Hacker News India

by Veera • 16 years ago

151 90 16 years ago

plinkplonk5• 16 years ago

Already seen. Discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1908893

mayankaga• 16 years ago

This site is the by-product of the "hacker news meetup" we had this last Sunday in Bangalore. It all started with this thread - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1885605 Hope this helps Indian audience discover/ask issues faced by Indian startups in cities like Bangalore, Bombay, NCR..

aberkowitz• 16 years ago

I have mixed feelings about this secession from HN. It's great that there's a separate place for Indians to meet and talk, but I fear it may leach from the diverse culture here.

plinkplonk5• 16 years ago

I don't think you need to worry. Many Indian HN folks have no plan to join "HN India" (note the quotes).

I personally think this is a distasteful effort (specifically the use of the HN name for an independent site without permission vs just using the open source code), or at best a naive one, which will sputter along for a while and then die.The discussion so far on "HN India" is extremely sub par as compared to HN, and certainly not worth switching or even joining.

Imo, there isn't enough of a critical mass of India specific issues related to hacking/startups/programming etc sufficient to support a whole new community. Sure there are a few India specific issues but they'll be discussed to death in a few weeks and then the forum will stagnate. Discussion about programming/hacking/startups/other matters of intellectual interest are in general best done in a global context.

This is an unpopular view point amongst certain folks here in India(and I fully expect to be downvoted ;-)), but if they pull it off and create an ultra vibrant community, more power to them. I just don't see it happening. And as long as they are ripping off the HN Name (and brand) I won't even think of joining.

paraschopra• 16 years ago

I think it is a good effort. There are many India-specific issues that are not relevant to the whole of HN, even though many Indians may find it interesting.

yarapavan• 16 years ago

Yes, it would've been better if they haven't copied/modeled after HN. And am still not convinced of the idea that only India specific content should be posted/allowed in "HN India".

Do something original. HNI folks, may be you are tying to do a TEDx copy?

thevivekpandey• 16 years ago

Hey, you keep editing your post repeatedly. I posted a reply to your comment, and after a few minutes I saw that your post has been edited in a way that my reply to it was irrelevant. And then, it happened again. Kindly try to avoid this.

rams• 16 years ago

"Imo, there isn't enough of a critical mass of India specific issues related to hacking/startups/programming etc sufficient to support a whole new community." - So true !!! I have been thinking about this very topic for the last month or so.

thebootstrapper5• 16 years ago

"Discussion about programming/hacking/startups/other matters of intellectual interest are in general best done in a global context."

100% agree.

"This is an unpopular view point amongst certain folks here in India(and I fully expect to be downvoted ;-))"

Exactly I got down voted when i said "Its unnecessary"

sandGorgon• 16 years ago

I concur with your distaste for the domain name (@prateek - no use garnering such animosity. Just drop the name and pick something else - desihacker.in is available. you might even get some good press.)

But having a local technology discussion group might not be all that useless - let me explain.

There are other hi-tech communities in India, similar to HotHardware or Extremetech which are hugely popular in the community (e.g. http://www.erodov.com/forums/gigabyte-ga-x58a-ud9-review-ln2...). So this is not something that is of unproven relevance.

India has a chicken and egg problem in terms of programming intellectual prowess. The community is driven primarily by that which can lay down your daily supper - Java/JSP/VB/ASP . By virtue of the existing tech leadership pool, most innovation is driven from the west. And it takes a long time before the community takes root in India.

<begin rant> I blame the community for it. For instance, it would make far greater sense for the Linux community to try and hold their top level conferences in India - which could very well be their biggest customer base (the west is lost to the fruit seller already). Did you know Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. sell laptops with Ubuntu/Freedos preinstalled in India (off the shelf) ? </end rant>

Point being, I think India does need a sunrise period for its technology community to be shepherded in. Hacker News is definitely too advanced in its expectation of the community for... say a fresh-behind-the-ears college student in India.

This community might also be too Yank in its vernacular. Yes, there are a lot of Indians around, but we are all comfortable with the vernacular, prefer it even. That is definitely, definitely not true for most Indians who might feel completely alienated (especially the younger ones)

For all the other Indians, torn between feelings of loyalty and betrayal, I encourage to search out and mentor the fledgling community back home - they need your help so that eventually they can come here and start flaming!

kingsidharth• 16 years ago

No one is leaving HN, Just taking some India specific discussions there.

pocha• 16 years ago

Small disagreement. I am working on an initiative to create a platform to connect co-Founders. We floated the issue on various places in LinkedIn (the places are frequented globally). We got a good response, but I wanted to start with a local effort first. There was no India specific place where I could have floated the idea to get the feedback. Did that at Hacker News India & got the validation results. I think its a great place for people, not only to validate their idea inside India, but also to show-case their India-specific effort to Indian audience. There are numerous google-groups inside India that can help you, but the whole concept of karma, up-vote, down-vote is missing; for which I think I should thank Prateek whole-heartedly for the much needed initiative.

captain_mars• 16 years ago

As some others have said, I feel there is a need for a place to discuss India-specific issues. However, those issues will be irrelevant to most members of HN, so out of respect for the Signal-to-Noise ratio here, I don't post such threads.

