7 ms·

While I'm generally sympathetic to the plight of people who have their work ripped off, I can't muster a sense of outrage here. Fact is, one guy cloned what wa

by cletus 15y ago

While I'm generally sympathetic to the plight of people who have their work ripped off, I can't muster a sense of outrage here. Fact is, one guy cloned what was a closed platform (that had been openly announced and displayed) based on the idea and screenshots alone in about 11 hours (based on the HN submission interval). If someone can do that--and does--you really haven't invented or created anything (substantive). This just leaves the issue of whether the design and the assets (CSS, images, etc) are substantive and have been used without permission. Based on other comments, there seems to be no issue of asset "theft". So does the minimalist design copy warrant outrage? Honestly, no. Someone has basically invented what amounts to a Wordpress theme. If dcurtis can create a scalable, reliable platform for hosting it then great. It worked well enough for Wordpress. Exclusivity and invite-only are time-honoured ways of scaling controllably and--let's be honest--creating hype and desire but if you're not ready for the copycats and it takes the copycats so little time that their HN submission makes it to the front page while yours is still there... that's your problem.

dangoldin 15y ago
I'd make a counterpoint. It probably took Dustin years to get to the skill level he's at now. Most of the work here was in the design and "ideation" stage rather than the CSS/HTML/JS. Once something is built it only requires the necessary tech skills to copy it. Reminds me of a story about Picasso: A woman asks Picasso to paint a painting of her, five minutes later there's a wonderful painting of her. When she asks Picasso how much she owes, he quotes her 5,000 francs. She's surprised by how much it is and tells him that it only took him 5 minutes. He responds with "No, it took me my entire life." This is an extreme comparison but I just want to highlight that there's a value to the experience that people have. As hackers we tend to underestimate that since we focus on the more visible tech skills.
- loceng 15y ago
  Sadly ideas aren't valued in the business world, only execution is promoted as the important part - so people trying to make profit can feel less guilty.
  - dangoldin 15y ago
    You can't really have success without both. The execution is a lot easier to see so there is definitely a bias towards that. Many successful have had both. You can make the case that Steve Jobs drove the Apple ideas but Tim Cook was the one who made sure the entire production chain was as efficiently run as possible.
- cletus 15y ago
  I take your point but let me offer a counter-counterpoint. :) The OP likewise spent his life (or some substantial part thereof) honing the skills required to do this (and do it in a short space of time) then give it away for free including source code. At that point you have to acknowledge either the significant charity of that act or the relatively small nature of the original idea (not to belittle or impugn dcurtis's abilities, motives or skills in any way). Look, I would take this as a relatively cheap entrepreneurial lesson: if your idea is extremely reproducible it can still be a business but you need to be first and you need to be ready to scale. Invite-only works for things that are hard to reproduce and/or have some kind of lock-in or network effect.
  - dangoldin 15y ago
    Fair enough and I see both sides. Execution of course matters but there is also value in being first and taking the right marketing approach. When building a product it's also important to consider the pricing, the marketing, etc since they will determine success or failure. Definitely a good lesson and that's why one needs to view the product with a wider perspective which should dictate the right strategy to take. It's a complicated issue without a clean or simple answer. Arguably this is why different people have different thoughts on the software patent issue. Most people have a very black and white view of it but there's a lot of nuance that makes the issue shades of gray. I also suspect the reaction would be entirely different (I think someone mentioned it in this thread) if Nate didn't open source it. I wonder why that's the case.
    - swiecki 15y ago
