4 ms·

Reeder Calls Out MobileRSS For Design Theft, Community Backlash Begins

22 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

trotsky 16y ago
You don't have to look any further than the OS and applications you're using right now to see the heavy re-use of design elements and UI paradigms between competing applications. Without it happening we'd probably all be using significantly worse software. Used to be the community was heavily in favor of look and feel being free game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland League for Programming Freedom (LPF) was founded in 1989 by Richard Stallman to unite free software developers as well as developers of proprietary software to fight against software patents and the extension of the scope of copyright [...] The single event that had the most influence on the creation of the League was Apple's lawsuits against Microsoft about supposed copyrights violations of the look and feel of the Macintosh as copied in Microsoft Windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_for_Programming_Freedom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_for_Programming_Freedom
- macrael 16y ago
  For sure, the origin of creative work is always murky and collaborative, but there are lines and this theft flagrantly crosses them. Copying someone else's hard work and selling it as your own is bullshit and deserves to be called such. I don't think there is any defense for this kind of blatant copying. (Not to mention bad copying. It's amazing how, even with a good design to crib from they managed to mess up all sorts of important details.)
  - chairface 16y ago
    I'd be interested in an example or two of what MobileRSS messed up. Just curious - I don't use either of these apps.
    - lukevdp 16y ago
      The lack of padding on the text of the article view stands out. http://fireballed.org/linked/2010/12/22/reeder-rip/ http://fireballed.org/linked/2010/12/22/reeder-rip/
  - trotsky 16y ago
    I assure you that if you had used both quattro pro and lotus 1-2-3 you wouldn't be thinking that we're discussing the "murky and collaborative nature of creative work" - we're talking about imitation. Interface cloning and heavy borrowing of element layouts has a long and storied history in software design - look at any modern GUI and they all look much more similar than dissimilar. Is that the murky and collaborative nature of creative work? Hell no, it's people copying off of each other. And it's a good thing, unless you think it'd be a great idea to have to retrain everyone every time IT wanted to switch application providers (that used to be common). Assuming you still disagree, I'd be curious about your opinion of non design issues. Do you think samba is bullshit for having reverse engineered the CIFS interface allowing non windows computers to share on corporate lans? How about various office applications that reverse engineered the file formats of various closed competitors to allow them to save and load the formats? Surely a lot of hard work went into designing CIFS or .xls, should that be off limits as well? If not, why is the location of buttons on a screen a bigger deal than the locations of bytes in a filehandle?
    - macrael 16y ago
      I'm sorry, I was too brief in my original comment. I shouldn't have brushed off imitation in design by talking about the murky nature of the origin of creative work. You are quite right that a lot of good has come from people stealing other people's design work; when people come up with something new and good, it is usually a good thing for others in the field to incorporate them into their own work. That's how we move forward. I mean, Reeder straight up copied the "pull to refresh" UI element from Tweetie. But, as in all things, there is a balance, and one can go too far. What the developers of MobileRSS did is not wrong because they copied, it is wrong because they only copied, and didn't make it better. They didn't incorporate good ideas from Reeder into their own, making something new and beautiful, but rather substituted Silvio's ideas for their own which is lazy and the opposite of good work. I know whose future development I want to support.
- protomyth 16y ago
  There is a big difference between using the same techniques and making a clone. This is repainting someone else's painting (badly) and passing it off as your original creative endevour. I have no problem with everyone using menus and palettes, but cloning does not advance anything.
Pent 16y ago
Why did ReadItLater feel that they needed to get their hands dirty and intervene? Now I have to use Instapaper.. sigh
- Kylekramer 16y ago
  Bad news: http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/17674488195850240 http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/17674488195850240 It is an interesting question. I mean, Reeder was clearly cloned pretty heavily, but kneecaping interoperability in retaliation seems like a dangerous road to head down.
  - hallmark 16y ago
    When you are using the resources of an API, you are entering a community. And when you abuse another respected member of the community, it responds. These bookmarking services weren't cutting off a developer client to protect themselves, which I consider more dangerous. They were throwing their weight behind Reeder. Checks and balances.
- macrael 16y ago
  He laid out his reasons pretty clearly in his post about it: http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/12/a-quick-word-on-the-mobilerss-update/ http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/12/a-quick-word-on-the-...
  - trotsky 16y ago
    Update: After speaking with a number of other developers, including Silvio from Reeder, I’ve decided that the best thing to do is re-enable MobileRSS’s API key.
kaptain 16y ago
Looks like a 'typical' Chinese operation. And look: they're hiring a GUI designer [高级美术设计师(GUI设计师)]! http://www.nibirutech.com/careers.html http://www.nibirutech.com/careers.html Why bother? Living here in China, one of the things that strikes me is that there is a complete disregard for the value of creative work. This is, of course a generalization, but for the most part, the education system here emphasizes rote learning. I've got a ton of thoughts/observations related to this (I attend a lower tier university here) but looking at the MobileRSS site, I'm reminded that great design demands taking risks and demands careful thought, neither of which is emphasized, culturally, here.
satoimo 16y ago
Would the Android developer community have reacted the same way?
A1kmm 16y ago
How many design elements which were unique to Reeder are actually in MobileRSS? Sure, there are similarities, but they are two software packages which do similar a task, on the same platform. Putting the platform specific stuff aside, they both have lots of similarities to other RSS reader software I've seen that most likely pre-dates them both. If I was an iPad user, and I learned that there was another (presumably less expensive) application with all the same features as one I was using, I would certainly bookmark it and consider switching next time I had to do a paid upgrade - so I suspect that Reeder just scored a major own goal.
- m0nastic 16y ago
  Did you click on the link? The side-by-side comparison is pretty damning. I think the similarities are way more apparent then just "similarities to other RSS reader software".
  - A1kmm 16y ago
    Yes I did click on the link. The fact that the RSS stories displayed is irrelevant - that is data and not UI. Only looking at design elements: First screen shot: Black bar across the top - that is presumably from the OS so doesn't count. Overall layout: both have a navigation bar at the left (fairly standard for RSS readers), similar width (but there is probably an optimal width, and this may be it), the bar is a different colour but on the grey-black range in both cases (probably determined more by the platform). Both have a refresh toolbar button at the bottom - this placement is common for RSS feed readers. Some of the icons and icon placements are similar - how unique this is to the design depends on how common the icon placement is. It is certainly not a blatant copy with no changes, however - some of the positions have changed, and some icons seem to be different. In terms of the layout of the right-hand side pane with the content, that is completely different. The date is displayed differently, and is repeated on each story in Reeder. The bullet point layout is different, and the MobileRSS version has images. So it has some similar design elements, most of which are not particularly unique to Reeder, and some differences. They may well have taken some inspiration from their competitor, but they have also made some changes of their own - in other words, the article seems to be a beat-up of legitimate competition. I suspect the free publicity is probably going to end up helping MobileRSS more than it hinders them.

