My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Incident and Licensing Details

  • A YC-backed startup released “Glass”, an open-source desktop app that was, at launch, essentially a copy of an existing GPLv3 project for interview cheating.
  • They initially:
    • Cloned the repo without preserving history.
    • Removed original copyright/attribution.
    • Changed the license from GPLv3 to Apache 2.0.
    • Publicly claimed to have “built it in a few days”.
  • After being called out, they:
    • Switched the license back to GPLv3.
    • Force-pushed a squashed history, making the earlier Apache relicense and lack of attribution harder to see.
  • Many commenters see this not as a “sloppy mistake” but a deliberate attempt to rebrand and relicense someone else’s work; others argue there should still be a path to redemption if they fully comply and credit.

Ethics of the Cheating Tool

  • Many dislike the original tool itself (cheating in interviews/tests) and struggle to feel sympathy for its author.
  • Others insist that license violations must be condemned regardless of how distasteful the project is: “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
  • Some draw analogies to criminals stealing from criminals; others argue rights and enforcement cannot depend on taste or morality of the underlying software.

GPL, Enforcement, and Open Source Fatigue

  • Broad agreement that this is a textbook GPL and copyright violation (relicensing + stripped attribution).
  • Practical enforcement is seen as hard:
    • Lawsuits are expensive; startups can fold and reappear.
    • Detection is difficult for libraries or optimized binaries.
  • Some suggest DMCA notices or lawyer letters as low-cost leverage; others are skeptical anything meaningful would happen.
  • Several developers describe becoming disillusioned with OSS:
    • Feel they are providing free labor to for-profit companies.
    • Shift toward closed source, “source-available but nonfree”, or copyleft (GPL/AGPL) with minimal expectations of real enforcement.

YC, VC Culture, and Integrity

  • Commenters link this to a pattern of YC-backed projects reusing or cloning OSS and mishandling licenses.
  • Criticism that the founder’s explanation (“first OSS project, didn’t realize”) is toddler-level excuse in a decades-old licensing ecosystem.
  • Some see this as symptomatic of a “grifter”, hype-driven startup culture: velocity and distribution over ethics, with weak due diligence from investors.
  • Others note YC officially says it cares about IP cleanliness and ethics, but question how strongly that’s actually enforced.

Hiring, AI, and Escalating Cheating

  • Interviewers report a sharp rise in live AI-assisted cheating during video interviews.
  • Debate over:
    • Where the ethical line is (LLM help vs. normal prep vs. insider questions).
    • Whether dystopian hiring funnels and AI-based screening themselves incentivize cheating.
  • Some argue if companies expect AI use on the job, banning it in interviews is incoherent; others point out deception still matters.

LLMs, Copyleft, and the Future of OSS

  • Concern that LLMs trained on GPL/AGPL code effectively “launder” licenses: models can reproduce ideas or code without carrying obligations.
  • Disagreement over whether this is fundamentally different from how humans learn; counterargument emphasizes scale, verbatim recall, and intent.
  • A number of commenters predict more:
    • Closed-source or “cathedral” development.
    • Strong copyleft for those who still publish, with explicit “AI-free” aspirations, even if hard to police.