(this is strictly speaking about ScratchJr, but might be of interest to Scratch people)

I am a coding teacher who uses ScratchJr (and Scratch) heavily in my teaching. I was recently pointed to a website, codejr.org (which automatically redirects to https://codejr.org/scratchjr/index.html).



The site is both interesting and alarming, and I feel a duty to draw it to the attention of the ScratchJr community if it is not already on your radar. 
At first I was rather happy to find it, as it is a web-based modded version of ScratchJr., which is something that would be of great utility for me and my students (compatibility across platforms, etc.). Secondly, it has a link (the blue cat above) to a separate page codekidi.org that provides a different interface that provides a reformulation of ScratchJr so that it more closely resembles Scratch. ​


Again, I thought, great, someone has found a way to fill a big gap in the ecosystem. 

The linked to Sjr “coding cards” page points to a possibly separate page https://moshe310.wixsite.com/codejrenglish partly in a separate language and also lacking much in the way of identification.



I tentatively began exploring these platforms, but have discovered things that are making me suspicious of them, and I feel I should alert people with a bit more heft to check on its bona fides. While it is clearly filling a gap and fixing some things in ScratchJr and adding useful new functionality, something is not right with it. 

First and foremost, there is absolutely no information about who is doing this. A Google search produced zero links to anything but the page itself.  Several things make me thing there is some kind of poorly checked AI involved. Some of the narration on the demo videos at https://www.youtube.com/@codekidi is way off (no human listened to it?). There is a block missing in the codeblock commands guide, https://codekidi.org/help/block.html (yes, minor). There is a serious bug in the project import that prevents many if not most SJR projects created by other means (i.e. android app) from loading correctly (but bootup SJR files seem to work). The fact that the top level domain (codejr.org) automatically sends you the scratchjr page, with no intro page. At the very least, I am led to suspect they may be breaking some copyrights or other laws in doing this. At worst, there is some kind of phishing or other security scam going on…

At any rate, I would grateful to know from someone with more authority whether this is a legitimate and safe product, or whether there is something more nefarious at work. I could be overreacting or overly suspicious, or there may be something going on. Any thoughts?

The scratch editor code as far as I know is not entirely copyrighted and you can use it as long as you release your version under the same license, whilst the scratch mascots are definitely copyrighted. This is most likely some sort of copyright infringement in some way but it looks like some sort of fair use so I don’t know but it just looks like a basic clone to me.

Scratch_Cat_Coder8 wrote:

(#2)
The scratch editor code as far as I know is not entirely copyrighted and you can use it as long as you release your version under the same license, whilst the scratch mascots are definitely copyrighted. This is most likely some sort of copyright infringement in some way but it looks like some sort of fair use so I don’t know but it just looks like a basic clone to me.

Yes, that is exactly the point. I couldn't find any license information anywhere and the ScratchJr logo is right there..

The infringement part is arguable, perhaps, but I am also quite worried about it being some kind of security risk. I am not saying it is, just that it would be nice to have fuller information and accountability. Thinking of how punctilious the scratch team is about that (which I fully support), it seems…lacking.

Thanks for the info! I'll pass this along to the relevant team to investigate (if they haven't already heard about it–there are a lot of copyScratchcats out there). I'm closing this so as not to bring too much attention.