Y Combinator is being criticized after it backed an AI startup that admits it basically cloned another AI startup

A Y Combinator startup named PearAI launched with an X post thread and YouTube video on Saturday and created immediate controversy. The startup’s founder Duke Pan has openly said that it’s a cloned copy of another project, VSCode, and another AI editor called Continue, which was covered under the Apache open source license. Not only are there legalities involved in violating a software license, but it defeats the whole purpose of open source, which is about community building, sharing, and cont…