> The team that made dataroom has stated that they did not use any of papermark’s code and that dataroom was made from scratch with inspiration from existing document sharing softwares, and that this post’s allegations of us stealing code are false. [...]
The screenshots clearly show they copied whole pages verbatim, both design and texts. The founder, Nico Laqua, basically responding with "we didn't copy _code_" and not taking any responsibility says a lot about his and his company's moral code. It might not be enough to get sued. That doesn't make it right.
they probably need to sue to enforce this, I think this is actually going to be a larger issue than just corgi. copyright with these models really is just a mess
What I don't understand is that if a lawsuit happens, then must the plaintiff produce their source code for verification ? Even so a git tree is trivial to change into some other arbitrary code even if a license violation has occurred. I also heard if proven the consequences are that they would lose all revenue starting from when the violation has occured
Since the Tweet is small enough and a lot of people aren’t reading it (Twitter links don’t work well for those without an account some times) I’ll quote it here
> Hey Nico,
> It looks like you didn't vibe code your data room but stole it from Papermark's open source and enterprise-licensed code.
> We demand you take this copyright and license infringing product down immediately.
> It's not moving fast and breaking things, it's fraud.
> It makes the rest of your business questionable and the YC community look terrible.
The X link has screenshots where the two products have lots of identical pages. Is that IPable? Honestly don't know since I seem to use a lot of products that look like other products (LibreOffice, etc). But the pages for obscure things looking identical is kind of sus.
I wonder if Nico will be feeling so cocky when Papermark gets their general counsel involved. The public Twitter shaming was clearly an attempt to resolve this without litigation, but hey, if that's how Nico truly feels, guess he gets to see what's behind door #2 (a massive bill for a legal retainer).
What's with this response in the Twitter thread??:
"This ain't what a C&D looks like. Implies you don't actually have a leg to stand on. Upload a copy of your official legal demand (from a lawyer) or I'll forever see your company as one who attempts to bully the competition in public"
Yeah, the title that the OP chose is so sufficiently misleading that I think this one will need to be get changed by the mods. Seitz isn't opining on the ethics of vibe coding in his tweet, he's pointing out that Corgi literally just stole Papermark's AGPL codebase and passed it off as vibe coding.
It's nearly word-for-word the content of the tweet. Right at the top. It isn't misleading unless you literally don't even bother to open the linked content.
Just ban users who comment without reading, I think that would go further to keep the quality of discussion high.
The number of bots/trolls responding to the title without reading the content and missing the point entirely is astounding, honestly, and I don't think any of those posts are contributing to high quality discussion. We could do without those users.
"but but but I can't/won't open twitter links" - then don't flap your yak-hole. Ignoring for a moment that the content has been reproduced in full in this thread, and another user has provided an alternative xcancel link.
Ideally yes, but we know people don't RTFA - there's a reason that initialism dates back to early Slashdot.
The paraphrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting to convert it to ragebait. Had the OP gone with something like "you didn't vibe code it, you plagiarized Papermark's open source project" (may need some editing to fit under the character limit) it would have at least been more true to the original tweet.
I know I RTFA, and I know I'm not interested in discussing things with people who don't. Maybe others feel differently, because more people is better or something. Information pollution is a serious, persistent, growing problem and I'm just not inclined to be tolerant about it anymore. Mistakes are one thing, deliberate stupidity is another.
If you come to book club without reading the book, and you derail the conversation into something completely irrelevant, you're not getting invited back.
I remember a few cases when asking an LLM to do something in the early days yielded not only the code but an author and a COPYRIGHT license.
Naturally LLM technology has moved on since then. I don't remember any recent word for word reproductions of a copyright license.
There are a lot of people lauding the technology though because it occasionally one-shots a wildly impressive example of something which...already exists.
Many open source licenses levy restrictions upon the acceptable use of the software. Those restrictions may include attribution requirements, up to and including a requirement to include the license when redistributing the code; they may forbid using derivative works for commercial purposes; they may require the downstream project to utilize the same license. Open source is not the same thing as "anybody can do anything they want forever."
Yup, if we take OSI as defacto authority on open source definition
> 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
> The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
Well, if it's my memory at fault then I apologize. My memory of the comment I replied to didn't include the initial qualifying phrase with either word choice.
