Only a small part of the software in use here was written by Rebble. They cloned the Pebble app store originally, but the store has no value by itself. What makes it valuable is the catalog of watchfaces and apps, approximately none of which were built by Rebble. They were originally scraped by Rebble from Pebble, which makes the accusation of scraping here ironic. The software on the watch itself is mostly Pebble software with mostly Core Devices modifications. The phone app was written mostly by Core Devices. By Rebble's own admission using Rebble code only saved Core Devices "a month or two of engineering effort". And the "more restrictive license" they're accused of adding is AGPL, still aggressively open source.
It's also strange to me that the Bluetooth commit they point to before claiming "Rebble paid for the work" was actually written by Liam McLoughlin, a Google and former Fitbit and Pebble engineer. Was Rebble paying a Google engineer?
It's also strange to me that the Bluetooth commit they point to before claiming "Rebble paid for the work" was actually written by Liam McLoughlin, a Google and former Fitbit and Pebble engineer. Was Rebble paying a Google engineer?