Codename: Obtvse

As a designer, I find it somewhat perplexing that people here demand that code be directly copied for something like this be wrong. Design is more abstract than code, yes, but it's just as fundamental a part of the resulting product.

Copying design, especially when the original source is so obvious, has damaging effects that are hard to quantify. Poor clones can directly damage the creation of a strong original brand and can preempt future creative product positioning. Because it is not user facing, identically copied code--when the design has been changed--has no such effects. Why do so many people believe that only copying code should be considered wrong when design has the potential to be more damaging? To me, they are both equally wrong.

Great artists steal. Please steal my ideas. Take them, manipulate them, and build them into something that is your own. I wouldn't have publicized my new platform if I didn't expect the ideas to be used. Just please don't copy my implementation or designs. I need those things to be sacred so I can craft experiences that are not diluted by external factors.

nwienert14• 14 years ago

The work is all original, no code or images were copied.

As I stated in my post, I'll be changing my personal design shortly.

dcurtis3• 14 years ago

If you precisely replicated the New York Times website and posted one called The Old Vork Times, do you think they wouldn't care?

This is not original. You copied my design work.

kellysutton2• 14 years ago

I am not one to start arguments online, but I believe you should double-check your definition of original or buy a new dictionary.

2muchcoffeeman• 14 years ago

You really should never have copied the design at all. That is not even where most of the value of Curtis's idea is...

marcedwards• 14 years ago

You've deliberately recreated someone's work with the intention of offering a competing product. Legalities aside, it's pretty damn rude. Yes, it's a rip-off. (I don't use that phrase lightly and I'm usually all for remixing, which this isn't.)

tomelders• 14 years ago

It's behaviour like this that leads people/companies to seek the protection of software patents.

Thanks for totally muddying the water, crossing the line, breaking an unwritten rule and not being a "team player".

You quite simply suck.

syaz12• 14 years ago

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.

dcurtis3• 14 years ago

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.

danoprey2• 14 years ago

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.

appleflaxen4• 14 years ago

No more of a ripoff than Windows Metro is a ripoff of the iPhone OS.

If you open source your version, this will not detract from it. And if you don't, then this gives folks something to use.

davidw6• 14 years ago

If he's using your code, you have something to say, otherwise, not really, thankfully. I don't want to live in a world where SCO wins, or Apple puts the kibosh on Microsoft for creating an interface with icons and windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso...

I think you should calm down, take a deep breath, accept the compliment, and see how you can work together. It sounds like he'd be happy to help you make it 'ready' faster.

sp3329• 14 years ago

That's not true. Making a "new" version of something that is intentionally a copy of something else is copyright infringement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Internal_audit Only clean-room reverse engineering is good enough to avoid copyright claims in the US.

molf2• 14 years ago

Under European law this would be copyright infringement on account of copying the design. Don't believe it holds in the US, but I'm not 100% sure.

gryzzly• 14 years ago

there is something called "ethics" and "politeness". when you choose companions and collaborators, these are quite important values, obviously, the guy haven't heard of these words and obviously working with a person like that is not fun, you will then feel ashamed when he does something like this as a part of your team.

ugh• 14 years ago

Something doesn't have to be illegal to be morally reprehensible. It's perfectly alright to think that copying a design should be legal and to still believe that it is morally wrong.

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that when someone displays displeasure with something, they want it to be illegal. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's good.Just because it's not good doesn't mean it should be illegal.

necolas• 14 years ago

> Just wait until Svbtle is finished and open to the public.

Does that mean it will be open to _anyone_ and no longer only to people considered to be "intelligent, creative, and witty"?

lewispb• 14 years ago

Superheroes don't cry in public.

drewblaisdell3• 14 years ago

How different would you say his parody of your site is than your site is of http://drawar.com/ ?

rdl• 14 years ago

I'd even prefer Drawar, if they didn't stretch video objects beyond the implied margins of posts.

manmal4• 14 years ago

I like Dustin's design better, but DAMN.. he clearly borrowed from there :) I don't see a problem here, and I would feel flattered if I were Dustin (or Paul Scrivens).

willvarfar9• 14 years ago

I don't see it; the whole workflow - draft to publish columns and such - is the same at drawar, or?

nwienert14• 14 years ago

Dustin, I still stand by the original work. Notice I've changed three things on the site: a slightly grey header, non-bordered links, and a square logo.

Also it was FAR from a pixel-for-pixel exact duplication. Spacing around the site is still different, as is the font and font sizing.

I think you should realize you overreacted a bit. It was simply an experiment and a way to give back to the community.

doe88• 14 years ago

And you should realize that you took Dustin's idea, whereas he probably thought about it for a long time, and you in 5mn you make a snapshot, modify few colors, change the font and declare it's your "personnal design" now. What a shame. And I'm not a Dustin's fan, few hours ago when I read his disclaimer for svbtle saying that it was for genius people blah blah blah. I told myself "what a d*", but I also thought that the design of his site is brillant.

joshmz3• 14 years ago

doe88: thats how economy and innovation works dude. people see stuff, they like it, they make it better (or different).

these discussions only happen for it products. can't see mr. porsche complaining about enzo ferrari (when still alive... yea. those were the days!).

54mf15• 14 years ago

You're kidding, right?

http://briefmobile.com/images/articles/galaxy-s-vs-iphone.jp...

You are on the left.

irahul6• 14 years ago

> Please take this site down and delete the Github repository. The work isn't yours.

Any semi-competent programmer can reproduce it within a day or two(the OP did it in a shorter span of time). That won't help, and you aren't entitled to what you think you are.

And the work is totally his. The design was too similar, but still, its his work. He didn't steal your css or images, and though you might feel rough about it, it doesn't make it theft as you are putting it again and again.

> Just wait until Svbtle is finished and open to the public. The reason it's closed is really simple: it's not ready yet.

Great for people who want to blog on Svbtle. If I don't and I like the idea, I am going to implement it and use it. I am glad we don't live in a world where you or anyone else can stop me from doing it.

The hard part was coming up with the original concept and design - kudos to you for the great work. Reproducing it is easy, and I don't think you have any right to stop me from doing it.

As another commenter pointed out, we don't actually want a world where Apple says MS stole its windows.

54mf15• 14 years ago

If I paint Starry Night from scratch, entirely by myself, it's not my work. It's a rip-off.

DanielStraight4• 14 years ago

It honestly perplexes me how you can in the same breath admit that someone has done hard work and imply that you owe them nothing for using it.

I realize this is not the mainstream HN view. Accepted wisdom says if you can copy something, than you may copy it. But I just don't get it. If you value someone's work, I think you owe them some form of compensation.

There's a line I read on 1001 Rules For My Unborn Son, "If a street performer makes you stop walking, you owe him a buck." I tend to agree with this, both literally and metaphorically.

I agree that good ideas shouldn't be trapped or left to wither in isolation when they could benefit society at large. I just think this has to be tempered with some form of compensation to the person who introduced the idea.

But I'm open to being convinced otherwise if anyone has a good argument to the contrary.

robbiemitchell• 14 years ago

Why was it announced if it isn't ready yet? Reminds me of the way lifepath.me was treated. Not sure what the pre-announcing accomplishes if your goal is to ship things people can use.

appleflaxen4• 14 years ago

on your edit: pixel-for-pixel? Are you kidding? That would be hard to do in an html document even if it was your goal.

