4/2/2026 at 5:37:20 PM
What probably happened here is depressingly common in early-stage startups. Someone finds an open source tool that does 80% of what they need, forks it, strips the branding, and then ships it. Nobody thinks about the license because the company is in "move fast" mode and there's no process for it yet.Sure, the Apache 2.0 allows this, but the mistake is that when someone asked "is this based on SimStudio?" the answer was "we built it ourselves" instead of "yes, it's a fork, here's what we added." It went from a fixable attribution oversight to a credibility problem. You can retroactively add a LICENSE file, but can't take the lie back.
by saadn92
4/2/2026 at 10:02:57 PM
This is why I hope AI will destroy the entire SaaS market. These people should be selling used cars or life insurance and have no access to finance.by GorbachevyChase
4/4/2026 at 3:25:20 PM
Help me out, I don’t understand the scorched earth perspective. You want to eliminate the playing field even for the people playing fairly, just because there are some bad actors? Would destroying all SaaS actually cause the cheaters to sell used cars & life insurance?Until AI isn’t trained on all open source code ever written, regardless of license, which I doubt will ever happen, isn’t SaaS-writing AI in some sense building a larger scale & more concentrated version of what you’re hoping to destroy?
Personally, I hope and want everyone selling used cars and life insurance to be honest and upstanding. some of them are.
by dahart
4/3/2026 at 4:28:50 AM
I'm sure all the vibe coded slop that eats the SaaS market will be better about license attribution.by agency
4/3/2026 at 12:26:27 PM
I hear what you're saying but I still think I'd prefer LLM-orchestrated software (using third-party dependencies) to closed source SaaS made by developers who can't even adhere to software licenses. It's a level of Junior Dev Energy that's unforgivable.by oliwarner
4/4/2026 at 3:00:01 AM
You're going to get both. Lucky you!by devin
4/4/2026 at 4:45:21 AM
Good luck, you are now a site operator of a non-core business function. I prefer the SaaS but just do some vendor DD.If you absolutely can't trust any SaaS it is equivalent to you cannot trust any vendor to do anything as they may fuck it up. You can solve that with DD.
by mememememememo
4/4/2026 at 7:45:58 AM
The choice I was offering myself there was specifically between a bad developer abusing open source software and something vibed together to replace that specific function that uses the open source app within its licence. The assumption being those are the only two options.Obviously a false dichotomy for most real life scenarios but the point being that I'd rather do it myself (any which way) than trust a bad developer, doubly so for customer-facing operations.
If there's another provider offering that function, sure, but let's talk rupees.
by oliwarner
4/4/2026 at 7:59:55 AM
Oh yep. Get it now. Yeah vibe coding so to speak opens up other options. Excel on steroids (with the steroids on steroids)by mememememememo
4/4/2026 at 3:15:27 AM
Honestly used car salesmen are far worse and should be replaced by AI tooby neya
4/4/2026 at 3:29:22 AM
FYI, used car salesmen > new car salesmen because the affiliated dealers have a monopoly from the manufacturer and laws to prevent competition, whereas used car lots don't have these advantages and have to survive in a much more competitive environment. I know honest used car salesmen and have dealt with them. It's also more about the sales manager than the salesman working the floor, who actually has very little power with respect to pricing and mostly just follows a script and does logistics.Also, the used car market is much more efficient than the new car market. You are a lot less likely to get ripped off, believe it or not, when you buy used. It is also three times as large as the new car market, with much lower barriers to entry and no manufacturers carving up sales regions and limiting dealer franchises in each region, and penalizing vendors that sell outside their region, e.g. creating little local monopolies. Every used car dealer has to compete with carmax and carvana and hundreds of other used car dealers that have access to the same pool of buyers and sellers. They have to fight for those buyers and sellers. That's a very different situation than the four Toyota dealers in your metro. In fact the reason why Toyota dealers are especially bad in terms of ripping people off is because the Toyota product is so good and you have to go to them to get a new Toyota. But if you want a used Toyota, suddenly have 10x the options, and not one of them has a monopoly from the manufacturer.
Not saying there aren't bad apples in used car sales, but it's a lot harder to survive long term on shady practices than if you are backed by a major manufacturer, have exclusive access to sell their cars, and also exclusive access to do recall and warranty repair. Those types of monopolies can prop up all sorts of bad practices.
by carefree-bob
4/4/2026 at 4:56:23 AM
I completely agree with all the points made. It is 100% less likely for one to get ripped off buying used cars - mostly because I think you can skip the dealers in this process. The problem is the dealers and their insane markups. Maybe bad salesmanship is just a consequence of that.by neya
4/4/2026 at 3:48:48 AM
Oh, now there is an idea for an app... how to bs your used car salesman right back.by jacquesm
4/4/2026 at 4:21:01 AM
My fantasy: After the salesman says (for the 4th time), "Sorry, the manager won't approve that price, but if you could add X hundred dollars, I'm sure I can convince them!", I wait until they are through high-fiving each other and then tell the salesman "Sorry, my trust manager didn't approve that price. I'm sure I can convince him if you lower the price by X hundred dollars".My reality: I use my bank's car-buying service and pay the bank's negotiated price.
by wpollock
4/4/2026 at 4:58:03 AM
Honestly, I think if anything, we need an app to replace the dealers. Every other problem might evaporate (albeit not completely) if this is addressed. Dealerships are the largest extortionist racket in the car market IMO.by neya
4/4/2026 at 3:29:57 AM
It also reveals how shallow the vetting YC does. This is both on delve and YC initially accepting them. There has been an acceleration of YC companies getting funding and a general decline in quality.by jmspring
4/4/2026 at 5:39:35 AM
Really? Can we no longer trust oneanother?by worik
4/4/2026 at 7:37:16 AM
When 'oneanother' = strangers trying to get rich, when could we ever trust oneanother?by retsibsi
4/2/2026 at 6:07:03 PM
I wonder how much of that is posturing (less charitably, lying to outsiders) and how much is the organization effectively lying to itself.Both are indictment of today's ambient startup culture, and I'm not sure which is ultimately worse.
by tikhonj
4/2/2026 at 7:15:10 PM
Based on DeepDelve's recent follow-up article, I would assume the former. https://deepdelver.substack.com/p/delve-fake-compliance-as-a...by nickvec
4/3/2026 at 1:33:27 PM
Wow that's bad. Unsure if this is an outlier or typical for YC companies.by bavell
4/3/2026 at 7:04:41 PM
sadly this behaviour has become largely encouraged by YCby unknownx113
4/2/2026 at 9:19:01 PM
this is nutsby redanddead
4/2/2026 at 7:29:22 PM
Every layer of the organization tells a more rosy version of the truth up the chain of command. The programmer might tell the PM that they're running Apache software with the serials filed off, but by the time that filters up the chain to the CEO / Board, the product is "fully proprietary and 100% built in-house"by nikanj
4/3/2026 at 1:04:24 AM
Many companies do not want to deal with open source and want support and custom features. I personally think you’re underestimating the value these companies bring.by aurareturn
4/2/2026 at 10:10:39 PM
Wait, the thing we're talking about is Apache 2.0?by tptacek
4/2/2026 at 11:19:24 PM
Yes, so it explicitly requires source attributionby flexagoon