Rebble has valid concerns about the ecosystem surviving beyond Core. Their concerns about the closed-source parts of what Core has developed is valid (WRT the Core app frontend) and Eric positioning himself as a "benevolent dictator" is a reasonable red flag to raise. The next dictator (in case of acquisition) may not be so benevolent.
But while their stewardship of the app store and continuance of services is laudable, they can't really justifiably cry foul when someone "scrapes" their archive of mostly-scraped (from the original store) content.
Hopefully this teaches both sides that an open ecosystem means operating in the open. Which means making all source available not hiding vital components, and also not squawking about someone scraping the store.
If Core sells or otherwise goes bad, I want it to be impossible, legally or technically, for them to take functionality away. I want them bound by an agreement such that their hardware can load third-party versions of PebbleOS, the app can be replaced with other compatible apps, any web services can be swapped out without reverse engineering effort, and uploaded apps/watchfaces/etc are shared between backends so no party can attempt to create walled garden.
I think some of these are already addressed informally, but now that trust seems low I'd like to see something more formal. I do not want to see a world where Core pulls an Android and starts shipping a proprietary version of PebbleOS that apps start depending on a la Google Play Services. I do not want to see a world where Rebble or Core can restrict access to their app library. I also don't want to see a world where an overly restrictive deal means that Core can't ship on-device speech-to-text or weather services.
I realize the big issue that blocks this sort of app sharing is probably the existence of commercial/proprietary apps. If all the backends share apps freely, how could payments be handled? It's probably technically possible but very difficult. Personally I don't think this little hobby watch ecosystem would be made much poorer if it went the F-Droid route and required all apps be open and free. We're already relying on hobbyists for pretty much all apps and faces, and having the whole thing be open seems to fit the general hackable community-driven ethos Pebble is built on. Not having paid apps and IAPs would also dodge the temptation to go the modern Apple route of becoming a broker/services company.
I had owned two of the original pebbles, but I honestly think this looks bad on everyone and will gladly ignore every future article on either of these two groups.
Reality is that after a decade+ with no hardware updates, there is really no future for the Rebble platform… without new hardware.
So you’re suggesting the people trying to actually revive the ecosystem by building new hardware shouldn’t be able to continue working on the open source OS they founded, or play around with clients for an API they pay for? Come on.
I'm not a Pebble user, so I don't know how the app install process works, but can't Core just create their own store from scratch, not based on the existing app catalogue, and have that coexist as an alternative option to Rebble? Then users who want access to that extensive back catalogue can use Rebble's store. Let developers and users pick the stores they want to publish to and download from, respectively.
Given that Core is a commercial enterprise, it doesn't seem appropriate for them to rely on apps that were scraped from the original Pebble store. Core is a separate commercial entity from the original Pebble, and doesn't inherit the relationships between original Pebble and the developers which published to their store. By creating a store from scratch, Core can reestablish each of those relationships one by one. That would go a long way towards helping Core build back whatever trust they may have lost (it seems some users are still bitter about the original closure of Pebble, and I don't blame them). Otherwise, what you have is a commercial entity profiting off of a bunch of applications for which they don't own the right to distribute.
As a developer myself, I might be ok with my app being archived due to an emergency situation... but having that app be republished by a commercial entity is a red line.
I don't have an ethical problem with the back catalogue existing, but it should be hosted by a non-profit. Core can position it's store as an place for new, or updated apps that are being actively maintained by developers, which is definitely a selling point. Rebble can position it's store as a back catalogue of apps that existed on the original pebble, offered on an as-is basis. Which is also a selling point, because who knows what great gems you might find in there...
Having the Core store populated with fresh development seems like good platform management anyway. Let the Rebble store be the 'classic apps' archive.
The reason why I cancel my pre-order now is I a clear (to me) sign that we have a "it's only software, I'm building the the important part here" situation -the same reason why I won't by a boox product until they change their mind.
The moment I'll come back will be the one when a significant part of the money you spend on a Pebble will automatically go into the software ecosystem (which makes Pebble for $200+ interesting in the first place) and it's easy to see how this money is spent.
I'm also 'scraping' content for my personal projects when I just need the data, but Eric is building a business here, and there had been a valid and clearly communicated suspicion about Eric acting like "goodbye fools, and thanks for the fish". And he agreed not to do so and he lied. How can I know I'm not buying $225 brick supported only by a single person who ditched the community?
That's putting aside how gross it is for your personal comms to leak in public when you might be a little more candid about what's going on.
How can you trust someone who's willing to violate your privacy like that?
The whole drama is interesting as an outsider, but I can't be left without feeling that newPebble is trying to jump start a commercial venture via shortcuts.
Rebble was never going to change the world but they seemed to be very good at maintaining status quo + many small benefits and just reliably serving that.
Who's to say he didn't have permission to post from his conversation partner? He doesn't need permission from the people he's talking about (just like we don't need his permission to post about him here).
still happily waiting for my Core-Pebble to arrive, but i am getting so sick of people in general.
You could argue the extent to which this was necessary but he's got to publicly defend himself against accusations ("Core Devices Keeps Stealing Our Work") that appear to be false.
It's a little gross it had come to that, but ugh. Sure rebble did good for the community, but that past tense is important. Now they're trying to do bad, and that cannot be justified. Accusations require a defense, so here we are.
The Pebble community is not and never was Rebble. I briefly used Cobble as an open source project, and used their app store mirror that they decided to host to download the same old apps and watch faces I used while Pebble lived, but I was not using a Rebble watch. The open source apps I want were never Rebble apps. No one expected Rebble to be anything than infrastructure life-support, but as no one thought the dream of new life in Pebble was never going to happen, it was the light we swarmed.
Now the life support task has ended with an appreciation for their efforts, and Rebble starts acting like a company running a smearing campaign trying and make up IP ownership and justification for royalties.
Rebble no longer represents any of the community, just a misguided and greedy board. What the community wanted now exists, so that is where we have gone.
Reselling open source content is always going to be bad taste.
There are undoubtedly those preach GPL 3 and AGPL zealous control freakery but it's pretending to be "free" while dictating what can and can't be done with code. If the agreement attempts to discriminate against users selectively, it ain't free or open. GPL 2 is the line in the sand.
GPL/copyleft exist because some people make products because they want to help and improve a community. Not just to let the product go in the wind, "whatever happens to it" (meaning corporations using it for profit extraction and/or the exact opposite goals). Even if AI made this less defendable by legal means.
This isn't because these people are "control freaks", but because of their beliefs and purposefully chosen legal framework.
not_your_vase•2mo ago
dang•2mo ago
Core Devices keeps stealing our work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 - Nov 2025 (110 comments)