Not only that, but I saw the original, and it wasn't.

You have inverted the moral terrain, and you are now going to have to defend your own credibility / honesty when you are leveling those same accusations at someone else.

joshmz3• 14 years ago

but think about the children! ;)

ErrantX3• 14 years ago

It's hardly the most complex of designs; looking at this and comparing it to yours, he inherits the basic layout (which isn't really revolutionary) but doesn't have the complexity and flashiness - which seems to me the critical portion of the design.

As to writing it.. you made a fairly big splashy announcement about this great new concept in blogging, and then made it invitation only. That's guaranteed to get push back from the community, especially one that considers ideas only good for execution!

It seems fairly simple to implement - you might claim some moral ownership of the concept, but that probably won't hold up well, either, in this community.

This is community that lives on the maxim of "release early and iterate", we're not always looking for a slick finished product. So now you have competition; may the best product win!

(It may seem cruel, Dustin, but you do have an attitude - and that seems to have grated on people. So, maybe this gives you an experience of the same feeling. Just saying.)

EDIT: Dustin's edited response is interesting; as a programmer I probably don't set as much store by the elements of design as he (naturally) does - simple things don't represent a creative element, to me in the same way. Which is interesting food for thought.

Hopefully Nate will continue to move his design away from Dustin's

sp3329• 14 years ago

Edit: If you're talking about the changed version this morning, check out the screenshots at the bottom to see what dcurtis was mad about.

Basic layout? Also the color scheme, font hierarchy, whitespace around elements (which is a critical portion of the design), and basically every trick dcurtis used to draw the eye and maintain the mental flow of the app.

fruchtose• 14 years ago

> As to writing it.. you made a fairly big splashy announcement about this great new concept in blogging, and then made it invitation only. That's guaranteed to get push back from the community, especially one that considers ideas only good for execution!

I think you've captured the essence of why some HN readers think Dustin had this coming, so to speak. The act of making the system exclusive is abrasive to so many hackers, where information is free to all, and the modifiers of this information are those with the recognizable merit to affect it. Dustin released his project in a Bizarro world version of the open source process, where information is chained and those granted access are selected in private, with no transparency of the criteria.

In fact, I would say Dustin did have it coming. That's what open source tends to do, like it or not. You only have to look back at the most popular proprietary systems of note to see that hackers love to imitate these products, if not downright replace them. Unix? Linux. Microsoft Office? LibreOffice. TiVo? MythTv. Hell, there's even a SimCity imitation called LinCity! The jackals, as Nolan Bushnell called them, are out in force--and if you haven't noticed, that's the way things have been for the last 30 years. It was inevitable that Svbtle would be "liberated". What's actually amazing is that this time it only took ten hours.

Now, if I were Dustin, I would likely be offended that my code had been reverse-engineered so closely. If I presented my code with the attitude that it is better than sliced bread, yeah, I would definitely feel wronged by my design being copied. I can sympathize with that. But I can't sympathize with the bubble in which Svbtle was presented. It came off as pretentious. There's no room for that in this day and age. And I'm not saying that Dustin Curtis deserved to have his design imitated because he was pretentious, oh no. I'm saying that he should not be so surprised that it happened. Curtis's attitude led to an imitation surfacing in such short time. Dustin's attitude affected Nate on an emotional level--and that's what brings out the jackal in open source hackers.

obilgic7• 14 years ago

It is too late for changing your altitude ! The most important thing was your initial reaction, and you failed to handle this.

irahul6• 14 years ago

> As a designer, I find it somewhat perplexing that people here demand that code be directly copied for something like this be wrong. Design is more abstract than code, yes, but it's just as fundamental a part of the resulting product.

Design is a fundamental part of the product - no body is contesting it. Personally I am taking exception to your exclusivity expectations. I have given it a lot of thought, and I believe the current optimum is he can rip off your design and only thing you can do about it is feel outraged. The alternative is scary - if this sort of exclusivity requirements are enforced, Apple would shutdown MS over supposedly copying windows and Android over copying "swipe to unlock".

> Copying design, especially when the original source is so obvious, has damaging effects that are hard to quantify. Poor clones can directly damage the creation of a strong original brand and can preempt future creative product positioning.

That's how free market works.

> Please steal my ideas. Take them, manipulate them, and build them into something that is your own. I wouldn't have publicized my new platform if I didn't expect the ideas to be used. Just don't copy my implementation or designs.

I can choose to play nice, or I can rip you off wholesale. As long as I am within the realms of law, it's fair game. You might not like it, but it's better than the alternatives where you can dictate what I can and can not do just because you did something first.

wglb• 14 years ago

But then there is this: http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html

yummyfajitas4• 14 years ago

Perhaps I overreacted.

Takes a lot to admit this, especially publicly. Hopefully if I find myself in a similar situation, I'll do the same thing, and in less than an hour after my initial reaction.

If HN had Kudos buttons, I'd hover my mouse over yours for a few seconds.

m_for_monkey• 14 years ago

Please don't do the same. I mean, apologizing is OK, but don't delete the original post, especially if there are twenty replies to it.

jeremymims• 14 years ago

I honestly can't remember the last time a fellow HN user put together an unfinished project, wrote a blog post demonstrating the ideas behind the project, and then had his work so shamelessly ripped off on the very day it was created!

To see the HN community defending this is really sad.

Dustin himself had asked people not to copy his work and that he was releasing it publicly:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742596

It's bullshit like this that discourages good ideas from being shared.

naryad• 14 years ago

> Just please don't copy my implementation or designs. I need those things to be sacred so I can craft experiences that are not diluted by external factors.

I don't understand how reusing/copying something finely done reduce its sacredness/sanctity.

raldi• 14 years ago

Yeah, sounds disturbingly like the people looking to "protect marriage" in America.

waxjar• 14 years ago

Can someone copy-paste what was originally here? This discussion thread makes no sense at all.

gyardley• 14 years ago

I could be wrong, but I suspect the legitimacy or illegitimacy of copying design is a red herring here.

Perhaps svbtle's invite-only status made people feel like outsiders, perhaps something you've done in the past rubbed someone the wrong way - either way, I suspect the personal dislike comes first and the justification for the action comes second. If the design of a much-beloved figure here was stolen, I suspect the reaction and the arguments in the thread would be very different.

Stanley Fish wrote an interesting opinion piece recently about this impulse, applied to politics:

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/two-cheers...

stravid3• 14 years ago

Copying my comment from dcurtis thread:

You say "In fact, it goes against the very ethos of Hacker News.", do you think your action aligns with the "ethos of Hacker News"? Do you think it's okay to rip-off something just because you think it shouldn't be invite only?

nwienert14• 14 years ago

Never said the motivation was because it was invite-only, I just wanted something similar so I created it. I've modified it somewhat, is it still a "rip-off"? Let me know how much more I should modify it before it isn't a "rip-off".

stravid3• 14 years ago

If you look at both versions it should be clear what I mean with rip-off. I don't care if you implement the "ideas panel" or whatever yourself.

