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What should my disclaimer be? That I'm building something which is open source and consistent with my beliefs?





I was actually thinking about something like this:

"disclaimer: I'm the founder of Plandex: an open source AI coding agent"

Note that I wouldn't personally add "open source", I don't think it adds to the discussion, but it's what I would have expected to see.


Is it relevant? This is not a post about AI coding, and Plandex is not a startup that "went from X to AI-powered X". It also has very little to do with adding AI features to a product... it's a general purpose coding agent, not a tool for building AI features specifically.

I mean, I discuss AI a lot on HN. Do I need to include a disclaimer on every comment?


I think perhaps more important is wether or not you've accepted funding from venture capital, as this would substantially reduce the moral argument made by claiming you're making something open source (as OSS essentially the playbook for developing initial growth in VC land).

I've raised a small amount of funding yes. The project wouldn't exist otherwise. I have a family to feed.

But the open source project is free, full-featured, MIT licensed, and will stay that way.

It also has paying customers via cloud-hosting options, and the economics are working out well so far, fwiw. Lots of work to do, but it's on track to be both a sustainable open source project and a sustainable business.

I'm sorry if that still doesn't meet your lofty moral standards—all I can really say is I'm trying my best to get the balance right.


Fair enough, I am fairly cynical on this subject in particular so my biases got the best of me. Thanks for open sourcing your project (MIT in particular).



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