After Core Devices head Eric Migicovsky came, there was a lot of new excitement in Pebble. Rebble, who has been maintaining the Pebble App Store for the last nine years, were happy initially; however, the situation has soured since then.
Rebble presented the agreement with Core Devices last month. Core Devices is creating new Pebble smartwatches. There tasks were divided, Rebble focused on web services and Core handled new hardware. But all is not well between the partners anymore
Core Devices Controversy
Rebble and Migicovsky are accusing each other of trying to create a “walled garden” that would give one team or the other complete control over the Pebble App Store and ecosystem.
According to Rebble, it is fine with Core Devices building an ecosystem that’s based on top of Rebble’s services. But not at the cost of taking Rebble’s data and using it to create its own store and services without contributing anything back to them.
Whereas Migicovsky claims that it is Rebble who is trying to create a walled garden. He notes that much of the data Rebble wants to prevent Core Devices from scraping from its servers consists of the apps and watch faces that Rebble scraped from the original Pebble App Store before it was discontinued.
Pebble Ecosystem Conflict
According to Migicovsky, Rebble wants complete control over that data including 13,000 apps and watch faces. As per Migicovsky, he is the one “working hard to keep the Pebble ecosystem open source” and that “the contents of the Pebble Appstore should be freely available and not controlled by one organization.”
Pebble Appstore Dispute
The current Core Devices mobile app is based on work that was performed by the Rebble community and funded through the Rebble Grants program.
Rebble states, “Core took Rebble’s work, added to it, and then paid us back by putting a more restrictive license on their contributions and wrapping a closed-source UI around it.”
According to Rebble two weeks ago, Migicovsky demanded unrestricted access to all of its curated data. He delayed the need for a conversation, he delayed it. After that as per Rebble’s logs he went ahead and scraped the app store anyway, violating their previous agreement.
What Will Happen Next?
Two options were put forward by:
- It could aggressively protect its work with an ugly legal fight
- Let Migicovsky do whatever he wants and risk the community’s work falling under a closed-source umbrella.
Rebble Appeal to Community
Rebble wants option of its community and is urging people to leave comments on r/pebble, Discord, and to email the Rebble Foundation Board of Directors directly.
The future of this dispute is unknown, but it is clear that the new Pebble-branded devices could depend on the outcome of talks between both the parties.
No Comments