At 7:05 in this recording, Simon shows a timeline of OpenClaw's many renames, explains how it exploded into awareness, and at 7:38 says that "this whole new category of software existed, there's a generic term for this which I really enjoy, we call software like this 'claw' software."
I have some trivia to add to this timeline. Hopefully it's been long enough that this can be a curiosity rather than a kerfuffle. ~simonw, I know you love blogging, but I'd appreciate if you didn't send a post about this to the frontpage of HN, because yeeesh, and there's just not enough known to draw conclusions about motivation. (There's a bunch of nitter links in here that won't have great uptime but maybe another instance will be up, and people who still have X accounts can swap in that domain to see them in situ.)
I heard about OpenClaw in the first week of February. I only saw the "Clawdbot" rename and was struck by where the branding landed, so I wrote an email:
> From: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]>
> To: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]>
> Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 13:51:45 -0600
> Subject: naming, I guess again
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> I run lobste.rs / lobsters/lobsters , a
> 13-year old open source codebase and forum. Heck, we even have an iOS
> app named Claw: apps.apple.com
> and sponsored the Lobster emoji: lobste.rs
> I bet you can guess where this is going.
>
> I was scrolling bluesky yesterday and ran into some really confusing posts, like
> bsky.app
> bsky.app
> bsky.app
> I found out about your project when I was trying to figure out how the
> heck these people related to the site I run.
>
> I can guess from your Wikipedia page that Anthropic's lawyers must have
> hit you with a stick about your previous name. I appreciate what a
> clever pun "clawd" is and I know the idea of renaming again must seem
> unappealing, but could you please not use the name + theming we've been
> using for over a decade? Having a second software project named and
> branded "lobsters", down to use of the lobster emoji, is just plain
> confusing.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Peter
>
>
> PS. Yes, I noticed that us both being named "Peter" makes this an
> especially ridiculous coincidence.
I know some folks dislike the idea of quoting others' emails, but there's a bunch here that's extremely difficult to characterize, and [Steinberger doesn't object to the practice.]
He replied:
> From: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]>
> To: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]>
> Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 14:51:17 -0800
> Subject: Re: naming, I guess again
>
> Peter,
>
> would you consider unblocking my website at lobste.rs?
> Your folks/moterators have been quite nasty, dismissive and downright derogatory
> to me over the year.
> As for branding, I considered it calling lobster.bot but settled on OpenClaw,
> which should be sufficiently different from lobste.rs.
Huh. I was missing some context. So I looked around and found that on 2025-06-03, some had submitted his blog Claude Code is My Computer. The top comment pointed out the author was launching an AI agent startup.
I deleted the story with the modlog message "Slop. news.ycombinator.com", linking to an HN comment where Steinberger confirmed Claude had written the post. (I hadn't noticed post also links to its github repo, which shows claude's attribution.) By mid-2025 blogs turning into slop marketing posts was already a familiar pattern, so I also banned the domain with the message "Startup slop." because entrepreneurship is explicitly off-topic here and I didn't want to have to remove inevitable marketing posts.
This was all unremarkable enough I pretty much immediately forgot about it. I didn't see that two months later, Steinberger tweeted about the removal and had Claude write a post about it. In the tweet he wrote "I tried to discuss with the moderators and was insulted and my work diminished" and in the post he wrote "I tried to discuss with one of their moderators and was met with so much insult and deprecation of my work". Can't really prove a negative, but I don't believe any discussion about the post happened with Steinberger until my email above. I doublechecked email, chat logs, lobsters DMs, and I can't find anything matching his name or domain. It takes a lot to get me to insult someone, I don't believe this conversation happened. I'm also sure he's not referring to the modlog messages because neither would have DMd or emailed him, and he was announcing his own blocks of slop with similar terse messages.
Back to Feb 2026, I replied:
> From: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]>
> To: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]>
> Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2026 12:33:08 -0600
> Subject: Re: naming, I guess again
>
> Hey, sorry I didn't recognize you or I would've skipped all that intro.
>
> I want to understand where you're coming from here, given that I asked
> about openclaw and you responded about your blog. Is that your primary
> concern and that's why you went with the lobster branding? Is unblocking
> your blog what you'd need to see before you consider changing to
> something less confusing?
>
>
> - Peter
Steinberger replied:
> From: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]>
> To: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]>
> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2026 12:20:50 -0600
> Subject: Re: naming, I guess again
>
> Peter,
>
> Just been short since my inbox is exploding, and wanted to convey that the few
> touch points I had with lobste.rs so far, unfortunately, have been mostly
> hostile. In the end it doesn't matter if you unblock my site or not, just wasn't
> sure if you were aware of how your moderators treat folks and that it left quite
> a bitter taste.
>
> We are at the 5th rename. OpenClaw is what I invested a lot of money in, I own
> all the right domains and trademarks, so this is what I'll stick with. We use a
> lobster lore, but not a lobster branding, so that should be sufficiently
> different from lobste.rs. I was considering calling it lobster.bot, but decided
> against it, so the naming should be less confusing.
>
> - Peter
Despite "not a lobster branding", that day the top thing on the OpenClaw homepage was an animated cartoon lobster. I felt like every tweet and email included nonsense, and I didn't see a point to continuing the conversation. All I could do was ask him politely to fix his confusing choice and I'd done that.
I did poke around to try to find the earliest mention of the rename to understand his choice. I found "claw" on 2025-11-25 and "lobster" and emoji on 2025-11-29 (No Co-Authored-By: claude). Maybe I missed a tweet, they're hard to search nowadays. I can't give a definitive answer to a question like how or why openclaw got the name it did, but maybe someone will find these bits of trivia interesting.
11 points
Mentions
github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances 現在Nitterは開発が凍結され、多くのインスタンスも停止しています。 詳しくはいつかnoteに書こうと思っていたんだけど。
To browse Twitter without tracking scripts, heavy client JS, or ads, Nitter provides a lightweight, open-source alternative front-end. Written in Nim, it serves lightweight 60KB pages where all requests proxy through the backend. zedeus/nitter
Because it isn’t magic, there’s still Twitter auth required github.com/zedeus/nitter/blob/master/src/auth.nim Every individual running their own instance would be the equivalent of every individual having their own Twitter account, which defeats the purpose.
Page size drops from 784KB on x.com to 60KB, and it adds RSS feed support for accounts. Twitter's heavy web app replaced by a 60KB, zero-JavaScript alternative: Nitter routes all requests through its backend to stop tracking. zedeus/nitter
At 7:05 in this recording, Simon shows a timeline of OpenClaw's many renames, explains how it exploded into awareness, and at 7:38 says that "this whole new category of software existed, there's a generic term for this which I really enjoy, we call software like this 'claw' software." I have some trivia to add to this timeline. Hopefully it's been long enough that this can be a curiosity rather than a kerfuffle. ~simonw, I know you love blogging, but I'd appreciate if you didn't send a post about this to the frontpage of HN, because yeeesh, and there's just not enough known to draw conclusions about motivation. (There's a bunch of nitter links in here that won't have great uptime but maybe another instance will be up, and people who still have X accounts can swap in that domain to see them in situ.) I heard about OpenClaw in the first week of February. I only saw the "Clawdbot" rename and was struck by where the branding landed, so I wrote an email: > From: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]> > To: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]> > Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 13:51:45 -0600 > Subject: naming, I guess again > > Hi Peter, > > I run lobste.rs / lobsters/lobsters , a > 13-year old open source codebase and forum. Heck, we even have an iOS > app named Claw: apps.apple.com > and sponsored the Lobster emoji: lobste.rs > I bet you can guess where this is going. > > I was scrolling bluesky yesterday and ran into some really confusing posts, like > bsky.app > bsky.app > bsky.app > I found out about your project when I was trying to figure out how the > heck these people related to the site I run. > > I can guess from your Wikipedia page that Anthropic's lawyers must have > hit you with a stick about your previous name. I appreciate what a > clever pun "clawd" is and I know the idea of renaming again must seem > unappealing, but could you please not use the name + theming we've been > using for over a decade? Having a second software project named and > branded "lobsters", down to use of the lobster emoji, is just plain > confusing. > > > > Thanks, > > - Peter > > > PS. Yes, I noticed that us both being named "Peter" makes this an > especially ridiculous coincidence. I know some folks dislike the idea of quoting others' emails, but there's a bunch here that's extremely difficult to characterize, and [Steinberger doesn't object to the practice.] He replied: > From: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]> > To: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]> > Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 14:51:17 -0800 > Subject: Re: naming, I guess again > > Peter, > > would you consider unblocking my website at lobste.rs? > Your folks/moterators have been quite nasty, dismissive and downright derogatory > to me over the year. > As for branding, I considered it calling lobster.bot but settled on OpenClaw, > which should be sufficiently different from lobste.rs. Huh. I was missing some context. So I looked around and found that on 2025-06-03, some had submitted his blog Claude Code is My Computer. The top comment pointed out the author was launching an AI agent startup. I deleted the story with the modlog message "Slop. news.ycombinator.com", linking to an HN comment where Steinberger confirmed Claude had written the post. (I hadn't noticed post also links to its github repo, which shows claude's attribution.) By mid-2025 blogs turning into slop marketing posts was already a familiar pattern, so I also banned the domain with the message "Startup slop." because entrepreneurship is explicitly off-topic here and I didn't want to have to remove inevitable marketing posts. This was all unremarkable enough I pretty much immediately forgot about it. I didn't see that two months later, Steinberger tweeted about the removal and had Claude write a post about it. In the tweet he wrote "I tried to discuss with the moderators and was insulted and my work diminished" and in the post he wrote "I tried to discuss with one of their moderators and was met with so much insult and deprecation of my work". Can't really prove a negative, but I don't believe any discussion about the post happened with Steinberger until my email above. I doublechecked email, chat logs, lobsters DMs, and I can't find anything matching his name or domain. It takes a lot to get me to insult someone, I don't believe this conversation happened. I'm also sure he's not referring to the modlog messages because neither would have DMd or emailed him, and he was announcing his own blocks of slop with similar terse messages. Back to Feb 2026, I replied: > From: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]> > To: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]> > Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2026 12:33:08 -0600 > Subject: Re: naming, I guess again > > Hey, sorry I didn't recognize you or I would've skipped all that intro. > > I want to understand where you're coming from here, given that I asked > about openclaw and you responded about your blog. Is that your primary > concern and that's why you went with the lobster branding? Is unblocking > your blog what you'd need to see before you consider changing to > something less confusing? > > > - Peter Steinberger replied: > From: Peter Steinberger <[redacted]> > To: Peter Bhat Harkins <[redacted]> > Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2026 12:20:50 -0600 > Subject: Re: naming, I guess again > > Peter, > > Just been short since my inbox is exploding, and wanted to convey that the few > touch points I had with lobste.rs so far, unfortunately, have been mostly > hostile. In the end it doesn't matter if you unblock my site or not, just wasn't > sure if you were aware of how your moderators treat folks and that it left quite > a bitter taste. > > We are at the 5th rename. OpenClaw is what I invested a lot of money in, I own > all the right domains and trademarks, so this is what I'll stick with. We use a > lobster lore, but not a lobster branding, so that should be sufficiently > different from lobste.rs. I was considering calling it lobster.bot, but decided > against it, so the naming should be less confusing. > > - Peter Despite "not a lobster branding", that day the top thing on the OpenClaw homepage was an animated cartoon lobster. I felt like every tweet and email included nonsense, and I didn't see a point to continuing the conversation. All I could do was ask him politely to fix his confusing choice and I'd done that. I did poke around to try to find the earliest mention of the rename to understand his choice. I found "claw" on 2025-11-25 and "lobster" and emoji on 2025-11-29 (No Co-Authored-By: claude). Maybe I missed a tweet, they're hard to search nowadays. I can't give a definitive answer to a question like how or why openclaw got the name it did, but maybe someone will find these bits of trivia interesting.