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Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by jhickner on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @11:14PM (#1419032)
I don't know either of these people, but Nick clearly has no concept of how copyright actually works. The "result" of code is inherently a process, which isn't copyrightable. Only his verbatim source code is copyrightable.

The entire concept of reverse engineering rests on this distinction.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by aarongough on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @11:18PM (#1419038)
Wow, that's incredibly lame on Nick's part. If the API is the same, but the underlying code is completely different then that it not a 'port', or a derivative, that is a different product.

That's like saying a Macbook and a Viao both have a screen, keyboard and USB ports and so they're the same thing for licensing purposes... Unlikely.

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Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by bluemetal on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @10:26PM (#1418975)
Oh wow. If you mention Simpletip in the contact form on Nick's site you get redirected to here: http://getafckinlife.ytmnd.com/

Classy stuff.

(nick's site: http://www.nickstakenburg.com/)

EDIT: I can't seem to get it to happen again.

EDIT2: It was his site. http://i50.tinypic.com/166nh4z.jpg

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by anthonyb on Thursday June 10, 2010 @02:39AM (#1419319)
Worked for me - perhaps because I capitalised it as SimpleTip. Here's the message I sent him :>

    Interesting that you gave Craig Thompson such a hard time over SimpleTip, 
    while having NO IDEA about how copyright works when applied to code.

    Absolutely right about reputation, btw. If you want to be taken seriously
    you should realize that showing your ability to be a pompous blowhard 
    is the worst kind of advertising you can have for yourself.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by sperry on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @09:35PM (#1418901)
Nick's acting like a dick.

Craig, please continue to distribute Simpletip. I see that you seem to know more about the licensing issues than Nick.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by bshep on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @10:54PM (#1419009)
[deleted]

Edit: Removed my comment when I realized this story is over 1 year old...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by thinkbohemian on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @11:46PM (#1419077)
just realized simpletip was put back online...

http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/

i wonder why the sandbox page was left up.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by bshep on Thursday June 10, 2010 @12:11AM (#1419108)
Also:

- those letters were in jan/2009

- there is now a project called qTip

- Nick is in the Netherlands, Craig is in the USA <- hard to sue someone in another country

- ProTip is still at version 2, apparently Nick never got around to doing v3

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by raganwald on Thursday June 10, 2010 @08:36AM (#1419835)
I was using qTip with jQuery on the desktop and in an iPhone-specific site. It was a pleasure to use.
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Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by moe on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @09:15PM (#1418879)
See the (short) e-mail exchange for a sad little story; http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/sandbox/emails.txt
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Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by JeffJenkins on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @11:33PM (#1419054)
This is totally absurd. jhickner is right. Nick doesn't know /anything/ about copyright or licensing. I wonder how obviously dumb something needs to be before you don't have to pay a lot for a lawyer.

I also wonder if the Something Awful style defense would have stopped this. Leonard J. Crabs can be pretty convincing.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by TeHCrAzY on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @11:25PM (#1419044)
http://craigsworks.com/projects/simpletip/

It seems he moved on and cut his losses.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by harisenbon on Thursday June 10, 2010 @12:15AM (#1419115)
I didn't realize qTip was the successor to simpleTip. I've been using it in all my projects, and find it much better than protoTip (especially since it runs in jquery, and is free)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by mickeyben on Thursday June 10, 2010 @06:41AM (#1419624)
And qtip2 is coming soon :-)
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Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by arethuza on Thursday June 10, 2010 @06:33AM (#1419612)
Having been involved in litigation over copyright where we were 100% in the right but the other side had fundamental misconceptions about how copyright actually works I can understand why you'd just give up when threatened with legal action.

It took us a long time (about six months) and a considerable chunk of money in lawyers fees just to get them to go away - even though their case was totally groundless.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by freyrs on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @10:54PM (#1419010)
Nice! I've been looking for a good tooltip library to use in my project. I wouldn't have known about this otherwise. Thanks Nick!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dirty secret of prototip2 (javascript tooltip) by perezd on Thursday June 10, 2010 @04:01AM (#1419435)
Free the software!
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