4 ms·

While I agree that the "lost income" argument is bunk, it's pretty clear that the code was copied. The number of excessive whitespace after a line of HTML is no

by Drakim 13y ago

While I agree that the "lost income" argument is bunk, it's pretty clear that the code was copied. The number of excessive whitespace after a line of HTML is not something you get "inspired" by, it's something you copypaste.

Xylakant 13y ago
Or something that happens by accident. I fully agree with you that it's probable that the HTML was copied, but it was substantially altered in any case. And I must admit that that's a crime that I'm guilty of as well and I doubt that there's any web developer out there that never did something alike, just as there is no designer out there that never copied an arrow-icon. My point is that the whole article smells of "we wanted to be insulted", name calling and call to action included. Writing a blog article to call out copying is the nuclear option, setting up a blog and writing a single article, just to play the nuclear option is just not warranted over such a minor case.
MichaelGG 13y ago
They mention a single space on a single line. Which, in the "stolen" version has removed the width=100%. Their evidence is not very good, and could even point in the opposite direction. Notice the different layout at the bottom (two lines of text instead of one centered), yet they call it "identical". Notice the extra classes added in the stolen version. As far as an extra space, it seems very plausible that whatever editing process resulted in a single extra space at the end of a line could have happened to two developers. I know in my own code, and I'm usually very careful, sometimes I end up with extra spaces that I only catch via diffs. If the "typo" had been something like "plu_s_icon", that'd be much stronger evidence. The result is much like you'd expect for someone copying the design (i.e., looking at the template and saying "we can do that"). It's possible someone did copypaste it, then changed the HTML and CSS, but that isn't what they're claiming.

by Drakim 13y ago

Xylakant 13y ago

Or something that happens by accident. I fully agree with you that it's probable that the HTML was copied, but it was substantially altered in any case. And I must admit that that's a crime that I'm guilty of as well and I doubt that there's any web developer out there that never did something alike, just as there is no designer out there that never copied an arrow-icon. My point is that the whole article smells of "we wanted to be insulted", name calling and call to action included. Writing a blog article to call out copying is the nuclear option, setting up a blog and writing a single article, just to play the nuclear option is just not warranted over such a minor case.

MichaelGG 13y ago

They mention a single space on a single line. Which, in the "stolen" version has removed the width=100%. Their evidence is not very good, and could even point in the opposite direction. Notice the different layout at the bottom (two lines of text instead of one centered), yet they call it "identical". Notice the extra classes added in the stolen version. As far as an extra space, it seems very plausible that whatever editing process resulted in a single extra space at the end of a line could have happened to two developers. I know in my own code, and I'm usually very careful, sometimes I end up with extra spaces that I only catch via diffs. If the "typo" had been something like "plu_s_icon", that'd be much stronger evidence. The result is much like you'd expect for someone copying the design (i.e., looking at the template and saying "we can do that"). It's possible someone did copypaste it, then changed the HTML and CSS, but that isn't what they're claiming.