But if I you take the design and make your version look the same, then it's a rip-off. Yes, you modified it. But please put both versions next to each other and tell me they don't look like each other. As long as you don't have an original design it's a rip-off for me.

davidw6• 14 years ago

I think you should aim for this kind of look to make it clear that you're doing something different:

http://bobcargill.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/geocities-izer...

masklinn3• 14 years ago

Considering https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3435416

Yes?

stravid3• 14 years ago

There is a difference between taking an idea and a design. Put the versions next to each other and tell me they don't look like the same.

bryanbibat• 14 years ago

And considering Hacker News is based off Reddit...

drewblaisdell3• 14 years ago

Not to pass any judgment on this issue either way, but is there any way in which this situation is not almost identical to the visitor.js/session.js situation a few months back?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3435416

hv23• 14 years ago

Also not passing judgment, but here's a comment from that thread that might be relevant here:

"I'm super impressed you turned this out so quickly. I think that really sums up the spirit in the HN community... When you look at something that seems overpriced (or wrongly-priced) and you say "hey, I bet I could do this""

DanBC5• 14 years ago

If we're "just sayin'" there's another quote from the same thread:

> But the fact is - they created something and shared it here. If you think you can do a better job at it - fine, but why haven't you done it before, or at the very least named it differently. I don't mean to exaggerate, but it just doesn't feel ethical to me.

jawr• 14 years ago

That reminded me of pg's start.html:

"It's very dangerous to let anyone fly under you. If you have the cheapest, easiest product, you'll own the low end. And if you don't, you're in the crosshairs of whoever does."

VMG2• 14 years ago

I'm fascinated by the fact that this topic is so close to Copyright/RIAA/MPAA, but the discussion is wildly different.

It is hard to tell if all the people who jump to the defense of Curtis are also defenders of copyright for music and films, but judging from the comment distribution I think at some people here have to be hypocrites.

atonse• 14 years ago

For this to be similar, you'd have to make a distinction between someone copying music bit by bit and distributing the original file, vs someone making a COVER recording of a famous song (no matter how accurate), and distributing that for free.

No matter how much RIAA and MPAA would like to change it, recording covers for existing music, I believe, is fully supported culturally and legally.

sp3329• 14 years ago

Why call him "Dean" when his name is "Dustin"? Is that part of the joke I missed?

nwienert14• 14 years ago

Fixed, apologies.

sp3329• 14 years ago

You didn't fix all of them, search again

joeconway2• 14 years ago

As much as I would love to have access to svbtle I think this ia very good clone which goes too far. Perhaps it would have been a bit more acceptable to take inspiration from the great drafting/publishing pattern which is what makes Svbtle great in my eyes, without mostly copying the UI. I understand you were probably just trying to make a great tool available to the community (Thanks!) but I think you're maybe giving off a false and malicious intent

nwienert14• 14 years ago

Thank you for the feedback. Perhaps I did go too far. I will reduce the visual similarities and push up a less similar version. It really only took a few minutes to reproduce.

amirmc3• 14 years ago

I don't think you should change anything. You put it together in a few hours and I don't see a valid reason for changing it.

One guy being annoyed that his super-elite design can be replicated in a matter of hours is not a reason to backtrack.

DanBC5• 14 years ago

Unreadable fonts. (Mac Book Pro; snow leopard; Chrome.)

dagw• 14 years ago

Also very hard to read under Windows 7 and chrome

zackattack3• 14 years ago

Good job with this. I forked it in case you get a change of heart.

jklm313• 14 years ago

OP needs to read this: http://drawar.com/d/the-language-of-design/

manmal4• 14 years ago

There's a name for this: Cargo Cult - copying behaviour without understanding why it exists in the first place. It's a part of human nature, even apes do it (they copy your very moves if they like you). Since we still do it, I suspect it has benefitted us during our previous evolution, and perhaps it still makes sense sometimes.

nwienert14• 14 years ago

The point is, I'm not trying to build a brand, make money off this, or prove anything whatsoever. It was really just an experiment... to see how quickly I could do it and to see how people would react (and to make some good open source software).

Notice the name, "obtuse".. But I am glad I got this response, it's been both entertaining and enlightening!

joshmz3• 14 years ago

How is it a ripoff to see something and build your own version? It's not like he copied your codebase or logos or anything else. Is a Mercedes E-Series a rip-off of a BMW 5-series?

I guess thats why many of you US guys like patents and shit so much. It just makes no effing sense.

He created everything from scratch as far as I am able to see from the GH repo. Thats completely fine with me.

willvarfar9• 14 years ago

Is the gimp a copy of photoshop? Is linux a copy of bsd?

Making a Free replacement or, more awesome, a better product is worthy of the adulation of your peers.

When Microsoft China copied the layout of whatever website it was we all came down on them from our principled pinnacles though, didn't we?

AllenKids• 14 years ago

Wow, just wow.

Guess people really like pirates then, of course, this is Hacker News after all.

hannesfostie3• 14 years ago

What Dustin did, is build a blogging engine he wanted to use himself. He then invited people he respected to write on the platform, people he knew would deliver a certain standard of quality that he'd love to connect his name to.

He never said the platform would never be opened, in fact it looked like he might do just that some day.

What you did was not just use a concept (add idea to list, expand on it and then publish it when ready), you just took his entire design and published it to the public. Taking a concept and opensourcing it is fine, copying a design and mocking the original creator is not.

As much as I'd like to use Dustin's blogging engine (it's the way I'd like to write), I will never use yours out of principle.

yummyfajitas4• 14 years ago

...mocking the original creator is not.

Where did Nate mock Dustin, or even speak negatively about him? Reading his post I find only one mildly negative comment:

"I felt Dustin missed out on what have been a great open source contribution."

hannesfostie3• 14 years ago

I assumed that's why he got the name wrong. He edited it after I wrote the comment, I suppose it was a genuine mistake.

Still doesn't change how I feel about this. He could have opensourced the engine on itself, taking the design as well is a blatant ripoff.

Another thing is this: The goal is simple: when you see the Svbtle design, you should know that the content is guaranteed to be great.

By stealing the design, he is completely boycotting Dustin at making this vision of his come true.

thisisblurry• 14 years ago

While minor, the name of the platform itself, Obtuse, is an antonym of Subtle. If that isn't a shot at Dustin, what is?

brown9-2• 14 years ago

Well, there is also this part of svbtle that seems pretty ripe for mocking:

The writing platform that helps you liberate ideas. With just two features, it's the essence of blogging.

Membership by invitation only.

delinka• 14 years ago

"As much as I'd like to use Dustin's blogging engine..."

And you can't. Because you're not invited. Because you aren't witty enough.

Maybe dcurtis is not a tool, and he's a great designer, and he just used poor writing to explain that he's testing his blog or curating writers for a network of bloggers. But his exclusionary description, his flippant replies to complaints - these things set off his potential competition. And his response? Ranting and flailing (which he deleted.)

If this entire thing had started with more mild language ("I created this thing to solve these problems. I'm creating a network of bloggers around/under/over/through it. Maybe I'll open it to the world eventually. Or I might not.") then he would have garnered a much more supportive response.