In the past I've actually toyed with the idea of creating a website for Indian coders, but other projects got in the way.

However, I'm uncomfortable with the name chosen for this website (HNI), and won't be joining it unless it gets a new name.

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

This post talks about why we started this

http://hackernews.in/item?id=1

Thanks to PG and HN for the code and inspiration. Now only if I could get the latest code base :)

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

Can someone enlighten me about the downvotes? If you disagree, please reply back. I don't see my comment as offtopic/distasteful so I just don't see the point of downvoting

dschobel• 16 years ago

Even with the noblest of intentions, I don't know how proper it is to take the hackernews brandname for your own site. At the least I think you ought to consider putting a disclaimer on an 'about' page somewhere stating that you are not affiliated to HN and YC.

On a positive note, nice job! It looks like you're getting a bit of traction already.

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

Good point. I want to put the disclaimer but sadly I am not able to figure it out (since I don't know any lisp).

I am using this codebase - https://github.com/nex3/arc

If someone can tell me how to put a disclaimer in the footer, I will put it rightaway.

luckystrike2• 16 years ago

Just been on it for a day. The best thing so far has been that it gives me a chance to connect with hackers in India and discuss specific issues with them. Mailing lists just don't cut it when it comes to interacting with like minded folks on a number of subjects.

It cannot be a replacement for HN, but I hope it does become a useful (add-on) forum in its own right.

P.S. Yes, the site's name should ideally be something else.

srean12• 16 years ago

Is it only me who finds "Ask Prateek" tad conceited ? I am none too comfortable with the idea of helping oneself to someone else's work/brand unless it was expressly opened for that purpose. But then imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery.

It doesnt help much that the Indian software scene has a stronger reputation for copying than for innovating. And I am Indian. I have similar minor peeves about OSQA helping themselves to SO. But I take back my comments if the news.ycombinator src as well as the brand were indeed opened up for that purpose.

Edit: "Ask Prateek" is "Ask HNI" now, so I take back that part of my criticism.

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

The reason we are using the HN codebase is because it has been proven to work (socially and not just technically). Since this is a not a for profit initiative (no ads/links), there is no sense investing time in reinventing it when this just works.

srean12• 16 years ago

By that logic one can justify any form of plagiarism cant one ? I am more concerned about helping yourself to the brand without permission than about using the code as its on git.

It just reinforces the stereotype that Indian software scene is all about unauthorized copying of other people's ideas. I dont necessarily agree with the stereotype but things like this does not really help dispell it.

cj• 16 years ago

"Hacker News" as the name of this project seems rather disrespectful toward YC/pg.

For the sake of respect, I would consider renaming your project.

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

Sure. Is there a way to reach PG? I can email and check with him.

Also, I picked this name as we decided to put up HN India in a HN meetup and also because HN conveys our objective well. We are not running this for profit.

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

I found his email address in this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716244

I have written to him and will wait for his reply. Thanks for all the feedback.

ericd• 16 years ago

In a lot of cases, the problem with using someone else's trademark isn't that you're profiting off of it (though that's not great either) - it's the resulting brand dilution/confusion that results.

If I didn't know better, I would assume that Hacker News India was affiliated with the original, which is a problem. HN would then be affected by any actions of HNI going forward, and no trademark holder wants to be put in that situation.

I would strongly suggest finding a new name.

mkramlich3• 16 years ago

you really should pick a different name. even if you're legally allowed to use a snapshot of the HN codebase. Calling yourself HN India makes it sound like you're the official India branch of HN. There are already enough stereotypes about Asian folks making cheap clones/ripoffs of Western services or products that it's also not good to open yourself to that criticism as well, even if not necessarily warranted.

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

I'll comment here since this is the top comment. As I said below, I have emailed PG asking for his thoughts. Thanks for the feedback.

A point that I would like to make is that HN is non profit and so is HNI. So the analogy you give may not apply here.

vladd• 16 years ago

You're using PG's code in a trademarked/copyrighted environment (the domain is called exactly HackerNews). That's blatant copyright infringement, you should have gotten YC's permission before, not after the site went live. What you have done is illegal in both US and India.

