u/fluffyr42 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
So to be clear, OSLabs is Codesmith? Do you know anything about this accelerator program that’s on their website?
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
OSLabs, Inc. is a standalone charity registered in Delaware and in California, whose registration doesn't mention anything about Codesmith. The communications manager at Codesmith is on the OSLabs board, and I have a few letters of reference signed by "Philip Troutman, Board Member" but don't see any documentation that he is actually on the board of the new charity. I have also seen on LinkedIn, Codesmith's "senior board advisor" advertising for the executive director role at OSLabs and asking candidates to reach out to him.
Yeah three things interesting on the website are:
1. The "accelerator program" which sounds like, if free/volunteer, takes the best part of Codesmith and makes it free.
2. The "mentors" being paid $100 an hour for up to 8 hours a week. If those mentors are mentoring Codesmith students working on OSPs that could be illegal/violation of charity laws
3. If they allow anyone to work on the OSPs with mentor support, then they are going to have to deal with thousands of people who are far below the Codesmith bar with all kinds of commitments, who sign up to work on the OSPs to get the "Codesmith experience" for free/for people who don't meet the bar. If they don't allow anyone to work on them then that would fall under #2.