I didn't see Dustin's supposedly arrogant comments back when this shitstorm blew in, but I still don't understand why anyone thinks this is OK. Was Dustin upset about people copying the backend? because, I don't see a problem with someone taking his "ideas instead of drafts" bit and running with it. What is completely unacceptable is the wholesale copying of his visual deign. We now have two different "open source" blogging systems that allow people to create websites that look pretty much exactly like Dustin's, without his permission. That's shitty and wrong. Dustin created a visual brand for himself, and yes, six others. No one has the right to take that and use it for themselves without his permission. There is no "liberation" in using someone else's design, there is only theft.
That is laughable. I did compare the two before writing my post, and arguing that the one would not be mistaken for the other is preposterous. When I see the copied design I see nothing but papered over choices Dustin made. If you, and more importantly, the other people who have been defending this really believe that the design is unique, it totally explains why this started such a huge argument on HN, the two sides are not even arguing about the same thing.
1. No one cares if you take Dustin's concept that pre-published posts should be called "ideas" instead of posts and have lower overhead. He told us all about it, he gave it away. Open source it, it's a great idea, everyone should be able to host their own blog and have as little overhead as possible in nurturing ideas into posts.
2. It is wrong to take someone's design and just use it for yourself. It seem especially shitty to do this when someone has announced they are going to try and make money off of using that design as a brand. This obviously gets pretty grey pretty fast but there is a line and this copy crosses it. It's cool to use other people's work to guide your own, that's how we learn. But when you take something, you have to make it your own. Imagine if I took kottke's css and changed the bars on top from blue to red, it would not only be wrong but silly. Aping someone else's style is not how you want your blog to be remembered.