22 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

You don't have to look any further than the OS and applications you're using right now to see the heavy re-use of design elements and UI paradigms between competing applications. Without it happening we'd probably all be using significantly worse software. Used to be the community was heavily in favor of look and feel being free game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland League for Programming Freedom (LPF) was founded in 1989 by Richard Stallman to unite free software developers as well as developers of proprietary software to fight against software patents and the extension of the scope of copyright [...] The single event that had the most influence on the creation of the League was Apple's lawsuits against Microsoft about supposed copyrights violations of the look and feel of the Macintosh as copied in Microsoft Windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_for_Programming_Freedom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_for_Programming_Freedom

macrael 16y ago
For sure, the origin of creative work is always murky and collaborative, but there are lines and this theft flagrantly crosses them. Copying someone else's hard work and selling it as your own is bullshit and deserves to be called such. I don't think there is any defense for this kind of blatant copying. (Not to mention bad copying. It's amazing how, even with a good design to crib from they managed to mess up all sorts of important details.)
- chairface 16y ago
  I'd be interested in an example or two of what MobileRSS messed up. Just curious - I don't use either of these apps.
  - lukevdp 16y ago
    The lack of padding on the text of the article view stands out. http://fireballed.org/linked/2010/12/22/reeder-rip/ http://fireballed.org/linked/2010/12/22/reeder-rip/
- trotsky 16y ago
  I assure you that if you had used both quattro pro and lotus 1-2-3 you wouldn't be thinking that we're discussing the "murky and collaborative nature of creative work" - we're talking about imitation. Interface cloning and heavy borrowing of element layouts has a long and storied history in software design - look at any modern GUI and they all look much more similar than dissimilar. Is that the murky and collaborative nature of creative work? Hell no, it's people copying off of each other. And it's a good thing, unless you think it'd be a great idea to have to retrain everyone every time IT wanted to switch application providers (that used to be common). Assuming you still disagree, I'd be curious about your opinion of non design issues. Do you think samba is bullshit for having reverse engineered the CIFS interface allowing non windows computers to share on corporate lans? How about various office applications that reverse engineered the file formats of various closed competitors to allow them to save and load the formats? Surely a lot of hard work went into designing CIFS or .xls, should that be off limits as well? If not, why is the location of buttons on a screen a bigger deal than the locations of bytes in a filehandle?
  - macrael 16y ago
    I'm sorry, I was too brief in my original comment. I shouldn't have brushed off imitation in design by talking about the murky nature of the origin of creative work. You are quite right that a lot of good has come from people stealing other people's design work; when people come up with something new and good, it is usually a good thing for others in the field to incorporate them into their own work. That's how we move forward. I mean, Reeder straight up copied the "pull to refresh" UI element from Tweetie. But, as in all things, there is a balance, and one can go too far. What the developers of MobileRSS did is not wrong because they copied, it is wrong because they only copied, and didn't make it better. They didn't incorporate good ideas from Reeder into their own, making something new and beautiful, but rather substituted Silvio's ideas for their own which is lazy and the opposite of good work. I know whose future development I want to support.
protomyth 16y ago
There is a big difference between using the same techniques and making a clone. This is repainting someone else's painting (badly) and passing it off as your original creative endevour. I have no problem with everyone using menus and palettes, but cloning does not advance anything.