Copyright violation is not theft. Your effort to create something that can be effortlessly copied conveys to you no property. Society deems it beneficial to grant a time limited monopoly on copying it to spur innovation.
Stealing a car - or anything tangible - means... the owner is very literally deprived of the benefits of owning said car/thing. Can't really say the same for a copied pattern of bits.
Copyleft is still a thing. Right to attribution is still a thing. Please, read about it and you will discover that there is a lot of nuance to the open-source code.
FOSS licenses were obviously written in the spirit of sharing with humans. Some later licenses made the license less amenable for sharing with corporations because some authors didn't feel like they were being treated fairly. Some authors today have similar feelings about their code being used by Gen AI. It is perfectly fine for authors to want to place restrictions on how they want others to use their work.
> Step out of the FOSS swamp, step in to human dignity.
"Spirit" means nothing when it comes to legal - or even community - compliance. Either something is allowed, or it isn't, and if a license doesn't do everything that a user of said license desires then they should change that license. Just as licenses were made that explicitly made sharing with corporations less amenable, so should licenses re Gen AI usage. Only then is it worth making a case.
I’m old and I don’t recall FOSS being about truly free, truly open, just not for some categories of use.
In fact I seem to recall FOSS advocates denouncing licenses that put limits on who could use the software or for what purpose. This “it was always only for humans” take is new to me.
Human dignity when it comes to work and contribution is very simple:
Software developers should charge a fair price for their products from their users. That's dignified and beneficial for everybody involved. And it doesn't invite "code stealers" or anybody who wants to reap what they didn't sow.
Just like any type of work. Fair compensation is the key. Not working for free for people who don't care about you and then complain that they didn't give you anything.
Even so, what's wrong with this? They told you up front that they're going to discriminate. Students can use the code freely, businesses may struggle. People don't need to be fair.
Yo! Open Source Software works within copyright law. Your software should comply with the OSS licence you are forking/redistributing from. If you don't comply, OSS freedoms are void and it defaults back to being copyrighted material for you. Comply with licences. And enjoy the freedoms. Otherwise, you are copying from a copyrighted material. Which is illegal. Comply or write it from scratch.
Or... Be nice and ask. People tell u what to do. Don't be rude here.
I remember this Video editor software which didn't comply properly with OSS licence of FFMPEG(?). And people told author what to do. It's always cheap to be kind. Or win dumb prizes.
FOSS doesn't mean you give up all rights to your work. In this case, the software is AGPL licensed, which imposes huge list of requirements on copies - including attribution and sharing back changes.
This person is so dangerous that if I offer them to stay in my shaded yard in the middle of the excruciating sun, they will demand that I let them take my house as well.
1. I want to help people in need, so I'm just going to leave my house open, put stickers all over town with the adress and a note that the house is open to anybody and help yourself (only if you really need), and go on vacation.
2. HELP! HELP! POLICE! They robbed everything from my house!
Because "legally", you didn't allow anybody to rob your house while leaving it untended and with invites all over town. Just as I "legally" don't allow anybody to steal my wallet if I throw it into the middle of a busy train terminal.
But it's time to stop playing these games, step out of the swamp and into human dignity: which is to not willfully make yourself a victim and then complain, when you have all the control already of what code you contribute where.
It is, but this isn't competition. This just copyright infringement.
Competition would be if these people created their own software, possibly innovating and improving it in the process. That would encourage Papermark to improve their own offering, and would create an environment where these businesses are economically incentivized to improve the product or service.
Nobody is incentivized to improve the software in question here. If copyright law doesn't protect anything, then improving your product is helping the competition and potentially hurting your business. Same is true if you're the people who did the infringement.
LLM generated code could have very similar pattern to existing code with stricter license it trained on. So, it's better to keep them to yourself instead of bothering the public.
I agree. It's a sarcasm of the new reality. What is copying vs writing from scratch? The line is blurred now, non-existent. You can ask an LLM to re-write any open source to a degree where there is no definite way to say that it's a derivative.
Their response:
> The team that made dataroom has stated that they did not use any of papermark’s code and that dataroom was made from scratch with inspiration from existing document sharing softwares, and that this post’s allegations of us stealing code are false. [...]
