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

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.

- Exactly. Ego drives so much of human behaviour in everything we do, it's just sad.

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.

I am not a designer, but I feel I need to stand in for the designers of this world here. Good design is not about the aesthetics at all, it is about the way the product feels. User Interface design is a big part of it as well. There are very subtle issues here, that you don't even notice unless you are professionally trained to do so.

People here often complain about these Business guys, who think they have a great idea and are looking for a code monkey to code it up. Please, don't be the programmer version of that guy.

I'd suggest that every programmer, who hires or works with a designer should at least know a little bit about design. This is for the same reason every business guy should at least know a little bit about technology. For one, so that you know how to hire a designer, who can do more than just beautiful mockups.

I raised the question of whether the design itself (in concept) is substantive. [My] opinion is largely "no".

What is your opinion about iPhone ripoffs from China then?

I think it would be fair to claim it is the same thing on a smaller scale, because in both cases, it takes much more resources (and creativity) to come up with the original idea/design than to create a copy.

I'd like to add that I think Dustin wanted to share ideas in his blog post. I think his copy got in the way of what was important - the ideas that made the blog engine facilitate his writing. In this case, these ideas are somewhat analagous to the algorithm. They were nothing more than an idea; dustin recognized this and he was giving them away.

But when the whole product has been copied from a visual perspective down to the tooling and platform, you've effectively replicated the whole experience. It goes a bit further than aesthetics in this case and is wholly under-appreciated by those who do not have 'respect' design, so to speak.

Edited: missing a word.

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.

Do I have the same problem? No. Do most of HN's users? Probably not. Do I agree with his approach on sharing things? Not particularly, but he wrote the code and came up with the design, and is entitled to do whatever he'd like with that. To me, this clone comes across as a personal attack trying to trivialize someone's work. If it added new functionality, improved upon flaws, or in some way was actually different I'd think otherwise, but I click through and read "hey, I can code too, give me karmaaaaaaa!"

I definitely dislike Curtis' attitude on a lot of things, but he has a lot of insightful things to say (and plenty of inciteful things, too). I try and take the personal stuff out of it - regardless of how I feel about him, I may or may not find the posts interesting, but from what I've read they appear to be pretty accurate and well-reasoned.

If someone wants to make it personal, I can't stop them. But I'd much rather see it presented as "Curtis made XYZ but didn't let everyone in. I made a copy that the rest of the world can use." rather than "Curtis is a jerk for not letting everyone in, and his work is such a joke that it only took me half a day to copy it"

(I'm also a fan of dcurtis' work, including Svbtle, by the way).

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.

My idea is that coming up with a good design is as much work, and requires as much expertise, as coming up with a good algorithm. To me, viewing it like that makes the feeling of 'being ripped off' much easier to empathize with. Which is not the same as agreeing that that is indeed the case.

When I said I disagree with

  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)".

See: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

If supporting software patents is something you can't say here (and it seems very much like it is), then we are weaker community because of it. Even if software patents are in fact terrible.

Implementation is usually the easy part. It's figuring out what needs to be implemented that takes the real skill. It's like the plumber that charges you $200 to turn a screw 1/4 turn. Of course you could have turned the screw yourself, but would you have known which one to turn and by how much (and do so without spending six hours researching different models of garbage disposal)?

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.

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.)

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.

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.

Definitely a good lesson and that's why one needs to view the product with a wider perspective which should dictate the right strategy to take.

It's a complicated issue without a clean or simple answer. Arguably this is why different people have different thoughts on the software patent issue. Most people have a very black and white view of it but there's a lot of nuance that makes the issue shades of gray.

I also suspect the reaction would be entirely different (I think someone mentioned it in this thread) if Nate didn't open source it. I wonder why that's the case.

I absolutely agree with you. I think for a lot of people, including myself, however, the best marketing approach would have been to say "check this out, I did something cool, and I've open sourced it." This is what dcurtis probably should have done. He didn't do any groundbreaking rails code, and there was very little value in having a new workflow of blogging exist only on his servers. I think the value of Nate open sourcing it is much higher than if he had just built a clone and kept it to himself.

Basically, the community response supporting Nate is strong because he did something that benefits the community as a whole, where as dcurtis did something that benefited only himself and then shouted about it.

That's my (pretty myopic and polemic) take on all this.

But as the story is not about copyright, but about perceived entitlement, its also completely irrelevant.

Fact is, if Dustin hadn't done anything innovative (ie, worth cloning), we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Let me make a better parallel: a lemonade stand. Dustin thought "wow, the weather is nice. I'd like some lemonade." He made some especially good lemonade, added a little cranberry, and wrote about how good it was. Someone else, who hadn't previously wanted lemonade thought, "hey, I would also like some lemonade. Hadn't thought of cranberry before, I wonder if that's any good..."

And now we're having a conversation about how anyone who makes cranberry lemonade is stealing from Dustin.

I think the conversation is being had more because of the way Dustin presented what he did rather than what he presented.

Many successful have had both. You can make the case that Steve Jobs drove the Apple ideas but Tim Cook was the one who made sure the entire production chain was as efficiently run as possible.

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.

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?