Go look at http://basecamphq.com/ again. The layout, fonts, and styling are all clearly pulled from the marketing website.

I'm sure he used their design as a template to get something somewhat presentable for the time being and that once he has some more time and traction, he'll give the design a bit more attention. Let's relax a bit and stop making this out to be some corporate scandal.

I wasn't saying it's a corporate scandal or that the creator was a bad person. The problem is that 37signals didn't offer their design as a template for re-use.

Everyone uses other designs as inspiration (myself included), I'm just saying you should put some distance between yourself and the original inspiration before showing it to others.

agreed, it's definitely cloned.

The simplest would be to ask if it is ok. I don't think they'd have a problem with it.

I just see a teeeny-bit of inspiration. Remove the top black bar and it will be hard to tell that he was even inspired by basecamp. Sorry but you are way off on your judgement for this one. Of course, IMO.