And STILL someone else would have created a clone and made it available publicly. And he could have replied, again, with something less jilted. For example, "It's great these ideas are getting attention. I'm curating writers and you won't get that from a github repo. I'm not crazy about having the design cloned, so might I suggest making your version theme-friendly?"

As to the feelings of Mr. Curtis, I can only say that if this cloning is a problem for him, perhaps he should create works (and make appropriate registrations for those works) with stronger legal protections.

instakill• 14 years ago

It was only a matter of time, really.

flocore• 14 years ago

Github: "TODO: Kudos"

Blogpost: "Kudos suck"

nwienert14• 14 years ago

Thats the joke...

deanpcmad• 14 years ago

haha brilliant!

manmal4• 14 years ago

For me, wanting to set up my own blog soon, this ripoff is a goldmine. It's very easy to start off from the current state of obtvse, customize the look and implement custom features, and (hopefully) Nate and others will provide updates to the engine. I say it's a gift to all of us.

nodemaker2• 14 years ago

Is it just me or is it really silly to fight over who really owns the UI of a rails app that can be made in a few hours.

In my opinion the layout of a blogging website falls more in the realm of fashion than intellectual property.

Some real intellectual property here is Rails itself which thankfully is open.

DanBC5• 14 years ago

Design, especially good design, is hard work. I totally understand a designer being frustrated when their work is copied, even if that copying is reverse-engineered rather than just cut and paste of the css.

Personally, I think the design is ugly and hard to use. The OP (of Obtvse thread) should get a designer and make some much needed changes.

Edit: Downvoters - is it because I said design is hard work, or because I said I thought the design was ugly?

Androsynth3• 14 years ago

I didn't downvote, but my opinion is this: if you don't want your design copied, make a product that can't be copied easily.

For example, bitbucket copied githubs design for the most part, but people still use github because there is so much more to their product. BB can copy them all they want, but github will have the users and will be considered good design while BB gets called a 'clone'.

If you make a blog platform, which is simple to clone, just open source it and move on. This is a case where imitation should be flattery. Bask in the glory of knowing the world is switching from wordpress to your platform.

(theres also longterm revenue possibilities in that case for a savvy businessmen)

nodemaker2• 14 years ago

Well I thought about this later and I think that Dustin's ideas of a simple,minimalist blog website do have some value in the creation of this product.But I still think it is extremely low compared to the value of Rails or the server OS(probably Linux) or even the database (probably MySQL) that this product will run on.

Dustin's initial response to this (which he edited later) and his general attitude might have contributed to my opinion.

sycr• 14 years ago

It was copied in a few hours - not made - the design itself surely took longer than that.

54mf15• 14 years ago

In 6 months, after Svbtle has grown a bit, I'm going to give you a list of the new features. I'd like to see you build a great UI around them in a few hours.

anateus3• 14 years ago

Imitation, flattery, and so forth.

Taking an existing closed system and opening it is a pretty fundamental part of the hacker ethic. However, it must be done in good faith and good taste.

This is neither. Yes, it's quite hard to draw the line for such things--how big does a company have to be before it's ok? It's a tough question, but despite that ethical uncertainty, this case is pretty clearly on the side of "not ok". Disregarding more complicated moral aspects, this just isn't nice.

I really don't think nwienert's intentions were bad, but I think he should reevaluate the choice he made here.

zackattack3• 14 years ago

> this just isn't nice

Maybe if Dustin were a nice guy, your argument would have some validity.

anateus3• 14 years ago

I partially address this issue in a reply to drewblaisdell.

dorian-graph3• 14 years ago

Why do people allow themselves to be puppets?

We should never give up ourselves to being/doing something simply because John Smith does it.

54mf15• 14 years ago

Two wrongs don't make a right.

drewblaisdell3• 14 years ago

I think this is only "not nice" because of the dcurtis's reaction. He could have very easily just replied "Cute." to this thread and accepted the flattery/parody. No one is arguing that "obtvse" is a better product than his own.

For instance, the author of http://drawar.com/ is clearly flattered by dcurtis's own use of his design.

obilgic7• 14 years ago

That would be smart!

anateus3• 14 years ago

I guess that's what I meant by "good faith". I think making a nigh identical open copy of someone's work is easily predictable to be unpleasant for many people. In plenty of situations (esp on HN and its environs) this is not the case, you can have a reasonable expectation that the person whose work you've been "inspired" by would approve, maybe grudgingly.

I think that in this particular situation, dcurtis's reaction could have been predicated to be at best ambivalent. Thus, choosing to take the liberty of going ahead I consider as "not nice".

Those are about the strongest terms with which I can condemn it though. In another reply to my comment zackattack mentions dcurtis himself isn't nice. That may be the case (although I've seen his name plenty, I'm having enough trouble connecting it to specific writings that I can't agree or disagree), but the crucial issue to determining whether this project is "nice" or not, is whether it was reasonable to expect this action to hurt dcurtis. It clearly did, and since I think that was a plausible outcome, I am uncomfortable with this undertaking.

irahul6• 14 years ago

> Taking an existing closed system and opening it is a pretty fundamental part of the hacker ethic. However, it must be done in good faith and good taste.

1. OpenOffice.org says we don't like MS. How about we clone Office and annoy the fuck out of them?

2. Or MS is making too much money. Let's clone Office and give it up for free. We won't be making any money, but neither would they.

3. Or we are bored the fuck out of our minds. Let's build something - how about Office?

4. Or we are concerned MS's monopolistic policies and binary formats are needlessly tying in users to their platform. We will build something which looks and acts like Office without tying in the user to our product.

These and bazillion of other reasons are equally valid, and you or someone else doesn't have the authority to declare them invalid.

> Disregarding more complicated moral aspects, this just isn't nice.

May be this isn't nice. Freedom isn't really freedom if it covers only things you find nice. I would happily trade nice with freedom to independently reproduce something.

> I really don't think nwienert's intentions were bad, but I think he should reevaluate the choice he made here.

I really hope he doesn't take down the repo or the site. But if he is bullied into taking it down, even though he wrote the css, ruby, js code for the site, and didn't copy anything from svbtle, I think I will recreate the project. I don't care much about svbtle, but I do care about the freedom to reproduce it if I want it.

As far as design similarities go, it might or might not be copyright infringement - I am not knowledgeable enough to comment. If it is, he can tweak the design a bit to make it look inspired, instead of copied. As already said, if I independently implement a dock for linux(already done; just an example) which looks like Mac's, it's not theft and Apple can suck it if it thinks otherwise.

nwienert14• 14 years ago

Don't worry, its staying up. All original code, and I'm sure more than a few people will enjoy trying it out.

hxa72412• 14 years ago

What is this 'not nice'? What is it really saying?

It seems, for want of a pleasanter term, a bit weasel-worded. It is trying to say 'you should not do that' but while pretending not to be so strong.

If it has any real meaning -- any moral force -- it is saying 'you should not'. But demanding someone behave in a certain way, and so lose their own freedom of choice in the matter, really requires some justification.

So what could be the justification? Merely that one person might feel a little dislike seems insufficient. The thing in (putative) 'contention' is information, but that is nonrival: one person's use does not limit another's. That really seems to reduce the grounds for restricting someone else's freedom here -- 'my freedom ends where your freedom begins', so if there are no substantial limits on the material of our actions, why should it be any business of either to tell the other what to do ? . . .

