Oh, I could see how this could be misleading. So the open-source tech you linked to is outdated -- we moved everything from the client-side to our own infra (because we wanted to do things like open a port). We intend to open source the backend infra too but it takes time for the protocol to stabilize.

The "open-source" section on the homepage is intended to show that some open-source projects (for example Jest https://facebook.github.io/jest/ were repl.it is embedded on the homepage) use us as a playground, for bug reports etc.

As for the logos they are either users or customers of the the Classroom product: https://repl.it/classroom

Google, for example, uses the Classroom product to spread programming education. I think they have a program where they send teachers to schools to teach computer science. And there teachers wanted to use Repl.it etc.

The teacher you're thinking of from last year is me :)

Thanks a lot for the great classroom product, and your support. It made my work a lot easier.

Oh awesome, thanks! Glad we could help.

Just to be clear, Google using the Classroom product doesn't implicitly grant you permission to use their logo on your marketing materials. Did you obtain permission from the listed entities to use their logos?

I probably did, it's been a year though so I'm not entirely sure. For what it's worth this really is not needed and I actually hate the "look at all the logos" sections on websites so I just pushed a fix to remove it.

It’s hard to make a man happy without making another one sad. I hate that it’s true, but look at all the logos you recognize using this product is the only way I can ever get my completely non tech literate boss to sign off on any new tech. :(

Probably a super unpopular opinion here on hn but your boss `aint completely wrong. It's not a bad strategy when considering starting a business relationship with someone or something you don't know much about.

Maybe you can find a way to demonstrate its usefulness without its endorsements :)

Agreed. I expressed some concerns about the now dead "trusted by" section as well https://twitter.com/stephenrigsby/status/973640170648956929 .

Also why is your comment kinda-greyed out?

It was downvotes heavily (5 downvotes). "Move fast and break things, including business ethics and trademark laws" must be the prevailing thought among the HN readership

I don't see this as an issue, personally. Part of their product is open-source, and part of it isn't.

In addition, their product can be used to help open-source projects with documentation, code running, etc.

When I read "Open Source" near the bottom, that's what I read (the we help you with your open source projects).

Also, any company is allowed to use names as long as they have an agreement with the company in place. Whether or not those companies use 1 of the company's products or all of them doesn't matter much. You see this a lot on Enterprise-oriented websites. Not all customers who leave case studies will use all the products.

"Part of their product is open-source"

As I understand it, this is no longer the case (as compared to say an open core company). They had some open source software. They abandoned it. They hope to open source their tech in the future, but currently they are closed source proprietary tech on top of the usual Linux, node, etc infrastructure.

They may be used by, or useful for open source projects, but currently they are not what most people would consider an open source company. I think that requires at least an open core, which to my understanding is not currently available.

Same feeling, thought it's open sourced.