The screenshots clearly show they copied whole pages verbatim, both design and texts. The founder, Nico Laqua, basically responding with "we didn't copy _code_" and not taking any responsibility says a lot about his and his company's moral code. It might not be enough to get sued. That doesn't make it right.
https://x.com/nico_laqua/status/2070158170937581951
License in question: https://github.com/papermark/papermark?tab=License-1-ov-file It is AGPL, basically means:
You have to share the source code even when the user interacts over the network with the software.
The project which uses that code, must also be AGPL,
There are ways to separate it and go around it, for example, using an AGPL auth server shouldn't affect the code where your business logic lives
I am sure they could have found a way to design their product to be compliant, especially following past drama.
This is assuming the code is indeed copied, since we don't know that for sure, it does look very similar but I am not sure how that is enforced
they probably need to sue to enforce this, I think this is actually going to be a larger issue than just corgi. copyright with these models really is just a mess
What I don't understand is that if a lawsuit happens, then must the plaintiff produce their source code for verification ? Even so a git tree is trivial to change into some other arbitrary code even if a license violation has occurred. I also heard if proven the consequences are that they would lose all revenue starting from when the violation has occured
Since the Tweet is small enough and a lot of people aren’t reading it (Twitter links don’t work well for those without an account some times) I’ll quote it here
> Hey Nico,
> It looks like you didn't vibe code your data room but stole it from Papermark's open source and enterprise-licensed code.
> We demand you take this copyright and license infringing product down immediately.
> It's not moving fast and breaking things, it's fraud.
> It makes the rest of your business questionable and the YC community look terrible.
The X link has screenshots where the two products have lots of identical pages. Is that IPable? Honestly don't know since I seem to use a lot of products that look like other products (LibreOffice, etc). But the pages for obscure things looking identical is kind of sus.
What a scumbag. The replies from Nico are insane:
“Team effort”
“:praying-hands (x2)”
And so on… The audacity and complete shamelessness…
I wonder what narrative they tell themselves.
I wonder if Nico will be feeling so cocky when Papermark gets their general counsel involved. The public Twitter shaming was clearly an attempt to resolve this without litigation, but hey, if that's how Nico truly feels, guess he gets to see what's behind door #2 (a massive bill for a legal retainer).
Missing context.
What's with this response in the Twitter thread??:
"This ain't what a C&D looks like. Implies you don't actually have a leg to stand on. Upload a copy of your official legal demand (from a lawyer) or I'll forever see your company as one who attempts to bully the competition in public"
-- https://xcancel.com/jacobhartmannx/status/207012600834729596...
Is this just trolling?!
What a bizarre complaint! It's not bullying to first try to resolve the matter informally rather than jumping straight into legal action.
Besides - who is this guy, and why does he think he's owed sight of any legal paperwork?
Look at his other tweets, he seems to be a sociopathic extremist
Ah another YC popcorn fest
Folks... read the actual tweet. They literally didn't vibe code it - they copy-pasted another project.
Yeah, the title that the OP chose is so sufficiently misleading that I think this one will need to be get changed by the mods. Seitz isn't opining on the ethics of vibe coding in his tweet, he's pointing out that Corgi literally just stole Papermark's AGPL codebase and passed it off as vibe coding.
It's nearly word-for-word the content of the tweet. Right at the top. It isn't misleading unless you literally don't even bother to open the linked content.
Just ban users who comment without reading, I think that would go further to keep the quality of discussion high.
The number of bots/trolls responding to the title without reading the content and missing the point entirely is astounding, honestly, and I don't think any of those posts are contributing to high quality discussion. We could do without those users.
"but but but I can't/won't open twitter links" - then don't flap your yak-hole. Ignoring for a moment that the content has been reproduced in full in this thread, and another user has provided an alternative xcancel link.
It’s an intentionally misleading title, using “you” to imply that the reader is guilty of theft.
An honest title would be “Corgi didn’t vibe code it, they stole Papermark’s AGPL code”.
Sure, people should read links, but when a writer posts ragebait for engagement, there’s plenty of blame to go around.
You’re giving me too much credit if you think i was being sensationalist and trying to make it more clickworthy, i couldnt succeed in that if i tried
I was mostly fighting the title character limit
Ideally yes, but we know people don't RTFA - there's a reason that initialism dates back to early Slashdot.
The paraphrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting to convert it to ragebait. Had the OP gone with something like "you didn't vibe code it, you plagiarized Papermark's open source project" (may need some editing to fit under the character limit) it would have at least been more true to the original tweet.
I know I RTFA, and I know I'm not interested in discussing things with people who don't. Maybe others feel differently, because more people is better or something. Information pollution is a serious, persistent, growing problem and I'm just not inclined to be tolerant about it anymore. Mistakes are one thing, deliberate stupidity is another.
If you come to book club without reading the book, and you derail the conversation into something completely irrelevant, you're not getting invited back.
wait just a second, that's not how to use HN. youre supposed to read the title -> get upset and write a comment -> argue.
I remember a few cases when asking an LLM to do something in the early days yielded not only the code but an author and a COPYRIGHT license.
Naturally LLM technology has moved on since then. I don't remember any recent word for word reproductions of a copyright license.
There are a lot of people lauding the technology though because it occasionally one-shots a wildly impressive example of something which...already exists.
Vibe stole it?
Probably just stole it by the looks of those screenshots.
Yeah I mean like git clone the repo then "hey LLM rip off this code, make no mistakes"
Same thing https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/
I'd suggest replacing that link with https://xcancel.com/mfts0/status/2070080422482977095
And maybe reword the submission title while they're there, though the current one is well chosen for maximizing engagement I'm sure.
Gonna have to see the agent trace on that one.
You didn't code it, you stole it from open source OS and compiler maintainers
"before Bison version 1.24, Bison-generated parsers could be used only in programs that were free software."
https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_node/Conditio...
Unless you don't copy the license terms, it's impossible to "steal" open-source code. That's... sort of the point.
Many open source licenses levy restrictions upon the acceptable use of the software. Those restrictions may include attribution requirements, up to and including a requirement to include the license when redistributing the code; they may forbid using derivative works for commercial purposes; they may require the downstream project to utilize the same license. Open source is not the same thing as "anybody can do anything they want forever."
> they may forbid using derivative works for commercial purposes
The most widely used definitions of “open source” do not allow such a prohibition.
Yup, if we take OSI as defacto authority on open source definition
> 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
> The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
https://opensource.org/osd
> Unless you don't copy the license terms
You edited your comment while I was replying, and merely copying the license does not cover many other possible restrictions.
I didn't edit anything.
I did choose the wrong word, though. Comply, not copy.
Well, if it's my memory at fault then I apologize. My memory of the comment I replied to didn't include the initial qualifying phrase with either word choice.
So, by definition, you did edit it to change the typo.
>So, by definition, you did edit it to change the typo.
their comment still says "copy". the comment you are replying to clarifies that they meant to type "comply", not copy.
since the wrong word is still there, 'by definition' they have not edited it.
Ahh, I misread it.
Papermark is AGPL; Corgi must release all its changes.
That means they're not complying with the license terms. Which would be stealing. Like I said it would be.
Copyright violation is not theft. Your effort to create something that can be effortlessly copied conveys to you no property. Society deems it beneficial to grant a time limited monopoly on copying it to spur innovation.
You wouldn’t steal a car!
Stealing a car - or anything tangible - means... the owner is very literally deprived of the benefits of owning said car/thing. Can't really say the same for a copied pattern of bits.
Thats not what you said. You said "copy the license terms". Copying a license isn't the same as complying with one.
Though it looks like in this case they didn't do either.
So we're in violent agreement then?
Brutally violent agreement. kicks shin, shakes hand
Copyleft is still a thing. Right to attribution is still a thing. Please, read about it and you will discover that there is a lot of nuance to the open-source code.
It's really hard to not assume this is intentional ragebait.
A cursory look reveals they aren't complying. So, as you say, they are stealing. What's the point of this comment?
Logic of people in the FOSS swamp:
1. I'm going to give away all my work for free to the whole world.
2. HELP! HELP! POLICE! People are stealing my work!
Start charging a fair price for your work, or just give away the binaries and not the source if you want to do it for free.
Step out of the FOSS swamp, step in to human dignity.
What a load of crock.
FOSS licenses were obviously written in the spirit of sharing with humans. Some later licenses made the license less amenable for sharing with corporations because some authors didn't feel like they were being treated fairly. Some authors today have similar feelings about their code being used by Gen AI. It is perfectly fine for authors to want to place restrictions on how they want others to use their work.