The new project credits (and links) the previous, and builds on it. That is pretty much everything we should want -- that is the core basics of information culture. (The problem is, our half-conscious social conventions still have not yet grasped the proper ethics of information.)

zuralski2• 14 years ago

dcurtis - don't worry about Obtvse.

Just keep improving Svbtle and release it when it's ready.

dorian-graph3• 14 years ago

Those who clamour after Obtvse don't particularly seem like the original target market. The 'Obtvse' network branding will have little weight as well, I think.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

Yeah it will be missing all the geniuses.

damncabbage2• 14 years ago

I don't think building an open clone of a closed platform is a bad thing, but using the same name is a bit of a dick move.

Suggested new name: Gavche

dbaupp• 14 years ago

The same name? The original is "Svbtle".

damncabbage2• 14 years ago

Oh. Whoops. Now I feel very silly indeed. I'm not sure how I misread it that badly.

(Clone away.)

livebeef• 14 years ago

When the technical entry level to join the competition is too low, you _should_ expect clones.

Copyright holds automatically on all the code, but just the idea of that kind of blog can't be considered a sufficient "level of creativity" to deserve copyright protection.

kveykva2• 14 years ago

dcurtis' version is generally more attractive in my opinion, and honestly nwienert's site as a whole is less attractive than Dustin's.

Even if it is copyright infringement, at least there's that I suppose.

fabfischer• 14 years ago

Copying ideas or products happens all the time. Some make a lot of cash with it: http://www.techberlin.com/post/19732590058/true-story-the-sa...

ohsilly2• 14 years ago

From Nate's twitter feed: "Become good at cheating and you'll never need to become good at anything else."

Pretty much sums it up.

nwienert14• 14 years ago

I stole that from Banksy ;)

Check out some of my original work: http://gamegum.com http://bassdownload.com http://vbseed.com http://webuildappsforyou.com ...

Funny enough I wrote that before I had seen svbtle.

ohsilly2• 14 years ago

The thing is Bansky does it with a touch more class. :)

syaz12• 14 years ago

Sorry, 160 characters taken out of context can mean both good or bad. No summing up there.

kveykva2• 14 years ago

Maybe asking first might have been polite, is that a thing? :/

willvarfar9• 14 years ago

We can all appreciate the pleasure Dustin got from perfecting his Svbtle design. His perfection of the authoring flow. Perfection is when there is nothing left to take out, after all.

We can all thank Dustin for showing it to us so early.

And we can all imagine how he wanted to build a quality brand with it, partly by vouching for the quality of those who use it.

You could imagine that monetisation might have been in there too - a startup!

We like startups here; we all applaud.

We mustn't let Obtvse cheapen that.

davidw6• 14 years ago

> startup

Successful startups require a barrier to entry for competitors, more often than not.

willvarfar9• 14 years ago

interesting point, not sure; on the social web its community adoption over technology every time

obilgic7• 14 years ago

@dcurtis:

> Not only did that guy completely rip off my work, but he did it badly, he put the code on Github, and he got my name wrong. What a jackass.

> @natebirdman "Hey, I ripped off your work and put it on Github." Really?

mtkd• 14 years ago

I closed the original post as soon as I sampled the air of superiority that seems to be ever more present with some "intelligent, creative, and witty" developers and commentators.

Hail the disruption.

NSElvis• 14 years ago

Dustin Curtis was a superhero.

camwest• 14 years ago

The thing he copied was already "open sourced" anyway the minute Dustin blogged about it to the world.

Achshar2• 14 years ago

It's @dcurtis "concept" and let him decide, no matter how ethically wrong his decision is, its his' anyway. Copying the concept and releasing it is definitely not the right way of showing your discontent with his decision of not releasing his work to public.

I have an app that is closed source (the kind of thing that you would expect to be opensource but i decided not to). If someone thought that it was better if it was open and copied the concept, UI/UX and released it, i would not be very happy. Community and open is all good and i am all for it but i intend to make a living out if it [my app] and won't be happy seeing it being released. I don't know how much of a work the platform really was but my app was alot of work. more than enough that i would enforce it's closed-source status.

driverdan• 14 years ago

I have 2 words for someone in that situation: tough shit. I can understand not liking new competition but that's business. Innovate, compete, or die.

Achshar2• 14 years ago

but in such case innovation is not an option. if the other person can copy current app why can't he/she copy the innovation too?

kiwim• 14 years ago

Thank you for sharing it.

chj• 14 years ago

when replicate something, do not show off how fast you can build it, because it is just replication.

reason3• 14 years ago

Guys, if someone dangled something in front of you with the initial impression that you could have one, and you wanted it, only later to find out that you actually can't have it and that those who could have it are "intelligent and witty", implying that you are not, then I think it's pretty safe to say that you'd run home, cook something similar up and run back to show that you have one now too.

In fact, after reading the original article, I felt a bit slighted and thought to myself "fine, I'll just build it myself".

54mf15• 14 years ago

Your metaphor is wholly flawed. This would be like if you wanted to get in to a restaurant because of the great food, decor, and excellent ties the waiters were wearing, but couldn't get in. So you went next door and created your own restaurant with the same recipes, decor, and ties on the waiters, but let anyone in.

Building something with similar functionality is one thing; building a stem-to-stern carbon copy is just low class.

reason3• 14 years ago

So, what's wrong with that? I'd eat at the second restaurant in a heartbeat if getting into the first is too much of a hassle. You would too.

unalone6• 14 years ago

No, it would be like if a restaurant passed out flyers advertising its great food, decor, and excellent ties, with a footnote at the bottom saying "PS: only beautiful, successful, wealthy people are allowed in, and that doesn't include you."

When the second restaurant opened, promoting its inclusionary nature and affordable prices, I'd eat there every day for a week, because fuck those first guys. Fuck 'em for thinking that their making something halfway interesting entitles them to superiority, and fuck 'em for thinking the right way to show off something interesting is to emphasize how you're not allowed to try it out.

David Karp wanted a blogging interface that made blogging easier and more beautiful and more diverse. Several years later, Tumblr is one of the largest sites on the Internet. I don't like the direction it ultimately took, but I admire the hell out of David for releasing his cool idea to users who then turned it into something incredible and wholly unpredictable.

I also find it amusing that we're calling Svtble "great", when it's just a simple, well-made tool with one neat organizational technique – it's like Quietwrite with a todo list attached. Simple and well-made is much appreciated, but you don't get to be a douchebag until you've actually made something significant. Or you can make that thing and remain a nice and humble guy, because the two are not mutually fucking exclusive.

DanBC5• 14 years ago

(http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/pirated/)

Mentions this screenshot:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/elliotjaystocks/516412232/)

See also the (now dead, unfortunately) pirated sites.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/piratedsites/)

(http://www.pirated-sites.com/)

Permit2• 14 years ago

Dustin Curtis' outraged seems somewhat bizarre for someone whose blog/Twitter logo is an obvious rework of the Flash logo: https://www.google.ca/search?q=flash+dc&hl=en&safe=o...

