A developer who helped build Mononoke, Meta's source control server, argues that Anthropic's new version control system, Scion, closely copies its design. The author points to a shared concept called "derived data," which both systems use to make operations like blames more efficient.
The author says he described Mononoke's derived data approach in his 2022 Oxide candidate materials, and that the similarity to Anthropic's description of Scion goes well beyond shared insights. He notes that Anthropic credits Sapling only for "hard-won lessons" and does not mention Mononoke at all, which he calls borderline plagiarism. He argues the post suggests Claude designed these ideas, when many of them came from his team at Meta around 2017-18.
The author says he does not object to Anthropic copying Mononoke's design, noting that the project was open sourced to spread good ideas. His concern is attribution. He argues that as LLMs assist in system design, they tend to rely heavily on existing work. Because Mononoke is open source and likely part of every LLM's training data, he says models readily point out its similarities when asked about prior art.
He concludes that giving credit to earlier work is now easier and more important than ever, and that there is no longer an excuse for failing to do so.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing