4 ms·

I've discovered that "shameless people are shameless" is surprisingly common. I stumbled across a site for a new JS book one day, and it looked exactly like the

I've discovered that "shameless people are shameless" is surprisingly common. I stumbled across a site for a new JS book one day, and it looked exactly like the personal site of one of our frontend developers. I asked him if he started selling his site as a template, and he goes pale. About 15 minutes later we found where someone had lifted all the assets off his site, replaced his name and photo, and put it up for sale on ThemeForest. Didn't even remove all the comments he left in the code. Dude was making about $2k a month with it. He ended up having to send him a cease and desist, and the guy only gave him about $3k as a settlement.

sheetjs 9y ago
The comment wasn't intended to be diminutive. There happen to be many shameless people looking to make a quick buck, but few of those people would pay if you didn't open source in the first place (or if you offered them a chance to purchase a commercial license). Even with your coworker, the only reason he received money was because the offender made a lot more from it.
- nitrogen 9y ago
  It's probably a good thing that people maintain a disdain for freeloading, though. It's important for at least some of the gains from a new creation to go to the creator, otherwise the market for whatever product will stagnate because the people with resources are not the people with ideas.
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    Freeloading but also copyright violation. No different to selling a cracked Windows installer.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  OT, but are you still doing high frequency trading? How'd it turn out?
  - sheetjs 9y ago
    We stopped after our second support contract. Long story short: quite a few companies wanted additional features and we ultimately had to pick one thing to pursue.
pmarreck 9y ago
> I've discovered that "shameless people are shameless" is surprisingly common. Especially when it comes to China. https://thelinguafranca.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/do-the-chinese-lie-that-depends/ https://thelinguafranca.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/do-the-chin... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/07/22/in-china-why-piracy-is-here-to-stay/#7d7d9e408006 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/07/22/in-china-w...
- falumi 9y ago
  With all due respect, these links are pretty dated and with an internet year being probably the rough equivalent of at least a half decade of the unwired world, they may not be relevant anymore.
  - pmarreck 9y ago
    Fair enough, but I don't think culture changes that quickly, especially in a country that large.
  - deftturtle 9y ago
    We're talking about people, not CPUs or flash memory. People change slowly.
godelmachine 9y ago
How come he have only 3k? Why didn't the plaintiff fight for more?
- beckler 9y ago
  I asked him about it, and it sounded like the guy had spent most of the money, but I don't know why he didn't ask for more. I got the impression that he didn't care if people used his site as a template, but he just didn't want someone else profiting from it.

sheetjs 9y ago

The comment wasn't intended to be diminutive. There happen to be many shameless people looking to make a quick buck, but few of those people would pay if you didn't open source in the first place (or if you offered them a chance to purchase a commercial license). Even with your coworker, the only reason he received money was because the offender made a lot more from it.

nitrogen 9y ago
It's probably a good thing that people maintain a disdain for freeloading, though. It's important for at least some of the gains from a new creation to go to the creator, otherwise the market for whatever product will stagnate because the people with resources are not the people with ideas.
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  Freeloading but also copyright violation. No different to selling a cracked Windows installer.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
OT, but are you still doing high frequency trading? How'd it turn out?
- sheetjs 9y ago
  We stopped after our second support contract. Long story short: quite a few companies wanted additional features and we ultimately had to pick one thing to pursue.

pmarreck 9y ago

> I've discovered that "shameless people are shameless" is surprisingly common. Especially when it comes to China. https://thelinguafranca.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/do-the-chinese-lie-that-depends/ https://thelinguafranca.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/do-the-chin... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/07/22/in-china-why-piracy-is-here-to-stay/#7d7d9e408006 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/07/22/in-china-w...

falumi 9y ago
With all due respect, these links are pretty dated and with an internet year being probably the rough equivalent of at least a half decade of the unwired world, they may not be relevant anymore.
- pmarreck 9y ago
  Fair enough, but I don't think culture changes that quickly, especially in a country that large.
- deftturtle 9y ago
  We're talking about people, not CPUs or flash memory. People change slowly.

godelmachine 9y ago

How come he have only 3k? Why didn't the plaintiff fight for more?

beckler 9y ago
I asked him about it, and it sounded like the guy had spent most of the money, but I don't know why he didn't ask for more. I got the impression that he didn't care if people used his site as a template, but he just didn't want someone else profiting from it.