8 ms·

Summarizing the dispute, for anyone interested: Rebble's "one red line" is "there has to be a future for Rebble in there." They fear being replaced/made irrele

by pokoleo 10mo ago

Summarizing the dispute, for anyone interested: 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.

pokoleo 10mo ago
They sent an email a few minutes after I posted, saying that their fulfillment centre dropped the ball and they're escalating internally. I guess complaining on HN worked. Hope they can figure out the dispute with Rebble. Maybe they end up hosting apps on a package manager and create some binding contract?
- calgoo 10mo ago
  There are also a bunch of cancelled order right now, so maybe they suddenly had a surplus of available devices...
  - neumann 10mo ago
    Yeah. I bought a black duo out of nostalgia and wanting pebble to succeed, but not interested in the time and realized I don't love them enough to want to wear a white one. Fickle me, I guess.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 10mo ago
      Yeah, I wanted a black duo but find the white and time to be really ugly. OTOH I read someone saying that their duo came with really bad buttons, probably as a result of the parts laying in a warehouse for years, so maybe I dodged a bullet...
- gcr 10mo ago
  It seems like that's exactly the sot of agreement that was proposed and then fell through.
margalabargala 10mo ago
> 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. 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.
- apparent 10mo ago
  > 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.html https://rebble.io/2025/10/09/rebbles-in-a-world-with-core.ht...
  - margalabargala 10mo ago
    I did some digging in a reply to a sibling comment. 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.
    - apparent 10mo ago
      Huh that seems very odd. And it's strange (and possibly misleading) to say you are a "non-profit" under these circumstances. Any chance they recently changed status, and it's just not showing up yet?
gorbachev 10mo ago
Core went bankrupt once doing exactly what they want to do now. I think the concern users will be left holding the bag, again, is reasonable.
- apparent 10mo ago
  Pebble went out of business but Core is set up very differently. They have an incredibly lean team and Eric appears to have self-funded much of the HW and SW development before taking a dime from customers. 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.
  - protocolture 10mo ago
    It could sell, it could enshittify. Trusting a founder seems daft in the year of our lord 2025.
    - teekert 10mo ago
      Does it? I'm more about trusting persons than ever. When the shareholders comes, thats when the enshitification process really starts. I also wish Tony Fadell would take over Nest again.
      - protocolture 10mo ago
        >Does it? I'm more about trusting persons than ever. When the shareholders comes, thats when the enshitification process really starts. I also wish Tony Fadell would take over Nest again. 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.
        teekert 10mo ago
        You have a bias, I know plenty of people who are just content making a great product and don't sell out their customers. Maybe they don't get to be yacht-rich. But not everybody wants that. Maybe hard to imagine in these HN circles.
trklausss 10mo ago
It is the HashiCorp fiasco all over again. HashiCorp thinks third-party is profiting from Terraform, they relicense, Terraform gets forked into OpenTofu. 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...

by pokoleo 10mo ago

pokoleo 10mo ago

They sent an email a few minutes after I posted, saying that their fulfillment centre dropped the ball and they're escalating internally. I guess complaining on HN worked. Hope they can figure out the dispute with Rebble. Maybe they end up hosting apps on a package manager and create some binding contract?

calgoo 10mo ago
There are also a bunch of cancelled order right now, so maybe they suddenly had a surplus of available devices...
- neumann 10mo ago
  Yeah. I bought a black duo out of nostalgia and wanting pebble to succeed, but not interested in the time and realized I don't love them enough to want to wear a white one. Fickle me, I guess.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 10mo ago
    Yeah, I wanted a black duo but find the white and time to be really ugly. OTOH I read someone saying that their duo came with really bad buttons, probably as a result of the parts laying in a warehouse for years, so maybe I dodged a bullet...
gcr 10mo ago
It seems like that's exactly the sot of agreement that was proposed and then fell through.

margalabargala 10mo ago

> 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. 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.

apparent 10mo ago
> 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.html https://rebble.io/2025/10/09/rebbles-in-a-world-with-core.ht...
- margalabargala 10mo ago
  I did some digging in a reply to a sibling comment. 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.
  - apparent 10mo ago
    Huh that seems very odd. And it's strange (and possibly misleading) to say you are a "non-profit" under these circumstances. Any chance they recently changed status, and it's just not showing up yet?

gorbachev 10mo ago

Core went bankrupt once doing exactly what they want to do now. I think the concern users will be left holding the bag, again, is reasonable.

apparent 10mo ago
Pebble went out of business but Core is set up very differently. They have an incredibly lean team and Eric appears to have self-funded much of the HW and SW development before taking a dime from customers. 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.
- protocolture 10mo ago
  It could sell, it could enshittify. Trusting a founder seems daft in the year of our lord 2025.
  - teekert 10mo ago
    Does it? I'm more about trusting persons than ever. When the shareholders comes, thats when the enshitification process really starts. I also wish Tony Fadell would take over Nest again.
    - protocolture 10mo ago
      >Does it? I'm more about trusting persons than ever. When the shareholders comes, thats when the enshitification process really starts. I also wish Tony Fadell would take over Nest again. 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.
      - teekert 10mo ago
        You have a bias, I know plenty of people who are just content making a great product and don't sell out their customers. Maybe they don't get to be yacht-rich. But not everybody wants that. Maybe hard to imagine in these HN circles.

trklausss 10mo ago

It is the HashiCorp fiasco all over again. HashiCorp thinks third-party is profiting from Terraform, they relicense, Terraform gets forked into OpenTofu. 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...