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Surprisingly little sympathy for the "little guy" in the comments so far. No, the technique is not patented. Yes, copying it or reverse engineering it is legal.

Surprisingly little sympathy for the "little guy" in the comments so far. No, the technique is not patented. Yes, copying it or reverse engineering it is legal. Yet it's still a craven and unfair act. If you can't hold the two contradictory ideas in your head simultaneously, you're not very smart. Strava's version is not an act of "innovation" that needs protection from being "stifled" - the innovation was someone else's. Big companies can afford to patent ideas they steal from small ones that can't. It is legal and unfair.

icebraining 8y ago
> Strava's version is not an act of "innovation" that needs protection from being "stifled" Who said it was? > Big companies can afford to patent ideas they steal from small ones that can't Has Strava patented this idea? If not, how is that relevant? -- People will copy. Footpath, like any other app, used a lot of mapping and mobile app ideas invented by dozens of people over the years. Hell, they literally use (not just copy) OpenStreetMaps, yet you won't see that in the App Store description, just a mention in their website's FAQ. That's just how innovation works, everyone copies from everyone, and we're better off for it.
- rmc 8y ago
  > Hell, they literally use (not just copy) OpenStreetMaps, yet you won't see that in the App Store description, just a mention in their website's FAQ OSM wants people to use the data! That's why we're making the data and making a map database. :) But the OSM licence requires they attribution, in this case it would mean displaying it on the screen. Which they don't do. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
greglindahl 8y ago
Craven, unfair, "not very smart". With all of this name-calling, why do you expect sympathy?
- Fnoord 8y ago
  The only unethical aspect of the whole story is that Strava claimed it is their innovation. Welcome to the real world, companies do this all the time. The amount of time I've seen Apple do this (and no, not a hater; we own 4 MBPs).
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    It's unethical to throw around accusations without much basis. I read the article, and Strava's claim could easily be that this is a unique innovation because it uses heat maps and not just road data to generate the route. I don't know, and it doesn't sound like anyone else knows enough to start name-calling.
- rdiddly 8y ago
  If someone does something on Tuesday, and I comment on it on Wednesday, they don't get to claim their actions on Tuesday are caused by my comment on Wednesday.
wvenable 8y ago
Surprising amount of support for owning an vague idea. I'm all for copyright and patent protections (to a point) but this is a bit ridiculous. If you're browsing this website on Chrome or Firefox running on Windows or Linux then you should be pretty happy about these "craven and unfair acts". We stand on the shoulders of giants.
- rdiddly 8y ago
  I mean, if we treat them like giants, fine. But this is more like a giant wearing a $1,500 suit standing on the shoulders of a normal-sized dude. Still, I'm all for it if everybody goes into it with the expectation of sharing, i.e. some permutation of an open source and/or free software philosophy or license, like 3/4 of your examples are based on. But if one for-profit company copies from another, it's not hard to see there's an underhanded element to it; somebody can't compete on the merits but wants to be paid anyway. I know I know, "it's just business."
  - wvenable 8y ago
    I don't see why it should fair a single-developer to copy an idea from a company but not the other way around. What does size have to do with it? And remember, we're still not talking about copying code or violating patents -- we're just talking copying a simple idea. Something that still requires work to implement. Copying ideas is the foundation of every industry. Is it immoral of you to build a better or cheaper car because Henry Ford got there first? Airplanes? Windowing systems? Command-line shells? Bicycles? This is frankly just BS. You cannot hold ownership over an idea -- it's just not possible. And when you release your idea from your brain into the world, other people will learn it. You can't force them to not use your idea for themselves because you thought of it first.
vermontdevil 8y ago
And that Strava bragged this as a novel feature. That rankles me. Pretending they came up with this during a hackathon.

icebraining 8y ago

> Strava's version is not an act of "innovation" that needs protection from being "stifled" Who said it was? > Big companies can afford to patent ideas they steal from small ones that can't Has Strava patented this idea? If not, how is that relevant? -- People will copy. Footpath, like any other app, used a lot of mapping and mobile app ideas invented by dozens of people over the years. Hell, they literally use (not just copy) OpenStreetMaps, yet you won't see that in the App Store description, just a mention in their website's FAQ. That's just how innovation works, everyone copies from everyone, and we're better off for it.

rmc 8y ago
> Hell, they literally use (not just copy) OpenStreetMaps, yet you won't see that in the App Store description, just a mention in their website's FAQ OSM wants people to use the data! That's why we're making the data and making a map database. :) But the OSM licence requires they attribution, in this case it would mean displaying it on the screen. Which they don't do. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

greglindahl 8y ago

Craven, unfair, "not very smart". With all of this name-calling, why do you expect sympathy?

Fnoord 8y ago
The only unethical aspect of the whole story is that Strava claimed it is their innovation. Welcome to the real world, companies do this all the time. The amount of time I've seen Apple do this (and no, not a hater; we own 4 MBPs).
- greglindahl 8y ago
  It's unethical to throw around accusations without much basis. I read the article, and Strava's claim could easily be that this is a unique innovation because it uses heat maps and not just road data to generate the route. I don't know, and it doesn't sound like anyone else knows enough to start name-calling.
rdiddly 8y ago
If someone does something on Tuesday, and I comment on it on Wednesday, they don't get to claim their actions on Tuesday are caused by my comment on Wednesday.

wvenable 8y ago

Surprising amount of support for owning an vague idea. I'm all for copyright and patent protections (to a point) but this is a bit ridiculous. If you're browsing this website on Chrome or Firefox running on Windows or Linux then you should be pretty happy about these "craven and unfair acts". We stand on the shoulders of giants.

rdiddly 8y ago
I mean, if we treat them like giants, fine. But this is more like a giant wearing a $1,500 suit standing on the shoulders of a normal-sized dude. Still, I'm all for it if everybody goes into it with the expectation of sharing, i.e. some permutation of an open source and/or free software philosophy or license, like 3/4 of your examples are based on. But if one for-profit company copies from another, it's not hard to see there's an underhanded element to it; somebody can't compete on the merits but wants to be paid anyway. I know I know, "it's just business."
- wvenable 8y ago
  I don't see why it should fair a single-developer to copy an idea from a company but not the other way around. What does size have to do with it? And remember, we're still not talking about copying code or violating patents -- we're just talking copying a simple idea. Something that still requires work to implement. Copying ideas is the foundation of every industry. Is it immoral of you to build a better or cheaper car because Henry Ford got there first? Airplanes? Windowing systems? Command-line shells? Bicycles? This is frankly just BS. You cannot hold ownership over an idea -- it's just not possible. And when you release your idea from your brain into the world, other people will learn it. You can't force them to not use your idea for themselves because you thought of it first.

vermontdevil 8y ago

And that Strava bragged this as a novel feature. That rankles me. Pretending they came up with this during a hackathon.