Pent 16y ago

Why did ReadItLater feel that they needed to get their hands dirty and intervene? Now I have to use Instapaper.. sigh

Kylekramer 16y ago
Bad news: http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/17674488195850240 http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/17674488195850240 It is an interesting question. I mean, Reeder was clearly cloned pretty heavily, but kneecaping interoperability in retaliation seems like a dangerous road to head down.
- hallmark 16y ago
  When you are using the resources of an API, you are entering a community. And when you abuse another respected member of the community, it responds. These bookmarking services weren't cutting off a developer client to protect themselves, which I consider more dangerous. They were throwing their weight behind Reeder. Checks and balances.
macrael 16y ago
He laid out his reasons pretty clearly in his post about it: http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/12/a-quick-word-on-the-mobilerss-update/ http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/12/a-quick-word-on-the-...
- trotsky 16y ago
  Update: After speaking with a number of other developers, including Silvio from Reeder, I’ve decided that the best thing to do is re-enable MobileRSS’s API key.

kaptain 16y ago

Looks like a 'typical' Chinese operation. And look: they're hiring a GUI designer [高级美术设计师(GUI设计师)]! http://www.nibirutech.com/careers.html http://www.nibirutech.com/careers.html Why bother? Living here in China, one of the things that strikes me is that there is a complete disregard for the value of creative work. This is, of course a generalization, but for the most part, the education system here emphasizes rote learning. I've got a ton of thoughts/observations related to this (I attend a lower tier university here) but looking at the MobileRSS site, I'm reminded that great design demands taking risks and demands careful thought, neither of which is emphasized, culturally, here.

satoimo 16y ago

Would the Android developer community have reacted the same way?

A1kmm 16y ago

How many design elements which were unique to Reeder are actually in MobileRSS? Sure, there are similarities, but they are two software packages which do similar a task, on the same platform. Putting the platform specific stuff aside, they both have lots of similarities to other RSS reader software I've seen that most likely pre-dates them both. If I was an iPad user, and I learned that there was another (presumably less expensive) application with all the same features as one I was using, I would certainly bookmark it and consider switching next time I had to do a paid upgrade - so I suspect that Reeder just scored a major own goal.

m0nastic 16y ago
Did you click on the link? The side-by-side comparison is pretty damning. I think the similarities are way more apparent then just "similarities to other RSS reader software".
- A1kmm 16y ago
  Yes I did click on the link. The fact that the RSS stories displayed is irrelevant - that is data and not UI. Only looking at design elements: First screen shot: Black bar across the top - that is presumably from the OS so doesn't count. Overall layout: both have a navigation bar at the left (fairly standard for RSS readers), similar width (but there is probably an optimal width, and this may be it), the bar is a different colour but on the grey-black range in both cases (probably determined more by the platform). Both have a refresh toolbar button at the bottom - this placement is common for RSS feed readers. Some of the icons and icon placements are similar - how unique this is to the design depends on how common the icon placement is. It is certainly not a blatant copy with no changes, however - some of the positions have changed, and some icons seem to be different. In terms of the layout of the right-hand side pane with the content, that is completely different. The date is displayed differently, and is repeated on each story in Reeder. The bullet point layout is different, and the MobileRSS version has images. So it has some similar design elements, most of which are not particularly unique to Reeder, and some differences. They may well have taken some inspiration from their competitor, but they have also made some changes of their own - in other words, the article seems to be a beat-up of legitimate competition. I suspect the free publicity is probably going to end up helping MobileRSS more than it hinders them.