4 ms·

The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip)

56 points by moe 16y ago

See the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/sandbox/emails.txt

moe 16y ago
See the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/sandbox/emails.txt http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/sandbox/emails.txt
- JeffJenkins 16y ago
  This is totally absurd. jhickner is right. Nick doesn't know /anything/ about copyright or licensing. I wonder how obviously dumb something needs to be before you don't have to pay a lot for a lawyer. I also wonder if the Something Awful style defense would have stopped this. Leonard J. Crabs can be pretty convincing.
sperry 16y ago
Nick's acting like a dick. Craig, please continue to distribute Simpletip. I see that you seem to know more about the licensing issues than Nick.
- bshep 16y ago
  [deleted] Edit: Removed my comment when I realized this story is over 1 year old...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
bluemetal 16y ago
Oh wow. If you mention Simpletip in the contact form on Nick's site you get redirected to here: http://getafckinlife.ytmnd.com/ http://getafckinlife.ytmnd.com/ Classy stuff. (nick's site: http://www.nickstakenburg.com/ http://www.nickstakenburg.com/) EDIT: I can't seem to get it to happen again. EDIT2: It was his site. http://i50.tinypic.com/166nh4z.jpg http://i50.tinypic.com/166nh4z.jpg
- anthonyb 16y ago
  Worked for me - perhaps because I capitalised it as SimpleTip. Here's the message I sent him :> Interesting that you gave Craig Thompson such a hard time over SimpleTip, while having NO IDEA about how copyright works when applied to code. Absolutely right about reputation, btw. If you want to be taken seriously you should realize that showing your ability to be a pompous blowhard is the worst kind of advertising you can have for yourself.
freyrs 16y ago
Nice! I've been looking for a good tooltip library to use in my project. I wouldn't have known about this otherwise. Thanks Nick!
jhickner 16y ago
I don't know either of these people, but Nick clearly has no concept of how copyright actually works. The "result" of code is inherently a process, which isn't copyrightable. Only his verbatim source code is copyrightable. The entire concept of reverse engineering rests on this distinction.
aarongough 16y ago
Wow, that's incredibly lame on Nick's part. If the API is the same, but the underlying code is completely different then that it not a 'port', or a derivative, that is a different product. That's like saying a Macbook and a Viao both have a screen, keyboard and USB ports and so they're the same thing for licensing purposes... Unlikely.
TeHCrAzY 16y ago
http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ It seems he moved on and cut his losses.
- harisenbon 16y ago
  I didn't realize qTip was the successor to simpleTip. I've been using it in all my projects, and find it much better than protoTip (especially since it runs in jquery, and is free)
  - mickeyben 16y ago
    And qtip2 is coming soon :-)
thinkbohemian 16y ago
just realized simpletip was put back online... http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ i wonder why the sandbox page was left up.
- bshep 16y ago
  Also: - those letters were in jan/2009 - there is now a project called qTip - Nick is in the Netherlands, Craig is in the USA <- hard to sue someone in another country - ProTip is still at version 2, apparently Nick never got around to doing v3
  - raganwald 16y ago
    I was using qTip with jQuery on the desktop and in an iPhone-specific site. It was a pleasure to use.
perezd 16y ago
Free the software!
arethuza 16y ago
Having been involved in litigation over copyright where we were 100% in the right but the other side had fundamental misconceptions about how copyright actually works I can understand why you'd just give up when threatened with legal action. It took us a long time (about six months) and a considerable chunk of money in lawyers fees just to get them to go away - even though their case was totally groundless.

56 points by moe 16y ago

See the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/sandbox/emails.txt

moe 16y ago

See the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/sandbox/emails.txt http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/sandbox/emails.txt

JeffJenkins 16y ago
This is totally absurd. jhickner is right. Nick doesn't know /anything/ about copyright or licensing. I wonder how obviously dumb something needs to be before you don't have to pay a lot for a lawyer. I also wonder if the Something Awful style defense would have stopped this. Leonard J. Crabs can be pretty convincing.

sperry 16y ago

Nick's acting like a dick. Craig, please continue to distribute Simpletip. I see that you seem to know more about the licensing issues than Nick.

bshep 16y ago
[deleted] Edit: Removed my comment when I realized this story is over 1 year old...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

bluemetal 16y ago

Oh wow. If you mention Simpletip in the contact form on Nick's site you get redirected to here: http://getafckinlife.ytmnd.com/ http://getafckinlife.ytmnd.com/ Classy stuff. (nick's site: http://www.nickstakenburg.com/ http://www.nickstakenburg.com/) EDIT: I can't seem to get it to happen again. EDIT2: It was his site. http://i50.tinypic.com/166nh4z.jpg http://i50.tinypic.com/166nh4z.jpg

anthonyb 16y ago
Worked for me - perhaps because I capitalised it as SimpleTip. Here's the message I sent him :> Interesting that you gave Craig Thompson such a hard time over SimpleTip, while having NO IDEA about how copyright works when applied to code. Absolutely right about reputation, btw. If you want to be taken seriously you should realize that showing your ability to be a pompous blowhard is the worst kind of advertising you can have for yourself.

freyrs 16y ago

Nice! I've been looking for a good tooltip library to use in my project. I wouldn't have known about this otherwise. Thanks Nick!

jhickner 16y ago

I don't know either of these people, but Nick clearly has no concept of how copyright actually works. The "result" of code is inherently a process, which isn't copyrightable. Only his verbatim source code is copyrightable. The entire concept of reverse engineering rests on this distinction.

aarongough 16y ago

Wow, that's incredibly lame on Nick's part. If the API is the same, but the underlying code is completely different then that it not a 'port', or a derivative, that is a different product. That's like saying a Macbook and a Viao both have a screen, keyboard and USB ports and so they're the same thing for licensing purposes... Unlikely.

TeHCrAzY 16y ago

http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ It seems he moved on and cut his losses.

harisenbon 16y ago
I didn't realize qTip was the successor to simpleTip. I've been using it in all my projects, and find it much better than protoTip (especially since it runs in jquery, and is free)
- mickeyben 16y ago
  And qtip2 is coming soon :-)

thinkbohemian 16y ago

just realized simpletip was put back online... http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/ i wonder why the sandbox page was left up.

bshep 16y ago
Also: - those letters were in jan/2009 - there is now a project called qTip - Nick is in the Netherlands, Craig is in the USA <- hard to sue someone in another country - ProTip is still at version 2, apparently Nick never got around to doing v3
- raganwald 16y ago
  I was using qTip with jQuery on the desktop and in an iPhone-specific site. It was a pleasure to use.

perezd 16y ago

Free the software!

arethuza 16y ago

Having been involved in litigation over copyright where we were 100% in the right but the other side had fundamental misconceptions about how copyright actually works I can understand why you'd just give up when threatened with legal action. It took us a long time (about six months) and a considerable chunk of money in lawyers fees just to get them to go away - even though their case was totally groundless.