# Malus - Clean Room as a Service Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/malus-clean-room-as-a-service/ 13 people recommended Malus - Clean Room as a Service in Hacker News comments, 4 had mixed feelings and 54 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 12 months, in 3 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. 11 of the 13 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “Malus – Clean Room as a Service”. **Verdict:** Criticized more than recommended: critics say it is too close to a real paid offering and raises legal doubts; those who recommend it see it as sharp satire of AI clean-room relicensing, with many praising its humor and presentation. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. ## What people warn about - Unclear if satire or real (5 comments in the sample): "Sell the same thing you pretend to be satirizing, and HN it's making it go viral for free" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47361743)) "apparently they will accept your money to do it, which seems to cross the line of a joke" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48481319)) "Is this service a joke? I'm not even sure after reading the reviews at the bottom there." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47452031)) - Legal doubts over clean room claims (4 comments in the sample): "since nearly all open source dependencies couple the implementation with type definitions, I'm curious how this could pass the legal bar of the clean room" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47354216)) "It rewrites code/modules/projects to less restrictive licenses with no legal enforcement mechanisms." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47573215)) "The indemnification is a marketing gimmick to make a legally dangerous service seem safe." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47355047)) - Exploits maintainers' work for profit (3 comments in the sample): "instead of paying maintainers who already built the thing you want, we instead charge you to use AI to make countless copies of maintainers’ work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47360798)) "So they recreate the open source project by using an llm that was trained in the open source project's source code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47353250)) "Change all your core software library dependencies to be unmaintained ripoff copies of those libraries." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47351155)) - Suspicious testimonials and pricing (2 comments in the sample): "And the testimonials from "Definitely Real Corp", "MegaSoft Industries" and "Profit First LLC" are a bit suspicious" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47262890)) "It does actually generate a price (which is suspiciously like a fixed rate of $1 per megabyte" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47351695)) ## Why people recommend it - Sharp satire of AI relicensing (2 comments in the sample): "The perfect response to the "clean room" AI re-implementation and re-licensing of whatever that library is called." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47354768)) "Brilliant satire that foreshadows the future." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47353882)) - Wish it existed, good idea (2 comments in the sample): "I unironically want this service to exist." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47354381)) "I view this as an unmitigated good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47351270)) - Polished site and memorable name (2 comments in the sample): "this is significantly better than most SAAS websites" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47362744)) "Honestly kind of a brilliant name." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47352282)) - Clever per-dependency pricing idea (2 comments in the sample): "it's a brilliant idea that the service charges for whole dependency by package.json" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47376281)) "if you dropped the sarcasm and I think you'd have a viable business" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47357457)) ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://malus.sh/) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Malus - Clean Room as a Service", https://hackerapproved.com/p/malus-clean-room-as-a-service/ (13 recommend, 4 mixed, 54 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.