The "a month or two" was specifically about the mobile app, not the firmware, dev portal or store data.
To me it seems pretty obvious that Core Devices has benefited and enourmous amount from Rebble's work. The fact that Core Devices seems uninterested in contributing back tells me all I need to know about their ethics.
Yet Eric didn't fork Google's codebase, they forked Rebble's codebase.
> Rebble didn't write the firmware, just as they didn't write the apps and watchfaces
They did work on both. You seem pretty dismissive and one sided here.
> which wouldn't have happened without Eric.
Source?
The official google announcement claims that the code was open sourced "to help and support the volunteers who have come together to maintain functionality for Pebble watches after the original company ceased operations in 2016"... which combined with an explicit callout to Rebble later, is a pretty darn clear statement that the code was released because of Rebble, not because of Eric.
Edit: So on one side we gave a community organization that us the only reason such a strong community still exists that has spent longer taking care of the Pebble community that Pebble the company existed. On the otherside we have an individual who has already sold out the community once, who is trying to start another company by extracting the sweat equity of the organization that rescued his community from his choices. While doing this, he can't even be bothered to give credit to that organization for the massive opensource headstart they gave his mobile app or other efforts. Instead HE tries to take full credit for opensourcing his derivative work.
Edit: So while I agree that the Pebble community needs a for profit hardware partner, I no longer believe that parter can be Core Devices or led by Eric due to a lack of trust and ethics.
Rebble did some work on the open source firmware in the four months between when Google opened it and Core Devices forked. It's a very small amount compared to the bulk of the whole firmware, which was originally developed by Eric's company, let's not forget. A few months of contributions don't give Rebble ownership of all that firmware code. It seems to me like Core Devices has contributed a whole lot more than Rebble did, especially for code that actually runs on their new devices rather than code for the old watches. And besides, Core Devices' firmware remains open source, and Rebble is supposed to be receiving payment from Core Devices for the use of the store[1]. There is no "stealing" here.
The narrative that Eric "sold out" the community is transparently ridiculous. His company failed. They ran out of money. It was a failure of business management, not ethics. And the narrative that "he can't even be bothered to give credit" is also transparently false. He credits Rebble all the time. In blog posts, on their website, on social media. And financially by paying them money to use their store.
[1] https://rebble.io/2025/10/09/rebbles-in-a-world-with-core.ht...
Yet he exited in a way that left his customers high and dry. You claim he made no money off of the sale?
> A few contributions don't give Rebble ownership of all that firmware code
I didn't say that it does. Eric chose to fork the codebase that includes those contributions so they clearly added value.
> He credits Rebble all the time.
>> Instead, we’ve built a new open source library called libpebble3. This library is ‘batteries included’ - designed to provide everything you need to build a Pebble companion app except for the UI. It’s a single cross platform (iOS, Android and desktop) codebase written in Kotlin Multi Platform (KMP). We’ve licensed libpebble3 under AGPL-3 with an optional commercial exemption for integration into a proprietary codebase. Learn about this strategy.
I see someone taking credit here, not giving it.
If Eric manages to find a way back on-side with Rebble, he may get abother chance. Otherwise he has already alienated a significant part of his target market.