      >> Execution of course matters but there is also value in being first and taking the right marketing approach. I absolutely agree with you. I think for a lot of people, including myself, however, the best marketing approach would have been to say "check this out, I did something cool, and I've open sourced it." This is what dcurtis probably should have done. He didn't do any groundbreaking rails code, and there was very little value in having a new workflow of blogging exist only on his servers. I think the value of Nate open sourcing it is much higher than if he had just built a clone and kept it to himself. Basically, the community response supporting Nate is strong because he did something that benefits the community as a whole, where as dcurtis did something that benefited only himself and then shouted about it. That's my (pretty myopic and polemic) take on all this.
- itsmicks 15y ago
  I think with code, there are a million ways to clone something (...especially when you haven't seen the source) so it's harder for developers to understand what it feels like when you see someone copy your designs (to clarify, I'm speaking generally here.) Best allusion I can think of is joke stealing. A lot of work can go into a one liner. Does it matter if it took 5 seconds (or 11 hours in this case) to copy it? Fact is, if Dustin hadn't done anything innovative (ie, worth cloning), we wouldn't be having this conversation.
  - ynniv 15y ago
    Innovative and worth cloning are completely different standards. There is nothing at all innovative about what Dustin did. Someone else thought it would be nice to play around with, and made it. I am part of this conversation because it is about "theft", not because I think that either post is in itself notable. Let me make a better parallel: a lemonade stand. Dustin thought "wow, the weather is nice. I'd like some lemonade." He made some especially good lemonade, added a little cranberry, and wrote about how good it was. Someone else, who hadn't previously wanted lemonade thought, "hey, I would also like some lemonade. Hadn't thought of cranberry before, I wonder if that's any good..." And now we're having a conversation about how anyone who makes cranberry lemonade is stealing from Dustin.
    - etcet 15y ago
      Or rather Dustin made some cranberry lemonade but only for himself and his friends. Dustin posted a picture of him and his friends enjoying this lemonade together and Nate sees this and thinks it's sad that Dustin is so stingy with his great lemonade. So Nate makes his own lemonade that's really similar and shares the recipe with everyone and invites them to make it better. Now, everyone can make, mix and enjoy their own lemonade - and it is good.
    - itsmicks 15y ago
      I think our respective metaphors for the situation show we're coming from different places -- I'm definitely biased towards the design because I think it solves a functional problem rather than just adding a dash of zest. Appreciate your thoughts and perspective, ynniv. Now to buy some lemonade...
- Argorak 15y ago
  Thats a nice story. But it misses the point: what if an equally good painter sat next to picasso, came up with a similar painting in another 5 minutes and gave it to the woman for free (maybe hes angered by picasso and love free art), how would picasso react? We don't know.
  - michael_fine 15y ago
    But what if the other painter, seeing Picasso's painting, painted another, not based off of the woman, but based off of Picasso's painting? Would that be considered theft?
    - Argorak 15y ago
      It would be considered theft if the other painter hopped over to picasso, took the origial picture and handed it to the woman. To add some spice to the scene, maybe he hits picasso in the process, which would add assault. But, as many others have pointed out: copyright violations are not theft. But as the story is not about copyright, but about perceived entitlement, its also completely irrelevant.
- __mharrison__ 15y ago
  Wasn't it Picasso who said "Good artists copy, great artists steals"? Is this good or great?
obilgic 15y ago
Long story short, curtis's idea-invention was not the design or the bloging engine itself, his unique idea was to create an interesting and exclusice bloging network. In that sense, noone really cloned his idea and he is still free to execute it. On the other hand, we just witnessed what bad-marketing could cause, especially if your target customer-users are smart people like HN readers. You need to be carefull about every word you use to market your product.
Confusion 15y ago
