My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

"Fair enough. Since this was our first OSS project, we didn’t realize at first. We’ve now revised it. Thanks for your contribution."

We didn't notice that we copied your codebase, changed the name then pretended to have built it in four days?

Good grief.

"we are sorry we got caught"

I would be running for the hills if I were YC. This is the kind of attitude that ends up in lawsuits.

YC is the company that (to this day!) has Yotta - a borderline scam to take advantage of financially-illiterate people - on their website after the whole thing has completely blown up and most customers lost their savings: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/yotta

Oh, and now they have their own rendition of the "Aviator" game often advertised by unregulated Eastern-European online casinos: https://members.withyotta.com/moonshot/. You can't make this shit up!

I wrote off YC after this. Maybe early on it was a mark of quality and good due-diligence, but now I'd argue it's the outright opposite - if it's funded by YC, buyer beware.

Did you not understand what YC was? They're essentially an investment bank that doesn't accept new clients. They make money, they're not a charity. Quality only matters insofar as it drives sales and doesn't create liabilities.

>They make money, they're not a charity.

I know it can be shocking to some people to learn this, but you can make money ethically.

Unfortunately, that's not how someone gets that third comma in their net worth. The billionaires that so much of American society worship didn't make all of that money by being smart, kind, honest, or ethical. They made it by being dishonest, morally flexible, and ruthless.

Especially now, business ethics are for the "little people." The modern billionaire class no longer cares about even keeping up the appearance of decency.