Recently, the self-proclaimed "Open SourceThe "Cursor" version of theAI Programming ToolsPearAIannounced that it has received $500,000 (about Rs. 3.5 million) in financing from YCombinator.
PearAI founder Duke Pan admits that the product is actually a clone of another AI editor, Continue. While Continue itself is based on the Apache Open Source License, PearAI is attempting to build on that foundation by releasing it under a self-created closed source license called the "Pear Enterprise License," which it even says is generated through ChatGPT.
Pan, the founder of the VSCode and Continue-based code editor, admits that the project does "borrow" from other open source projects, but claims that the product outperforms C0pilot and is more open source than Cursor. Pan also mentions that 49% of PearAI's code comes from the open source community, and says that the project has more than 100 contributors. Pan also mentioned that 49% of PearAI's code comes from the open source community, and said that the project has more than 100 contributors, including contributors to the VSCode and Continue projects.
These statements have raised a lot of questions on the net. The focus of the debate is not on whether or not to recognize the "borrowing" behavior, but whether or not the 100+ contributors are really independent of the forked VSCode and Continue projects. Some argue that PearAI seems to be borrowing the aura of these projects to enhance its own value.
In the face of skepticism, Pan emphasized that he never considered contributors to the upstream project as contributors to PearAI. To prove that there were real contributors to the project, he also published a list of developers involved in the development of PearAI. After some debate, some of the skeptics found Pan's explanation reasonable, but also suggested that he should be more careful in his expression in the future to avoid misunderstanding.
The case of PearAI also exposes some problems in tech startups. Under the pressure of pursuing rapid development and financing, some entrepreneurs may overstate the uniqueness and contribution of their projects.
Both of PearAI's founders are influential Chinese-American YouTube bloggers with extensive technical backgrounds and large followings.Pan has worked at Meta and Tesla, while the other founder, Ang, has a master's degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Reference: https://x.com/CodeFryingPan/status/1840464744626675719