Isn't it mostly standard OAuth workflow, Is there something proprietary in the docs themselves.
Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
421–430 of 637 posts
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tend to agree with the original comment, particularly for products that are still evolving. We have a competitor who copies our features, but they don't know why we built the feature. The result is they end up copying the wrong stuff or tweaking the feature in a way that completely misses the point. But, I agree with you in that creating a feature isn't an advantage in and of itself. Rather, it is the domain expert…
Apple is the perfect counter example here. Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player, but the generic term is basically 'iPod'. Apple wasn't the first company to make a smartphones or touchscreens, but the generic term for a touchscreen smartphone is basically 'iPhone'. Apple wasn't the first company to make a tablet, but the generic term is basically 'iPad'. Apple didn't invent high resolution displays fo…
This has to be a regional thing, similar to how in some areas of the American south, "Coke" is a generic term for all sodas. But at least in my area (Portland, OR), what you're saying is definitely not true.
I've never heard someone use Apple trademarks as generic terms. The generic term people use for a touchscreen smartphone is...a smartphone. Likewise, a generic term for a tablet is "tablet". I've never heard someone use "iPhone" to refer to all smartphones or "iPad" to refer to all tablets.
Though as a kid, I know my parents would say to "put away the Nintendo" when it was the PlayStation stuff that was all spread out on the floor.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is nothing wrong with competition. Read Smith.
Depends on what you classify as "competition". Theft, sabotage, ad hominem attacks, even murder, could all be considered "competition" if your ethics and morals are on a different plane. So saying there is nothing wrong with competition as a blanket dismissal is a bit myopic.
Are you accusing Rocket of any of those? They're famous for cloning business plans, but I wasn't aware they went beyond that.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they didn't catch bugs, maybe they also wouldn't catch booby-traps. Are there examples where developers have done that?
FTDI modified the driver for their USB RS232 chips so that it would brick counterfeits: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/ftdis...
So not one that worked out well.
The article discusses Microsoft's anti-piracy measures. And it brings back horrible memories. So I had this server, running Windows Server 2000. And there was a nearby lightning strike, which bricked the motherboard.
But hey, service contract. Except that the company had gone through reorganization. So they sent me a motherboard that was comparable and compatible with the box. But it had a different seller code, so my copy of Windows Server 2000 wouldn't install.
Microsoft couldn't/wouldn't fix that. So I had to return the replacement motherboard, wait for another replacement, and install it. But hey, it all worked out in the end.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be (morbidly? Sadochistically? I lack the term) interesting to watch how many people jump ship in a situation like this.
Once upon a time a group called 'CitizenX' copied the Camarades.com website and software and gave us the proverbial finger because 'they were in the US and we were in Europe and what were we going to do about it?'. Turns out not everybody working there agreed with the tactic and the day they raised money I got a very nicely worded anonymous email with the name of the investor. The ink on the press release was still w…
That is truly poetic.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The reality is that if an idea is really good, the people who came up with it know it better than anyone and that gives them a tremendous advantage in terms of knowing what is important and what isn't. I have to disagree with you emphasizing this point. If someone/entity manages to get your idea or code, they may be able to sell the solution at a fraction of the cost since their R&D was lower than yours. When the en…
Then can't you too find other investor for yourself ? You have the advantage being the one that come out with the idea to sell it to the investor. Or heck pitch it to the same investor too.
No investor will get involved with a company that is presently undergoing major intellectual property litigation. IP lawsuits are the kiss of death for VCs.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even then, they are still parasites with no ethics.
If you won't throw your ethics into the pit for power, someone else will. And them everybody will be forced to throw the shared ethics or be outcompeted. And collectively, everyone will be poorer as a result. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
I think you draw the wrong conclusion, even from your link. Your link as I read it is basically saying we are all collectively responsible for good and evil, and that there are supposedly unpopular evils which we ourselves create and implicitly endorse, often counterintuitively.
That doesn't mean we ought to just give up and worship whatever worst thing capitalism produces. If you look at Ginsberg's long history of political activism as an example it's certainly not what he and those around him lived.
At a separate scale from that discussion we need to "play our side" of the game, and that will necessarily involve your personal interpretation of ethics. I believe it is a kind of laziness to dismiss that.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tend to agree with the original comment, particularly for products that are still evolving. We have a competitor who copies our features, but they don't know why we built the feature. The result is they end up copying the wrong stuff or tweaking the feature in a way that completely misses the point. But, I agree with you in that creating a feature isn't an advantage in and of itself. Rather, it is the domain expert…
Apple is the perfect counter example here. Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player, but the generic term is basically 'iPod'. Apple wasn't the first company to make a smartphones or touchscreens, but the generic term for a touchscreen smartphone is basically 'iPhone'. Apple wasn't the first company to make a tablet, but the generic term is basically 'iPad'. Apple didn't invent high resolution displays fo…
I'm a long-time Apple user fully baked into the Apple ecosystem and have friends and acquaintances in the same position, and I'm not sure I agree with most of those. Maybe "Retina display," only because Apple arguably was the first company to give that a specific branding term. I don't even think iPod was ever a generic for "MP3 player"; it was far and away the most popular MP3 player, and I'm sure the dozens of people who bought Zunes were tired of people saying "I've never seen an iPod that looks like that before," but that's not the same thing as being a generic term.
Beyond that, though, your other examples just seem weird, because I don't ever hear anyone use iPad or iPhone as a generic term. "I have an Android iPhone." "Hey, that's a cool Microsoft iPad." Nope. And the Mac was the first computer anyone outside of nerdspace ever heard of using a GUI and mouse, and I'm sure that's led to some pop culture confusion, but that doesn't strike me as comparable to the other examples anyway. "GUI" and "mouse" are generic terms.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#429That is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more…
Copying as a business model is pretty shitty as is copying legitimate IP. But if Company B can execute a similar concept faster and better than Company A, that's ultimately better for society. This situation looks very egregious though.
> But if Company B can execute a similar concept faster and better than Company A, that's ultimately better for society.
Only in the short term. In the longer term, it may no longer be worth the risk for any Company A to begin in the first place.
Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it wasn’t already, the docs and the code should be copyrighted. It costs nothing and should be relatively easy to litigate in the case of copy pastage lol
It IS copyrighted. To lose copyright, the author has to explicitly volunteer to sell the rights or give them away. A work has copyright protections the moment it is created.
Correct. Though they now need to register their copyrights (proving original art) in order to move to the lawsuit phase.