How is this a ripoff? I didn't follow the story but from what I see in the GH page, he's making an alternative to your currently closed-source solution.
So a startup takes a few lines of code from 37 Signals, modifies it for their layout and the web world is up in arms, but this guy takes Dustin's exact design and gives it away and it's not theft?
Maybe if he just took the idea, with the ideas/published and simplified writing screen, he may have a case, but this is clearly stealing the design.
(1) Apparently many people, including you, are up in arms about this too.
(2) It's pretty confirmed that a lot of our intuitions regarding "theft" require us to see "profit" as a component -- and therefore we are much less likely to see theft in a general design that has been open-sourced. Maybe the clearest way to see this is BSD's libedit, which replicates the GNU Readline library so that you can use it without selling your soul to Stallman. It's an idea rip-off, but it serves a very important charitable function. Startups trying to push product just seem more skeevy.
(3) It is also harder to see something as "theft" if it seems too simple. Nate said, "I whipped open terminal, typed in rails new obtvse, and a few hours later I'm here." That's pretty lightweight, if you're creating a fresh copy from an idea someone gave you.
Edit: (4) Also it's often harder to consider something theft when you cite your sources and say, "okay, this idea comes straight from X, who is awesome -- all credit to them please."
1. Not at all up in arms, just this this is a little hypocritical of the HN community.
2. I disagree, he's directly taken the fruits of someone elses' labour and given them away without permission. Copying the functionality and idea, I'm fine with, but he didn't "remake" the design like he did the functionality, he just remade the scripting aspect of it. The benefits you mention are functional benefits, and these could have been brought to the public without the near pixel perfect design.
3. I somewhat agree, however I could remake the design of any website without copying and pasting in a short time. It would take a short time because all the time that was spent designing it has been done by someone else.
4. Maybe slightly, but he took what someone else had produced without permission, at best this is a slightly scummy thing to do. He tweeted Dustin to let him know that he had done it, he could have just as easily asked. If Dustin had refused then he'd be free to make something which fulfils the same function, but isn't a clone.
For the record, I'm not sure exactly where I stand regarding IP, but I'm not talking from a legal perspective, just an ethical one, and I don't think this is ethical nor HN's praise of it.
I live in China, a country mocked for its cloning. If the Chinese had hand written the GroupOn site, for example, rather than copy/pasting it, most people who still think it's low. It seems to me more that people think that a) Dustin is a bit of a dick and b) open sourcing something means you can do whatever you like because it's for the good of humanity.
That hotlinking came up only later in the discussion. It definitely started with some of their pages having the same structure as some 37signal pages to great dismay of the community.
That is exactly what he did. Just because it's closed source doesn't mean it's fair to make an identical copy (in the interface and interaction design sense) that is free.
"theft" is so incorrect that you damage the credibility of your argument by using the term.
You have a social/emotional complaint: someone took your good idea (and kudos to you: it's a great idea!), and duplicated it. But it's recognized (and documented here) that you were the progenitor of the idea, and if you eventually open source the original, I can't see how this will "hurt" you. People have an innate sense of fairness, and duplicating ideas like this goes against it in a small way.
But it's not theft (or even copyright infringement), and by overreacting you are going to alienate people who would otherwise be sympathetic.
I'm not very well-versed in this type of stuff but I want to ask you an honest question: Is creating an open-source alternative to a closed-source software considered theft?
> Is creating an open-source alternative to a closed-source software considered theft?
No, never, as long as the open-source alternative doesn't actually copy any copyrightable material from the original (such as images or other data). And I don't see any signs of that here.
On the contrary, creating an open-source alternative to closed-source software is considered awesome.
In terms of design, yes. He didn't just make something that performs the same function. He took Dustin's ideas and visual design so directly that it might even legally count as copyright infringement. Since dcurtis's work is not licensed for this use, making a copy might not be legal. And since he wanted to keep it closed for a while, lifting all his hard work into your own project is not cool.
dcurtis is a professional designer. The amount of work that went into the design of the app was probably huge. If he's making his living as a designer, ripping off his design against his wishes could actually damage his business.
That's a faulty conclusion. Being a professional designer has no bearing on how much time you spend designing something.
In fact, you could assume the opposite: that, because he is a professional designer, it took him less time to design the app than it would've taken a "layman". (I'm not forgetting about the perfectionism of many designers, mind you)
It has incredible bearing. Let's presume it took him 1 hour to design the site. (It surely took dozens or hundreds, including modifications and improvements, but play along.) That 1 hour isn't just 1 hour. It's 1 hour, plus the 5 or 10 or 15 years he has spent living and breathing design, refining his abilities and sharpening his understanding of the craft. He can do a singular design faster than a "layman" because he has spent a significantly greater amount of time on Design in general.
Umm, yeah. It still took one hour of his time, regardless of how much experience he has. If someone rips of this idea, and he loses out, he has lost one hour of his time; not ten years.
I'm really not condoning the infringement here or trying to act as Captain Hindsight. But having shown something brilliant but closed to a community of interested and talented people, did you not partially expect this?
Sure, Dustin doesn't have the the trademarks for svbtle registered (yet), but completely ripping off someone else's work or defending the action is neither honorable nor moral.
You can't go around putting the Coke label on different fizzy beverages.
Svbtle is obviously popular for its brand. You are stealing its brand and using it for unintended purposes. The only value in what you've created is that it looks like Dustin's work.
Ripping that off wholesale diminishes the value of something Dustin work(ed/s) very hard to create and curate. Thousands of decisions went into that design. The design is a mark of quality.