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1902246181/logo10.png

Not that I fault either designer. I think they've both taken previous work, improved upon it (or at least altered it), in some way before releasing it as their own. I suppose I have trouble feeling sorry for Dustin after reading he planned to open it up to those he thought worthy of its use.

54mf15• 14 years ago

How is Obtvse, in any way, an improvement upon or alteration of Svbtle? As far as I can tell, it's a 1:1 clone, but "open".

Permit2• 14 years ago

It's not a 1:1 clone. Put them side by side and you'll quickly see differences in font choice and size as well as positioning of several elements. I'm not saying it's not similar, but it's certainly not a clone.

And I'd like to think that being open-source is a huge feature of Ovbtuse, and something certainly worth noting when comparing the two.

ForrestN5• 14 years ago

Obtvse removes the two worst features of Svbtle: exclusivity and condescension.

andos• 14 years ago

How is Obtvse, in any way, an improvement upon or alteration of Svbtle?

As far as I can tell, it's a 1:1 clone, but "open".

sunsoong• 14 years ago

It is not an improvement. It is far less witty and intelligent.

lusr3• 14 years ago

I note Curtis also posted about the OMGPOP sale, the value of which is based on a game that is at its core a clone of a game that existed on the web over 5 years ago (which is probably a clone of another game from earlier). I wonder if he'd be similarly outraged knowing this. (I find it quite inspirational to know you can take an old concept and make millions modernizing it.)

Fact is, life gives you no guarantees about "fairness". You can try stacking the odds in your favor, e.g. don't announce your easily reproducible idea before you have a significant head-start over competitors. Relying on notions such as "fairness", "ethics", "class" etc., all based on personal beliefs, to protect your idea is quite simply naive. Somewhere out there will be somebody who subscribes to a different set of beliefs.

unalone6• 14 years ago

I'll take this one step further, and say that one of the reasons people attempt to be kind and pleasant and, you know, not a prick, is that people respect and like you and want to help and support you. I bet this thread wouldn't have happened/would've gone differently if Dustin's much-cherished "brand" didn't revolve around his being a dick.

I mean, he announces the platform and his intentions to make Svtble be the online equivalent of a newspaper but without all the bad parts, suggesting in the process that he doesn't have a clue how hard it is to be a good writer or even what newspapers do (hint: it's not all editorial). Then he markets his service as being somehow for the "elite" (read: "people who design pretty email apps") and when people complain about the tone his response is, "but it got a reaction and that's all I wanted I AM A MARKETING GENIUS".

If he'd even been a degree less douchey (say, announced Svtble as a "private beta" or said that he wanted to promote good writing without suggesting that a minimalist blogging platform was gonna change the world), then maybe nobody would have felt the need to insta-replicate his code, and if they had, they wouldn't be receiving the support they're receiving in this thread.

I know we geek types like to turn everything into statistics and easily-parsed data, and I know that "being a nice person" is a little bit tricker to analyze than "you should follow me on Twitter here", but I promise that there's a reason people try to be decent and nice, and it's not just that they're too weak to appreciate Ayn Rand.

Kenan• 14 years ago

His logo is based off Apple's Thunderbolt: https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/40910311120703488

colinloretz• 14 years ago

He's been using that logo long before thunderbolt.

ashconnor• 14 years ago

Looks like the British Union of Fascists logo:

http://maryportagainstracism.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/buf...

jc4p• 14 years ago

That tweet is actually him complaining about Apple ripping off his completely original and unique logo.

OzzyB• 14 years ago

Has he been using that logo before Cargo Collective? http://cargocollective.com -- I don't think so :)

epikur• 14 years ago

I thought it was Cargo Collective's logo when I first saw his site. See top left:

http://cargocollective.com/

J3L2404• 14 years ago

This kerfuffle is amusing on a site that believes copyright violation is a moral imperative.

jcdreads• 14 years ago

Without addressing the merits of either copyright or patent protection, I believe you're confusing the two. Folks around here tend to believe that software patents are bad; the view that copyright is bad is less widely shared. In fact, open source licenses /rely/ on the protections afforded by copyright law.

athst• 14 years ago

I think that there's a distinction to be made between copying code and copying design.

Design is hard, and even though a design might be quick to implement in code, that doesn't mean the design was easy.

Just look at the Samwer brothers - they clone every good startup that comes out. Is what they do okay? Maybe they don't copy any of the code from the successful site, but they shamelessly copy the design, which is often the hardest part of the creation process and the main reason why the original site was so successful in the first place.

itsmicks5• 14 years ago

Didn't see this and brought up the Samwers as well. I think we're still in a transition around here in terms of how "design" is valued but overall it seems like things are improving.

madasahatta• 14 years ago

copycats are not cool cats

54mf15• 14 years ago

http://briefmobile.com/images/articles/galaxy-s-vs-iphone.jp...

Mr. Curtis on the right. Mr. Wienert on the left.

nicholas_tuzzio• 14 years ago

I agree with you in that people seem to be making waaaay too much out of the fact that one of the two did it first.

ForrestN5• 14 years ago

Those who are talking about this as if the design and concept are just being stolen are acting, well, obtuse.

Wienert is not trying to pass this off as his own work. He's not selling it.

It's a few things, all at once: first, and foremost, it's a parody, skewering the absurd arrogance of the original presentation; it's a generic drug, making something which sure seems to be exclusive for bad reasons and making it accesible; and it's a good example of someone taking matters into their own hands.

Wienert was told something wasn't available to him because he's not witty enough, so he went and built it for himself. To compare this to someone stealing someone's intellectual property malevolently for personal gain is missing the point.

irahul6• 14 years ago

> Wienert is not trying to pass this off as his own work. He's not selling it.

He can pass this off as his own work and sell it for all I care. I don't know who created the first blogging engine, but do you believe all subsequent blogging engines owe something to the first one, and shouldn't have re-implemented and sold it without making it substantially different?

ForrestN5• 14 years ago

No, and I probably agree with you, but I'm just trying to point out that you don't have to subscribe to what appears to be a more controversial idea (that copying and possibly selling a piece of software is OK) in order to support what Wienert has done.

rokhayakebe2• 14 years ago

A guy who makes a new chair doesn’t owe money to everyone who ever built a chair.

cjbprime• 14 years ago

Dumb technical question: What's the purpose of the "Aside" flag in Obtvse? I can see that it sets a class for CSS, can't see an equivalent in the Svbtle UI.

dewiz• 14 years ago

A blogger discover "drafts". He shares the idea only with VIPs. I'll use Gmail drafts.

alpb2• 14 years ago

Anyone thinks to create a WordPress Theme out of this design? That would be huge.

alpb2• 14 years ago

Ok, one of my friends started working on open source wordpress theme design that clones this design. (as much as it can) in first version, we'll omit comments (listing and posting) then maybe we can add. I'll let you know over HN.

funkah• 14 years ago

I'm sick of that invite-only horseshit too. If you're gonna share it privately don't announce it to the world. Don't wave a steak in front of my face and then walk it over to the VIP section.

I don't care if this is petty, I am serious as a heart attack about it now. I refuse to use Google+ for this reason, and a couple other things too.

itsmicks5• 14 years ago

It's pretty clear that the innovation in Dustin's work wasn't the code -- it was the interface. Pointing out that Nate built Obtvse in a day from scratch is pretty meaningless and the fact that he bothered to recreate it makes it pretty clear that Dustin built something cool. As a designer... it just feels like this wasn't Nate's to open source and hopefully this will transition further from the original.