You should respect the law and change the name or take the site offline until you receive appropriate permissions.

Please note that even licenses as GPL or MPL (that govern the Firefox code for example) give you permission to use the code, not the trademarks of the project. Ubuntu had to make a Linux package called "abrowser" ( https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+package/abrowser ) simply because Mozilla didn't agree with branding their modifications as "Firefox".

davidw• 16 years ago

Hacker News, as far as I can tell, belongs to Y Combinator, which is a Limited Liability Company, not a non-profit. It may be something of a loss-leader, but it does belong to a company.

srean12• 16 years ago

Why do you keep repeating "not for profit". As some have already mentioned, ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1913237 ) it does not make brand name abuse anymore acceptable. Financial profit is not the only thing, there are issues of "social profit" as well, and those have to be earned too.

Make no mistakes, I agree that its a great service. I would use it myself if the outstanding issues are resolved. But as I have said before, helping yourself to someone else's brand and work isn't very ethical regardless of its legal status. My views about that wont change even if pg agrees out of politeness.

kranner4• 16 years ago

How does being non-profit exonerate HN India from deliberate name-collision with HN?

mkramlich3• 16 years ago

Create a website this week called Google India. Make the UI look about the same as Google.com, but with a little different color scheme. Then send an email to Google's founders asking if it's okay. That's similar to what you're doing with HN India. :)

The situation is not exactly the same, because you did start with a code snapshot that PG made available to the public. However, it's generally considered bad form -- as well as confusing to visitors and search engines -- if you use a name that is extremely close to the original site's name.

Things would be different if you created something in a totally different medium, or if, as others have pointed out here, you first got explicit permission from PG and YC to do this. The site name "Hacker News", though it is composed of two generic English words, does now form a unique reference to a specific site that carries a certain cultural cachet and set of expectations. To "ride" that, without permission, is not a good idea, even if you can get away with it.

One good thing that may come of this, however, is the notion that perhaps there's enough demand to make PG consider adding a "sub-Reddit" like feature to the HN codebase. So folks like you who basically just want to not reinvent the feature set, and also want to address an approximate subset of the core HN readership -- where in this case the subset is Indians or India-ophiles, etc. -- could do so freely with explicit support and functionality that enables it.

revorad• 16 years ago

Why don't you just make a sub-reddit for this? If there is really such a huge demand for this, people will go there. That way you can focus on really trying to solve a problem for Indian hackers and avoid latching on to the HN brand.

SafdarIqbal• 16 years ago

Why not coin a name in Hindi?

rit• 16 years ago

Just to note:

I reserve judgement on the appropriateness of appropriating the Hacker News name---but please don't labor under the impression that you can use someone elses (c)/(r) as long as you aren't making money.

Aside from seeking permission---you really should add a footer stating you are not affiliated with Y Combinator etc etc.

ericHosick• 16 years ago

I won't comment on copyright infringement or anything of that nature.

However, I thought I might point out the irony of all of this. A "decent" definition of Hacker is "a programmer who breaks into computer systems in order to steal or change or destroy information as a form of cyber-terrorism" (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=hacker).

The irony comes when hackers get mad at other hackers hacking their hack.

I think this is called a cluster hack.

hnindia• 16 years ago

I also plan to launch reddit india. If someone complains I will try to look for the owners to check if they have any problems. NOTE: reddit india will be not-for-profit

nileshtrivedi• 16 years ago

Pick a different name. Also, to maintain high S/N ratio, ensure that only items specific to India are discussed there.

There are many issues that hackers/entrepreneurs would like to discuss which never get enough traction on global HN. This could be a good place for those items.

bluesnowmonkey• 16 years ago

"Global HN" isn't really global. It heavily emphasizes news from Silicon Valley.

thebootstrapper5• 16 years ago

Kudos to the efforts. But sorry to say, this is really unnecessary. There are hell a lot of hackers in Europe and there is no HN Europe.

Real Hackers in India I know few (over social networks) they don't talk.(You can't see them in foss.in )They just code.!

We are not there yet. so just code! <back to maintain the spaghetti code>

(Disclaimer: I'm a Indian. I'm not a hacker myself yet,I still work in a body shopping "Megacorp")

[Deleted] Few points as its reported as offending.My point is Programming / Hacking has to align with global context.

And in my personal experience I never found any good hackers in the local community, I have always founded them outside of it and I don't expect HNI will have them. If it does Im happy as well.

thebootstrapper5• 16 years ago

Huh down voted! I told my view "Real Hackers i know, I admire in India, just code". they don't or won't spend in such community not even high profiled foss.in. That's the truth."