I have the distinct impression that the people supporting Curtis's point of view are mostly designers, while those supporting your point of view are mostly programmers. Let's attempt an analogy to bring these worlds together. You need an algorithm to process some specific data faster than any generic off-the-shelf algorithm can. Something like this: [1]. You post the results to HN, explaining exactly what you came up with as a result of 10 years of experience and 2 days of solid thinking on the subject. It actually turned out to be possible in relatively little code. You haven't implemented it yet, but intend to. 11 hours later, someone has already implemented and open sourced it. People argue you aren't being ripped off: after all, if someone can do that in so little time, "you haven't really invented or created anything (substantive)". I would disagree with such an appraisal: it's your experience that made it possible for you to come up with this solution. That someone can implement it in a couple of hours once explained, does not reduce the value of the solution. You could probably charge an employer $10K for this expert solution, independent of how long it took you to come up with it. It's the same with expert designs. Once they are shown to you, they are obvious. It's coming up with them, and fine-tuning them, that's the hard part. Now I'm not arguing that this is instance of expert design (I wouldn't recognize it if I were slapped with it) and I'm not arguing anything about this specific case (and I specifically do not think it is relevant to argue about whether you lose rights by publishing a design/solution). I'm merely arguing that the general argument that gets thrown around here just seems wrong and insufficiently appreciative of how hard it is to properly design something. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3716458 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3716458
- cletus 15y ago
  > I have the distinct impression that the people supporting Curtis's point of view are mostly designers, while those supporting your point of view are mostly programmers. I can't give an authoritative answer to that hypothesis but my sense is that while it won't be absolutely true there probably (IMHO) is some (probably even significant) correlation. You'll note I raised the question of whether the design itself (in concept) is substantive. I don't think it's clear cut (either way) but my opinion is largely "no". > 11 hours later, someone has already implemented and open sourced it. Here I think it is clear cut. An algorithm is nothing more than a mathematical formula (with or without heuristics), as much as the US court system seems to not understand. If you describe in English how to that formula works to the point that someone can reproduce it then you've already given it away. The actual implementation is nothing more than details. I suspect you're right: designers will be outraged and see this as theft. Programmers won't. I see the true value of this in the platform and the tooling not the aesthetics. IMHO there are good reasons why design is largely work-for-hire.
andrewheins 15y ago
Explain to me how this is substantially different than a musician writing a piece of music, someone else taking the sheet music and going on tour with it. By supporting Obtvse, you're stating that a composer's work (the act of creating beautiful music) has no value. I honestly don't understand how someone can say that stealing a design is fine but code isn't. I'm extremely disappointed with the reaction of the HN community on this, and even more concerned about how designers will look at our community moving forward. Why would any designer participate if they know the community believes their work has no value?
- tomkr 15y ago
  It's different because he did not take the sheet music. He heard the recording and decided to play his own version of it. Music may well be the worst example here, because it happens all the time. Now I'm not sure with regards to the financial side of performing a cover (rather than recording it), but at least in a casual context it happens for free.
  - sherwin 15y ago
    I think there's actually a surprisingly good analogy to music here: those "play X on the guitar" tutorials. The original artist plays the song, someone else hears it, figures out how to play it by ear, then offers to teach it (probably their own version/interpretation of the song) for free. Similarly, the OP saw a design, figured out how to code it up himself, and decided to share it with the world.