On the flipside, if the Samwer brothers launched a version of Svbtle next week in 15 markets, would the reaction be the same?

jasonlotito2• 14 years ago

> It's pretty clear that the innovation in Dustin's work wasn't the code -- it was the interface.

What part? While it looked pretty, I didn't see anything new or unique (outside of the liking mechanism he uses).

itsmicks5• 14 years ago

Perhaps I'm not familiar, but what CMS/blogging engine looks like his and is structured like his (esp in the admin)?

cletus3• 14 years 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.

dangoldin3• 14 years 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• 14 years 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.

cletus3• 14 years 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.

itsmicks5• 14 years 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.

Argorak2• 14 years 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.

__mharrison__• 14 years ago

Wasn't it Picasso who said "Good artists copy, great artists steals"? Is this good or great?

obilgic7• 14 years 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.

Confusion2• 14 years 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

cletus3• 14 years 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.

davidw6• 14 years ago

> ... algorithm ...

You're arguing for software patents, basically.

As a community, we may have differing points of view on copyrights, and patents in other fields, but "we don't take kindly to software patents 'round here", as much as I can tell.

If all it takes is two days to dream up an answer to something, you can rest assured that other experts in the same situation will likely come up with a similar solution. You shouldn't get the rights to that solution for 10 years just because you thought it up. If you shared it, you would expect people will code it up, and probably congratulate them for doing that hard work.

tomkin• 14 years ago

As a designer/programmer, I think it's pretty funny to get worked up about having your design "ripped off". We're not talking about intellectual property for profit, where the argument makes more sense: I need to make money, so don't steal my stuff or Don't rip off my client's web design. In art, we all build on one another. There are hardly any firsts any more. Evolution/Innovation makes up most of what someone would consider their personal works. "Forking" is a perfect example of such.

We can banter back and forth about morals and time and effort, but what this argument (or dcurtis' plight) really comes down to is ego. That's fine. Everyone likes to have their time under the spotlight, but that's what this is all about. Exclusivity? Invites? A list of high-profile people to show off on the front page (not needed at all, btw)? "You're welcome" strewn on the footer? Yep, you're in ego territory.

As far as I know, WordPress has a few clones, so this isn't really a new thing. Obtvse put the power in your hand when someone else was trying to make you beg for it. Sorry, but it's really hard to feel bad for the designer. I think if the concept was more open, had less obvious egotistical elements, I could see some reason to be legitimately upset. At this time, it feels like someone's longing desire to be a rockstar, not a legitimate strategy (exclusivity?) to make things better for users.

kami8845• 14 years ago

reg. the algorithm example, well if you decide to publicly divulge enough information for a reader to just whip it up himself in a couple of hours, you can't really complain about their doing it.. Why did you publicly talk about it in the first place anyhow?

furyofantares• 14 years ago

Tons of algorithms were invented (discovered?) in academia where the notion that implementing it constitutes theft is totally alien (though taking credit for it would get quite a reaction.)

sholanozie2• 14 years ago

This is a flawed analogy, I think. What dcurtis did is more analogous to developing an algorithm, and then saying that only the smartest programmers doing the best work can use it.

Let's be honest here - there is nothing inherently special about the application except the hype and branding surrounding it. It's a blog. The design is good but it's just some text and a couple of buttons.

I don't think Obtvse should have used the same visual styling as Svbtle but this whole situation is clearly about more than just the application. Obtvse is a form of rebellion against egotism and exclusivity in a community founded on openness and transparency. When viewed in this light, I think the entire 'copied or not copied' debate is kind of meaningless.

hxa72412• 14 years ago

But is that -- the substantiveness of work -- a reason to stop the copying of informational-goods?

If they are indeed 'goods', more copies/variations/etc. makes them more available. Why stop that?

One might say that the creator loses exclusivity and so can charge less. That would be a reason for the creator -- it would be good for them. But the restriction would be bad for everyone else (and creators themselves are 'everyone else' to other creators). Only being good for one set of people does not make it a good rule in general.

The only plausible reason seems to be that the work would not otherwise be done without such exclusive control -- and so we would all lose it. Is that the case here? It seems not: the first sentence of the original blog-post describes that the work had already been done from another impetus.

And if one seeks appreciation, surely any restrictions of exclusivity will do the exact opposite. The more copies the better: more credit, more links, more recognition.

(As a fundamental baseline: if we all share what informational-goods we have produced, and all grant everyone freedom of use of them, we all gain -- we all gain more freedom and we all gain more good stuff.)

6ren• 14 years ago

I agree that some things are hard to come up with but easy in hindsight. A bit like NP-complete. An example is a work of art - a composition, a book (hard to write, easy to copy).

But, like pg controversially suggested, maybe if it can't easily be protected, it shouldn't be protected. I'm not sure I agree; but the practical problem is: how to protect such a thing?

The legal system (patents, copyright); withholding secret sauce (closed-source webapp); or component in a larger system that's harder to copy, because of technical difficulty, commitment/resources; network effects (many users; mindshare)... or my favourite, continuously improving it faster than the copiers (like Apple). Unfortunately, many things don't admit of improvement - they're "done" (as here); or copying is much faster than improving (as here).

You can do other things, like not target a technical audience that is able to copy it quickly (as here) - instead, target a mainstream audience, for whom the idea of copying it has no interest. A related, very dangerous, one is to stoke demand without satisfying it (as here) - this is one argument for serving every market (e.g. price point): not for maximizing profit or market-share, not even for being nice, but simply denying oxygen for a competitor to get a foothold (to mix metaphors).

Unfortunately, thinking about competition is quite machiavellian, and a long way from the work (and values) of actually creating something that's really cool. But if you want to live from creating, it's important. I dunno, it's a bit of a dilemma for me.

andrewheins• 14 years 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• 14 years 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.

brettbergeron• 14 years ago

Sorry if I missed it, but it looks like the real victim of plagiarism would be: http://drawar.com/

Honestly, nothing about the design or user experience of Svbtle was unique. There have to be more examples, at least by coincidence, of other designs that show prior use of similar typography and layout.

So really, this whole debate of originality seems moot.

ux_designer• 14 years ago

Dustin Curtis didn't create a blogging platform, he created another PR and traffic grab. Which is great for his career and visibility.

But come on, the only way this could get any more farcical is if Dustin revealed that he orchestrated this whole thing and is in fact both parties.

If I were Dustin, I'd be ecstatic that I'd almost permanently glued to the front page of HN. Any publicity is good publicity.

zachallia• 14 years ago

i hope he is both parties, that would be pretty epic

Androsynth3• 14 years ago

Nice conspiracy theory, but why would his main persona act like such a bumbling fool while his foil persona gets the respect?

and a large amount of hate, but the scale is tipping mostly in his defense

Stratego• 14 years ago

If you want to roll your own, don't steal the man's hard design work if you're going to plagiarize his concept anyway.