Any way its just a number on site, keep 'em coming ;-)

mkramlich3• 16 years ago

I agreed with the substance of what you said, as it appears that many others in this thread do as well. Though I did not down vote you, I'm guessing that the quality of your English may have contributed to some down votes.

vankap• 16 years ago

I got really excited when I saw this on the front page only to realize that this is not an official sub-HN once I read the comments.

This is a good initiative but please call it something else.

yourbuddyrohan• 16 years ago

same here, some excitement vanished after finding out that this is not official HN. It will be good to call it something else to avoid any confusion.

M1573RMU74710N• 16 years ago

I think it's an interesting idea, but imho it's in rather poor taste to use the "Hacker News" branding without knowing if PG approves.

Whether or not the site is for profit is entirely irrelevant; it comes off as you trying to cash in on the work that PG et al have put into building up the HN brand. It's tantamount to stealing.

Not only that, but it might cause confusion.

I wish you good luck, but I hope you'll change the name or at least put up a disclaimer in an obvious place noting that you are not affiliated with Hacker News.

david927• 16 years ago

There's a lot of nay-saying here. I think the idea is great and the name is fine. (By the way, I would just ignore the advice here. Paul may love the name/idea or even simply not care. Until you hear otherwise, don't assume either way.)

HN has been hobbled by small restaurant syndrome. Paul has been loathe to add basic features, let alone extend it, for the same reason a restaurateur will maintain a small number of tables: because he or she likes the client base and extending it will jeopardize that. That's a completely valid reason.

But there's a huge opportunity here to extend this to really assist in driving innovation. Add to your site the missing basic features such as search, then extend it with free startup job listings, co-founder matching, etc. (All those HN spreadsheets? Implement them.) You would be doing a huge service to the Indian startup community, and that means a huge service to innovation in general.

srean12• 16 years ago

Given that Prateek has mentioned that he is unfamiliar with lisp/arc I do not think he intends to extend the code. But that would be great, particularly if such extensions are communicated upstream or released in the open.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1913505

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

Yes. I don't know lisp. But then that can change in the future right? :)

Also, there are other people who know already and can contribute

srean12• 16 years ago

@Prateekdayal It seems I cannot reply 3 levels deep. But if thats the intent all powers to you.

adrianwaj• 16 years ago

I agree, the name (and domain) is fine.

news.ycombinator.in would be a problem.

note: you might want to put in a disclaimer so as to dispel any possible confusion.

DanielRibeiro• 16 years ago

There is a HN api (http://api.ihackernews.com/). It is unnofficial, but pg allows it. Anyone can extend HN now.

ld503• 16 years ago

what about your HN experience has made you feel that the community here would not welcome india-related discussions?

i would love to hear about the issues, projects, and things in general that startup founders, hackers, techies, and tinkerers around the world have to deal with.

why slice by region?

as i see it you're segmenting across the wrong vertical. look at the stackexchange model: are they spinning off "stack exchange: china"/"stack exchange: india"? -no, its stack exchange: physics, stack exchange: math, etc. they're differentiating based on general subject matter. is that model something that could be replicated in the context of "all things hacker"? sure (hardware, software, gadgets, networking, cracking, blackhat/whitehat, security, etc). would it succeed? who knows.

prateekdayal10• 16 years ago

Stuff like maths, programming and physics are pretty universal. A problem in maths is a problem everywhere.

However things like payment gateways, local events, feedback on startups focused on Indian markets are not very global and may not interest a large majority of hackers here.

I never implied HN will not welcome such discussions or disapprove of it. I just feel (as others do too) that its hard for these discussions to get enough visibility here (for the reasons mentioned above).

inovica• 16 years ago

I don't think anyone here has any issues with you creating a site for the Indian community, I think most people disagree with your use of "Hacker News". Why don't you just create a site, call it something else and link to it from here? That's probably the better approach

ld503• 16 years ago

I think your argument about visibility is valid. Personally though I would rather see a /india added than a fork of the community here... and ultimately I think we would all benefit more from collective engagement (and perhaps some "technological adaptation"-- a la code pushes from pg/contribs) rather than divisive isolation (HN is niche enough already)

"However things like payment gateways, local events, feedback on startups focused on Indian markets are not very global and may not interest a large majority of hackers here."

I personally would love to read articles or posts on payment gateways, how they differ region by region, who controls what market, major players, how their systems work, how their businesses and pricing schemes work, highlights of their unique adaptations, or things certain providers are doing that set them apart or allow them to succeed in their particular market.