by cletus 15y ago

dangoldin 15y ago

I'd make a counterpoint. It probably took Dustin years to get to the skill level he's at now. Most of the work here was in the design and "ideation" stage rather than the CSS/HTML/JS. Once something is built it only requires the necessary tech skills to copy it. Reminds me of a story about Picasso: A woman asks Picasso to paint a painting of her, five minutes later there's a wonderful painting of her. When she asks Picasso how much she owes, he quotes her 5,000 francs. She's surprised by how much it is and tells him that it only took him 5 minutes. He responds with "No, it took me my entire life." This is an extreme comparison but I just want to highlight that there's a value to the experience that people have. As hackers we tend to underestimate that since we focus on the more visible tech skills.

loceng 15y ago
Sadly ideas aren't valued in the business world, only execution is promoted as the important part - so people trying to make profit can feel less guilty.
- dangoldin 15y ago
  You can't really have success without both. The execution is a lot easier to see so there is definitely a bias towards that. Many successful have had both. You can make the case that Steve Jobs drove the Apple ideas but Tim Cook was the one who made sure the entire production chain was as efficiently run as possible.
cletus 15y ago
I take your point but let me offer a counter-counterpoint. :) The OP likewise spent his life (or some substantial part thereof) honing the skills required to do this (and do it in a short space of time) then give it away for free including source code. At that point you have to acknowledge either the significant charity of that act or the relatively small nature of the original idea (not to belittle or impugn dcurtis's abilities, motives or skills in any way). Look, I would take this as a relatively cheap entrepreneurial lesson: if your idea is extremely reproducible it can still be a business but you need to be first and you need to be ready to scale. Invite-only works for things that are hard to reproduce and/or have some kind of lock-in or network effect.
- dangoldin 15y ago
  Fair enough and I see both sides. Execution of course matters but there is also value in being first and taking the right marketing approach. When building a product it's also important to consider the pricing, the marketing, etc since they will determine success or failure. Definitely a good lesson and that's why one needs to view the product with a wider perspective which should dictate the right strategy to take. It's a complicated issue without a clean or simple answer. Arguably this is why different people have different thoughts on the software patent issue. Most people have a very black and white view of it but there's a lot of nuance that makes the issue shades of gray. I also suspect the reaction would be entirely different (I think someone mentioned it in this thread) if Nate didn't open source it. I wonder why that's the case.
  - swiecki 15y ago
    >> Execution of course matters but there is also value in being first and taking the right marketing approach. I absolutely agree with you. I think for a lot of people, including myself, however, the best marketing approach would have been to say "check this out, I did something cool, and I've open sourced it." This is what dcurtis probably should have done. He didn't do any groundbreaking rails code, and there was very little value in having a new workflow of blogging exist only on his servers. I think the value of Nate open sourcing it is much higher than if he had just built a clone and kept it to himself. Basically, the community response supporting Nate is strong because he did something that benefits the community as a whole, where as dcurtis did something that benefited only himself and then shouted about it. That's my (pretty myopic and polemic) take on all this.
itsmicks 15y ago
I think with code, there are a million ways to clone something (...especially when you haven't seen the source) so it's harder for developers to understand what it feels like when you see someone copy your designs (to clarify, I'm speaking generally here.) Best allusion I can think of is joke stealing. A lot of work can go into a one liner. Does it matter if it took 5 seconds (or 11 hours in this case) to copy it? Fact is, if Dustin hadn't done anything innovative (ie, worth cloning), we wouldn't be having this conversation.
- ynniv 15y ago
  Innovative and worth cloning are completely different standards. There is nothing at all innovative about what Dustin did. Someone else thought it would be nice to play around with, and made it. I am part of this conversation because it is about "theft", not because I think that either post is in itself notable. Let me make a better parallel: a lemonade stand. Dustin thought "wow, the weather is nice. I'd like some lemonade." He made some especially good lemonade, added a little cranberry, and wrote about how good it was. Someone else, who hadn't previously wanted lemonade thought, "hey, I would also like some lemonade. Hadn't thought of cranberry before, I wonder if that's any good..." And now we're having a conversation about how anyone who makes cranberry lemonade is stealing from Dustin.
  - etcet 15y ago
    Or rather Dustin made some cranberry lemonade but only for himself and his friends. Dustin posted a picture of him and his friends enjoying this lemonade together and Nate sees this and thinks it's sad that Dustin is so stingy with his great lemonade. So Nate makes his own lemonade that's really similar and shares the recipe with everyone and invites them to make it better. Now, everyone can make, mix and enjoy their own lemonade - and it is good.
  - itsmicks 15y ago
    I think our respective metaphors for the situation show we're coming from different places -- I'm definitely biased towards the design because I think it solves a functional problem rather than just adding a dash of zest. Appreciate your thoughts and perspective, ynniv. Now to buy some lemonade...
Argorak 15y ago
Thats a nice story. But it misses the point: what if an equally good painter sat next to picasso, came up with a similar painting in another 5 minutes and gave it to the woman for free (maybe hes angered by picasso and love free art), how would picasso react? We don't know.
- michael_fine 15y ago
  But what if the other painter, seeing Picasso's painting, painted another, not based off of the woman, but based off of Picasso's painting? Would that be considered theft?
  - Argorak 15y ago
    It would be considered theft if the other painter hopped over to picasso, took the origial picture and handed it to the woman. To add some spice to the scene, maybe he hits picasso in the process, which would add assault. But, as many others have pointed out: copyright violations are not theft. But as the story is not about copyright, but about perceived entitlement, its also completely irrelevant.
__mharrison__ 15y ago
Wasn't it Picasso who said "Good artists copy, great artists steals"? Is this good or great?