Dustin is often quite cocky, but I don't wish this kind of mindless copying on anyone.

stevewilhelm• 14 years ago

If anyone is looking for "prior art" for Obtvse or Svbtle should look at Pivotal Tracker. Pivotal implements multiple columns of one line ideas, in Pivotal's case they are features or bugs instead of blog posts.

nchlswu2• 14 years ago

I find it fascinating the disdain people have for Dustin because of his attitude (which is pretty consistent if you follow him) and how he presented Svbtle.

Clearly he was sharing some concepts and ideas that he felt were worth sharing and may be useful to colleagues in the industry. But because of (perhaps too 'arrogant') copy and the fact that Dustin didn't want people to use it for the time being, a significant portion of this 'community' felt compelled to simply rip off his work in to spite him. I don't get it.

Without getting into the merits of when stealing something is justifiable why is such maliciousness so 'justified' to some in this case?

littlemerman• 14 years ago

Thank you.

caublestone• 14 years ago

This is awesome, and a great step past the "Poker blog" you were running back in High school :P.

iamwil• 14 years ago

I wouldn't worry about it too much were I Dustin. He'll keep continually improving Svbtle from his design insights, whereas Obtvse likely will stagnate. And if it doesn't, the contributors would all be programmers, given it's hosted on github. Chances are, they won't use it often, and they won't have the design intuitions that come with design experience and use.

Take it as a form of flattery and just move on. I have faith in his design chops.

Androsynth3• 14 years ago

This is an excellent point! Design is supplementary to a good product. But theres so much more to a good product than design.

If Obtvse is more popular than Svbtle in the long run, it will be because Dustin himself failed, not because the design was copied.

He's already made the wrong decision at every major point imo.

xbryanx• 14 years ago

My Dad always said the best place to open a new suit store is right next door to the oldest, most established suit store in town.

samstave• 14 years ago

This is a really interesting circumstance.

On the one hand, I don't think the Obtuze is a theft of Subtle -- however I talk crap about Zynga's idea theft (based on look feel UX mechanics etc) all the time.

While this is a reverse of Zynga's for profit thievery - this is a "Robin-Hooding" of sorts (taking a closed shiny widget and making an open shiny widget.

Ill withhold judgement in this case as i feel it would make me a hypocrite.

jamesjyu• 14 years ago

Dustin Curtis should really be a marketing/pr person, specifically aimed at startups.

huhtenberg• 14 years ago

A thing to keep in mind - dcurtis is building a business.

A high-profile high-traffic no-nonsense blogging site is a very valuable asset - be it for the purpose of direct advertisement, product placements/mentions or as an acquisition target. Positioning it as exclusive and coming across as arrogant is actually a sensible marketing approach. The design is only a part of the deal, but it's the content that really matters. Cloning the design is surely not without consequences, but in a larger picture it's not that big of deal.

srik• 14 years ago

It is NOT what the author of thisSvbtle wanted done with his project. He explicitly stated that it wasn't ready for the punlic yet and would be available when he worked things out. He might have seemed smug, but Im apalled that bulk of the HN community seemed seemed to be OK with someone essentially copying his project outright. Im not able to frame my answer better but this is not how how mutually respecting communities are built.

tworats• 14 years ago

Putting aside the morality of this particular case, I'd point out that this type of copying will discourage early sharing of concepts / projects on HN, which is not a good thing.

cheald• 14 years ago

Counterpoint: If your idea can be fully replicated in 11 hours as an experiment, your idea might not be all that defensible/sustainable in the first place.

billpatrianakos• 14 years ago

This is pretty decent example of the entitlement syndrome I see in the design/development community. We somehow feel like all cool things should be free (as in liberty) and open source and shared, hacked, modified, and improved. And that's great! But when someone comes around with something cool that isn't all of those things like Dustin Curtis did and someone else subsequently clones it, we feel differently all of the sudden.

Why is that? We all love StackExchange but when an open source clone came out about a month ago a lot of people were screaming "rip off!" Why?

It's really hard to judge when a clone is in poor taste and when it's acceptable. It's an interesting question.

If I were judge I'd say Obtvse is perfectly legit. If Svbtle were for everyone then I'd say the clone is in bad taste but it really was only matter of time before someone brought it to the masses so long as the original would never be offered to the rest of us.

But that's beside the point. I just think its so interesting that a group of people who demand their music and media free just because they can, and extoll the virtues of (F)OSS, demanding our software be free and throwing massive tantrums when a developer of anything cool or useful doesn't publish the source can turn around and say a clone of a piece of software that's limited to a certain group is now not okay. This can be an IP issue and it's so interesting how we put ourselves in the other guy's shoes so selectively. Copyright, IP, etc. are the root of all evil one day but are useful and need to be considered the next. Maybe I'm missing something but I find popular opinion on this stuff funny at times.

This isn't an indictment of dcurtis or the creator of Obtvse. I personally think both are awesome, I love that Obtvse now exists (because I would never be invited to use Svbtle), and I think both developers are just plain awesome. For me, it's just really interesting to see how one action is wrong (along the lines of theft or infringement) but another in the same vain is seen as justified by the same people. Maybe I'm the dumb guy in the room but I see some cognitive dissonance here.

dreamdu5t• 14 years ago

By D. Curtis' own logic he ripped of the design of http://cargocollective.com/

evertonfuller• 14 years ago

I'm just struggling to see what's so 'revolutionary' about the design. It's just a bland minimalist modern theme. Anyone could have made it.

Dustin's response was just plain rude, let's recap:

"This is almost unbelievable. No matter what you think about me or my product decisions, it is flatly wrong to ripoff work. It's shameful, even. Please take this site down and delete the Github repository. The work isn't yours. Just wait until Svbtle is finished and open to the public. The reason it's closed is really simple: it's not ready yet."

Get over yourself.

farinasa• 14 years ago

I posted this in the other thread, but I feel it's worth repeating:

I'm sorry, but isn't this just a reversion to late 90's style frame design? It seems all you've done is build it in the latest trendy standards and add a few little CSS tricks.

Minimalist design is supposed to be about presenting the content first and foremost. But the content is overshadowed by your frame. Your name and flashy CSS tricks are the only constants on the page and take up nearly 25% of the view, but you claim you're trying to draw attention to the content? Perhaps if the content you're presenting is you, then you have a successful design.

Of course this version removes the CSS stuff but I think my point stands.

woodall• 14 years ago

I really love the hover-to-trigger buttons and think DC had a great product. Why rush him to push it to market.

skeletonjelly• 14 years ago

I felt the exact same feelings as the writer when I was reading about it's growing interest.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742647

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3737549

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3731095

This was until I saw Dustin say he was going to open the platform up to the public. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742596

But congrats on going to all that effort to copy one of the most minimalistic blog designs ever. Maybe Dustin should have made it more obvious what his intentions were on the homepage.

mkramlich• 14 years ago

Then there's how us old farts blog:

vi something ...run script to maybe apply template, regen indices... ...preview locally in browser... ...maybe edit again... ...run script to upload (if want to "publish"), commit to VCS, etc...

no fancy codebase needed. no web framework, no local web server, no reinventing the wheel, etc. and the same tools used above to "blog" are also used to do lots of other productive things, so leverages the same skill set, exercises the same muscle memory, and more future-proofed.

Codename: Obtvse

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