261–270 of 637 posts
why does this post read like david vs goliath? i hate to be such a cynic but given those two facts this reads to me like a marketing piece
[0] https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/01/smartcar-raises-10-millio...
In general, you can't copyright a "working part". That's why there are 3rd party auto parts. That's pretty much true in the software area too, although Google and Oracle are over- litigating that issue. The idea here probably isn't patentable. "Locate and unlock a car's doors remotely" is not exactly original. Just rewording the docs is cheezy. The other party should have done a full rewrite.
not sure how to formulate it but wouldn't a great execution be very hard to reproduce? looks like it's copying the external API. also looking at the other company documentation, it's different from the screenshots: https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/getting-started (archive.org history is quite limited so may have been scrubbed) edit: yes those "screenshots" are very disingenuous: https://smartcar.com/docs/api#introduction
Actually, many of the otonomo docs were saved to web.archive.org, last week: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/* And many were saved to archive.fo today: https://archive.fo/docs.otonomo.io The screenshots look accurate to me, what discrepancies do you see?
I meant that it's just copying the API format (e.g. probably to make migrating from the other service easy) which isn't uncommon (e.g. most of AWS services copied APIs)
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China is a nation, not a race. Race itself is a social construct. Nice try though!
"Race itself is a social construct." What do people mean by this exactly? I've heard some people make the case that the exact boundaries between ethnic groups can be socially constructed, which makes sense to me (like how one draws a hard line between two groups which have some admixture). But the idea that ethnicities have nothing to do with biology and is a purely social phenomenon sounds like a lay-person's misund…
That, and the idea that "races" can be clearly distinguished and defined, as you said.
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> The Chinese You mean "Chinese companies". "The chinese" is just racist.
In addition to being unwelcome in its own right, this sort of comment is against Hacker News guidelines. Please don’t do this here.
Not saying the original comment was racist, but in general I don't think we should be promoting racism.
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Exactly, I don't understand what is their objection. Since when copying some API docs is illegal? We don't even know yet if API are copyrightable, right? Ever since Facebook copied snapchat's features like it was nothing it became clear for everyone that the best clone will win. You have a product? Expect a clone of it. To me this post is just "they stole my idea" whining.
Facebook's cloning of Snapchat's features is legal. If they'd copied Snapchat's "how to use " documentation verbatim, typos and all, that'd have been a copyright violation.
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China is a nation, not a race. Race itself is a social construct. Nice try though!
"Race itself is a social construct." What do people mean by this exactly? I've heard some people make the case that the exact boundaries between ethnic groups can be socially constructed, which makes sense to me (like how one draws a hard line between two groups which have some admixture). But the idea that ethnicities have nothing to do with biology and is a purely social phenomenon sounds like a lay-person's misund…
Pretty spot on.
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Bessemer & Co. would not spend this kind of money without doing DD to the point where their competitive review would have snagged the OP's efforts. So most likely they know.
They would not have looked at the API docs of either the startup they are investing in or their competitor (99.95%). I've worked as VC and technical detail at such a level is basically non existent. Economics, team, market take up the vast majority of the effort.
Ultimately, the VCs probably just ask the founders "Hey, your product looks very similar to product A, how is yours different and did you develop it on your own?" If the founder denies copying and gives a reasonable answer for how they developed it on their own, the VC then makes a judgement. They also may hire some consultants or have some outside experts look at the tech stack to make sure no red flags pop up.
However, you can't dig through every line of code and every document in diligence and compare it to several other companies code/docs. It would take too long and everyone involved (VCs, lawyers, start-up) would be annoyed.
i think this is a perfect example of: ideas mean nothing, execution means everything. you had the idea, but they had the connections(VC, industry, etc) and knowhow to execute on it faster and bring it to market faster. Sad, but this is the market we have created! The rich can steal ideas, or do whatever they want, with impunity because they can defend their questionable actions in court. This is what AirBNB and Uber…
Copying and pasting the docs seems a little egregious, but that's a pretty small issue that could be changed in a day.