obilgic 15y ago

Long story short, curtis's idea-invention was not the design or the bloging engine itself, his unique idea was to create an interesting and exclusice bloging network. In that sense, noone really cloned his idea and he is still free to execute it. On the other hand, we just witnessed what bad-marketing could cause, especially if your target customer-users are smart people like HN readers. You need to be carefull about every word you use to market your product.

Confusion 15y ago

I have the distinct impression that the people supporting Curtis's point of view are mostly designers, while those supporting your point of view are mostly programmers. Let's attempt an analogy to bring these worlds together. You need an algorithm to process some specific data faster than any generic off-the-shelf algorithm can. Something like this: [1]. You post the results to HN, explaining exactly what you came up with as a result of 10 years of experience and 2 days of solid thinking on the subject. It actually turned out to be possible in relatively little code. You haven't implemented it yet, but intend to. 11 hours later, someone has already implemented and open sourced it. People argue you aren't being ripped off: after all, if someone can do that in so little time, "you haven't really invented or created anything (substantive)". I would disagree with such an appraisal: it's your experience that made it possible for you to come up with this solution. That someone can implement it in a couple of hours once explained, does not reduce the value of the solution. You could probably charge an employer $10K for this expert solution, independent of how long it took you to come up with it. It's the same with expert designs. Once they are shown to you, they are obvious. It's coming up with them, and fine-tuning them, that's the hard part. Now I'm not arguing that this is instance of expert design (I wouldn't recognize it if I were slapped with it) and I'm not arguing anything about this specific case (and I specifically do not think it is relevant to argue about whether you lose rights by publishing a design/solution). I'm merely arguing that the general argument that gets thrown around here just seems wrong and insufficiently appreciative of how hard it is to properly design something. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3716458 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3716458

cletus 15y ago
> I have the distinct impression that the people supporting Curtis's point of view are mostly designers, while those supporting your point of view are mostly programmers. I can't give an authoritative answer to that hypothesis but my sense is that while it won't be absolutely true there probably (IMHO) is some (probably even significant) correlation. You'll note I raised the question of whether the design itself (in concept) is substantive. I don't think it's clear cut (either way) but my opinion is largely "no". > 11 hours later, someone has already implemented and open sourced it. Here I think it is clear cut. An algorithm is nothing more than a mathematical formula (with or without heuristics), as much as the US court system seems to not understand. If you describe in English how to that formula works to the point that someone can reproduce it then you've already given it away. The actual implementation is nothing more than details. I suspect you're right: designers will be outraged and see this as theft. Programmers won't. I see the true value of this in the platform and the tooling not the aesthetics. IMHO there are good reasons why design is largely work-for-hire.

andrewheins 15y ago

Explain to me how this is substantially different than a musician writing a piece of music, someone else taking the sheet music and going on tour with it. By supporting Obtvse, you're stating that a composer's work (the act of creating beautiful music) has no value. I honestly don't understand how someone can say that stealing a design is fine but code isn't. I'm extremely disappointed with the reaction of the HN community on this, and even more concerned about how designers will look at our community moving forward. Why would any designer participate if they know the community believes their work has no value?

tomkr 15y ago
It's different because he did not take the sheet music. He heard the recording and decided to play his own version of it. Music may well be the worst example here, because it happens all the time. Now I'm not sure with regards to the financial side of performing a cover (rather than recording it), but at least in a casual context it happens for free.
- sherwin 15y ago
  I think there's actually a surprisingly good analogy to music here: those "play X on the guitar" tutorials. The original artist plays the song, someone else hears it, figures out how to play it by ear, then offers to teach it (probably their own version/interpretation of the song) for free. Similarly, the OP saw a design, figured out how to code it up himself, and decided to share it with the world.