I view this entire thing through an extremely simple, reductive lens:
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.
The subscription fee was what enabled them to host these services. From their blog post, they mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure and software. I expect that the connections and skills involved in running the Rebble web services don't directly translate to creating a hardware product.
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
Core doesn't want Rebble's data. They want the data from the original Pebble store, which is not owned by Rebble. It's the work of thousands of independent developers and it should be shared freely, not kept in a walled garden with "no scraping" terms added on. It's actually offensive that Rebble is using other developers' data (that they originally scraped from Pebble) as a bargaining chip in their contract negotiation that they made into a public squabble.
I don't think that's quite right - Rebble has updated a number of these apps to keep them supported. As sibling commenter posted, the original apps are available publicly.
I think that’s the crux of the issue is rebble isn’t under any obligation distribute them open source, unless say the original app had a “copyleft” policy?
AFAIK the original apps were individually licensed by the creators... so Rebble would need to have permission before claiming anything for their own except in the case of explicit permissive licenses (like MIT). In some cases (copyleft licenses) Rebble would be required to make their maintenance also open source.
Seems cheap to me. Host anything and you're gonna need developers. Developers are expensive. A hundred thousand dollars is pretty much what you'd pay for a single developer in a year. 5 Devs is still a small team and that's half a million dollars per year.
This thread is very confusing to me - they charged a subscription for these features. They weren't losing money - they were spending it. Money in, money out.
Their original statement was "we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on storing and hosting the data" that was scraped from the Pebble app store. So, explicitly not on the other services. I have to agree with other commenters that $200,000+ seems like an extravagant bill for hosting this data for 8 years with a web frontend and maybe 20,000 users.
I think this is a bit of a disingenuous reading of the article when the surrounding text states:
> 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!
None of that is included in their statement that "we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on storing and hosting the data". If they meant that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on building a dev portal, patching apps, and the other stuff you mention, they should have said that instead of "storing and hosting the data".
You are choosing a very literal interpretation, which is fine, if you think it is useful. To me, it looks disingenuous and irrelevant. The hosting and storage of that data would have been pointless without this additional development. And arguably, the app store development _is_ part of hosting it.
Cool, it is imperative those services are not operated at a loss. If you choose to do charity, you best make peace with the fact that you will never get either the time nor the money back.
I don't think they were operating as a charity - they were charging for the features that cost them money to provide... that's how they spent the aforementioned money.
They funded some software development, they paid hosting bills, and they paid third party services for weather data, etc.
So they cashflowed the services they provided. And they’re not hunderds of thousands of dollars out of pocket on this, right? So what are they complaining about? Are they worried about losing their revenue stream or what?
This thread started with OP calling Pebble rentseeking and used the subscription services as an example. I replied to point out that the subscription fees were used to fund services and development - they weren't profit. Then the thread went off the rails with some claiming that spending money is proof that Rebble is incompetent and others claiming that they shouldn't be whining about spending money (which they weren't) and I'm no longer clear what point you are trying to make.
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.
> 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
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.
Agreed -- While I admire their work in keeping the lights on, Rebble doesn't necessarily make sense in a world where the "real" Pebble company has returned.
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.
Alternatively, I could say that Eric Migicovsky's track record is building a for-profit company that ultimately failed, and with the new company, he obviously, explicitly intends to prioritize selling new hardware. Whereas Rebble kept the lights on for devices that would otherwise have been bricks, as a collective of volunteer hackers.
Their missions conflict because Pebble2's potential customers largely overlap with Rebble's current users, but I would say their aims are quite different.
You could also say his track record is making things as open as possible so things like Rebble can spring up if necessary, but also in negotating deals that keep core services running for years after the purchase, and then after the purchaser's purchase.
I largely agree, but I think there's merit to Rebble's argument that Core Devices could be here today, gone tomorrow. I'd hate to see Pebble die again only for Rebble to have disbanded in the meanwhile. Then the community has nothing but code repos.
Could pebble2 launch with a minimal set of apps, asking the old Devs to push their binaries again? Sure, and with that in mind, all this deal with rebble does is save everyone time.
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.
Yeah agreed, and I hope the Rebble people read this. They're being very protective and Eric is seemingly trying to include them when he could literally just shut them out.
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.
It's not just running it, they have built on top of it. Embrace, extend, extinguish is exactly what the Rebble team is afraid of. If extinguished and Core goes bust, the community would be left holding the bag yet again. Rebble doesn't want that, why would they.
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.
But they wouldn't be extinguished? Core is literally offering to pay them per user and the OS is open sourced... how could they be extinguished under the deal as outlined?
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.
I've seen you make the comment about the OS being open-sourced a lot. But this largely has nothing to do with the OS. This is a conversation about infrastructure and data. The concern (from what I gathered and will condense greatly) is that Core will take in all the current app data and infrastructure setup, duplicate it themselves, move themselves off of Rebble, and continue developing on it privately.
I don't think it's equivalent. When Rebble did what they did, it was because Pebble was going under and they had no EOL plan. Rebble took it upon themselves to carry the torch without having been passed it.
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.
So Rebble wants to benefit from code they didn't write (Pebble apps)... but also wants to prevent Pebble from benefiting from code Pebble didn't write (Rebble updates to Pebble apps)?
This seems a little silly, no? rent seeking behavior for maintaining code they didn't write to begin with?
The fact that Core is not willing to just start from the old dump publicly available already shows that it's not just "rent-seeking". Core clearly wants what Rebble has spent significant effort in not just maintaining but also building.
They're entitled to it just because in some sense Core is a successor to Pebble? No, not really.
Of course it's rent-seeking, akin to squatting — Rebble took Pebble apps developed at no cost to the users, and then maintained them and added cost. In some cases they might actually be required by the licenses of individual apps to open source their maintenance.
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.
> Rebble took Pebble apps developed at no cost to the users, and then maintained them and added cost.
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.
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.