I think that's exactly the sort of discourse that should be taking place here; "what's hot in silicon valley" is great --and we get plenty of that-- but broader discussions on things like opportunities in emerging and rapidly growing markets should as well.

srean12• 16 years ago

I think there are genuine needs for something like HNI. For instance there was a thread there about good quiet coffee shops for hacking. Its very India specific and I would know the frustration where that thread comes from. I do not think that such threads would be very well received here at HN, in the sense that it is unlikely to float up to the front page.

Its the notion of helping oneself to the brand without earning it in anyway that I find disagreeable.

ld503• 16 years ago

"I think there are genuine needs for something like HNI."

i agree, however would not a /r/india work as well?

luckystrike2• 16 years ago

IMO, this new site could be helpful for the 'Startup Ecosystem' in India.

HN community has been absolutely wonderful all these years, but for startups every geographical region brings in its own set of challenges. If we need to spur on the innovation and startup culture in India, we would have to connect and help each other out whenever required.

For example, check out this link - http://hackernews.in/item?id=182

I never knew about some of these startups and especially who are the folks behind it. This thread would obviously have got lost had it been posted here.

I see the new site's value in setting up a platform for collaboration amongst hackers/entrepreneurs of India. It cannot replace HN for me, but can be a useful add-on forum.

intdev• 16 years ago

Let me start by saying that I am an Indian hacker. Forget the name. Even if you ignore the name, I personally do not like the idea of an "Indian HN clone". HN stands for something. It is a global close-knit community. It is as if you are forming your own group and sitting at a different table for lunch at school. What if every country sat on their own table? It is just going to result in unnecessary fragmentation.

Now, I understand that you are not moving away from HN and have created the site to discuss Indian specific issues, but I don't see what is stopping you from discussing those issues on HN itself. The site being an exact HN clone doesn't sit well with your good intentions. Add to that the fact that you are using the same name.

Sorry for generalizing, but IMHO, the global image of Indian hackers is not particularly good, and this sort of thing doesn't help. Personally I would suggest looking at some different means to solve the problems for which the clone was created. You have my respect for trying to take some initiative though.

MrMan• 16 years ago

I would also much rather that the existing HN community became more global, by including all Indian hackers/entrepreneurs. It doesn't do anyone much good to have people in the US and India isolated on their own websites does it? One of the things I have about US tech news discussions is how they ignore the rest of the world so often.

rick_20472• 16 years ago

Its been a day and the site is thriving, I am personally very enthusiastic. I do not know arc but that will change just so I can add some features to this site.

I urge anyone who is not considering joining to just go and at least see whats happening. You would be pleasantly surprised. And after that I am sure you would agree that many of those discussions would have sunk here to oblivion.

This is a great forum to meet indian hacker, especially if you are in banglore.

srean12• 16 years ago

Comments and sentiments like "Let them come in India and claim a trademark if it comes to that", doesn't quite encourage people to do what you are asking for.

A community, with a well entrenched reputation for cheap knock-offs, helps oneself to a brand without permission (that would be stealing) and then shows attitude about it.

There used to be an old joke about different countries coming together to show off their engineering prowess by improving a parent product originally from US (or Japan I do not remember). No one can figure out India's contribution. It turns out that they have stamped "made in India" to it.

HackerNewsIndia reinforces that very stereotype.

http://hackernews.in/item?id=555

rick_20472• 16 years ago

its a boot strapping community, what do you expect? I bet even HN had there shares of headaches.

frou_dh• 16 years ago

Have some class and don't copy the name without permission.

(channelling the sentiment of the recent Zed Shaw ruckus)

eiji• 16 years ago

1. It's a good sign, when people "try" to copy you.

2. It could increase the quality of the original.

indiejade• 16 years ago

Nice job guys. As Obama's trip to India demonstrated, India is (or rather will be) an emerging tech center, so it makes sense that it is ripe for its own version of Silicon Valley. Any online community that can facilitate the growth of its local physical economy is a good one.

Not sure I agree with all the negative comments here about the IP issues. After all, NewMogul.com was (is?) pretty much a clone of YC News here, but open to submission and discussion about more broad topics besides startups.

kang• 16 years ago

Hacking in India is a total different context. The west hacks because it's cool.(To increase the happiness.) The east hacks to solve a problem. (To reduce the sadness.)

Something like this is totally necessary, but this approach is very wrong. Its sad Pratik keeps mentioning 'profit' in terms of money. Glory to the name is enough a profit imo.

Lorin• 16 years ago

Since it's the same name, My personal concerned about possible separation of people whom would normally contribute good content and comments to HN proper.

Perhaps I'm off base because I don't know the way the site is set up, but are comments and articles shared between the sites in any way?

Also, more importantly, has there ever been a survey or statistics collection as to where contributers are geographically located?

Hacker News India

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