> Step out of the FOSS swamp, step in to human dignity.
What is that even supposed to mean?
"Spirit" means nothing when it comes to legal - or even community - compliance. Either something is allowed, or it isn't, and if a license doesn't do everything that a user of said license desires then they should change that license. Just as licenses were made that explicitly made sharing with corporations less amenable, so should licenses re Gen AI usage. Only then is it worth making a case.
I’m old and I don’t recall FOSS being about truly free, truly open, just not for some categories of use.
In fact I seem to recall FOSS advocates denouncing licenses that put limits on who could use the software or for what purpose. This “it was always only for humans” take is new to me.
> FOSS licenses were obviously written in the spirit of sharing with humans.
That may be true, but I don't think it's obvious. What don't I know about the history of OSS?
>written in the spirit of sharing with humans.
Not humans who are using AI tools?
Human dignity when it comes to work and contribution is very simple:
Software developers should charge a fair price for their products from their users. That's dignified and beneficial for everybody involved. And it doesn't invite "code stealers" or anybody who wants to reap what they didn't sow.
Just like any type of work. Fair compensation is the key. Not working for free for people who don't care about you and then complain that they didn't give you anything.
Developers gave their code out for free, but want to discriminate against people they don't like from using it in ways they dislike.
The 'spirit of free software' is bullshit. It's software authoritarianism disguised as a noble cause.
Even so, what's wrong with this? They told you up front that they're going to discriminate. Students can use the code freely, businesses may struggle. People don't need to be fair.
Don't use it.
Yo! Open Source Software works within copyright law. Your software should comply with the OSS licence you are forking/redistributing from. If you don't comply, OSS freedoms are void and it defaults back to being copyrighted material for you. Comply with licences. And enjoy the freedoms. Otherwise, you are copying from a copyrighted material. Which is illegal. Comply or write it from scratch.
Or... Be nice and ask. People tell u what to do. Don't be rude here.
I remember this Video editor software which didn't comply properly with OSS licence of FFMPEG(?). And people told author what to do. It's always cheap to be kind. Or win dumb prizes.
FOSS doesn't mean you give up all rights to your work. In this case, the software is AGPL licensed, which imposes huge list of requirements on copies - including attribution and sharing back changes.
FOSS != public domain.
This person is so dangerous that if I offer them to stay in my shaded yard in the middle of the excruciating sun, they will demand that I let them take my house as well.
FOSS swamp logic:
1. I want to help people in need, so I'm just going to leave my house open, put stickers all over town with the adress and a note that the house is open to anybody and help yourself (only if you really need), and go on vacation.
2. HELP! HELP! POLICE! They robbed everything from my house!
Because "legally", you didn't allow anybody to rob your house while leaving it untended and with invites all over town. Just as I "legally" don't allow anybody to steal my wallet if I throw it into the middle of a busy train terminal.
But it's time to stop playing these games, step out of the swamp and into human dignity: which is to not willfully make yourself a victim and then complain, when you have all the control already of what code you contribute where.
It is not possible to steal something which doesn't obey conservation laws. Don't try to scam physics, is always wins.
Don't care. Competition is good for consumers.
It is, but this isn't competition. This just copyright infringement.
Competition would be if these people created their own software, possibly innovating and improving it in the process. That would encourage Papermark to improve their own offering, and would create an environment where these businesses are economically incentivized to improve the product or service.
Nobody is incentivized to improve the software in question here. If copyright law doesn't protect anything, then improving your product is helping the competition and potentially hurting your business. Same is true if you're the people who did the infringement.
When it plays fair, sure. Not when it steals.
When competition has no rules it resorts to people banging each other over their heads with clubs.
Stealing it for your use case would take more effort vibe coding. The term is fine as is
LLM generated code could have very similar pattern to existing code with stricter license it trained on. So, it's better to keep them to yourself instead of bothering the public.
Close your source if you don't want it to be read by LLM
That's not how licenses work, Papermark is AGPL
I agree. It's a sarcasm of the new reality. What is copying vs writing from scratch? The line is blurred now, non-existent. You can ask an LLM to re-write any open source to a degree where there is no definite way to say that it's a derivative.
"If Disney wants to retain their rights to Mickey they really shouldn't be showing any images of him to the world."