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Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

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Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#81

Post by nadams »

tedunangst wrote: post #50
nadams wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the fence on this one - I could argue either way (I could probably work a books worth of material). However, I think it is interesting to note that the idea of "stealing" a design has been done for years. I just don't think many people do it to websites. Examples - there are companies that bundle premade controls that look pretty darn close to the designs in paid software. Here is an example of one: https://ww…

A year ago HN lost its mind after full screen Mario was shutdown. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6703002

I think it's interesting to point that out that the source is still available (on github no less) - I think Nintendo was unhappy because they were collecting donations (at least one of the comments mention this). The projects I mention don't appear to even have a paypal donate button.

Honestly, I have a feeling that Nintendo has talked to the authors of Zelda Classic and Mari0 at some point and made sure they understood where the line was drawn.

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#82

Post by yellowapple »

ericskiff wrote: post #2

While I love the idea of an open source tool that explores the same problems that Trello does and potentially even solves it in a very similar way, I have to admit that the exact look and feel being copied here seems like a blatant rip off. Am I off base? Can anyone speak to the copyright aspect of copying a solution and design so fully?

From what I can tell, they're working on a differentiated (improved, even) UI/L&F [0]. A lot of the concepts (including the one they seem to be working with) are based on mockups for improved versions of Trello's UI that were rejected by Trello, and it's apparent that non-Trello kanban software is being referenced as well.

[0]: https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/issues/94

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#83

Post by pb2au »

cheald wrote: post #29
r3bl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a discussion started in a GitHub issue about this. I must suggest you a comment by the project's co-owner: https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/issues/92#issuecomm... He went a little too far in his argument, but he does make a good point. EDIT : They've received a DMCA takedown notice from GitHub: https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/issues/92#issuecomm...

"In the meantime, please clone the repository on your local computer so we can have a lot of copies of it." Wow. That's uh. Something.

Also in a previous comment by the author, before the DMCA:

I also believe that it's not in Trello Inc. interest to try to censure us because of the Streisand effect, and it would be overly complex (I live in France, Yaşar lives in Turkey, we don't have a common company or an organization, and in fact we never met each other in the real life), and even if they stop us, and because the code is distributed under the MIT license some other will take the relay (remember PopCornTime anyone?).

That, combined the author posting it to on HN several hours after getting the DMCA, makes it clear that the author does not care about blatantly ripping off and redistributing others' work. Regardless of whatever their proposed solution would be for correcting the infringement, I doubt this project will ever be safe to use under assumption of an open source license.

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#84

Post by thedufer »

tedunangst wrote: post #55
gitaarik wrote: post #22

I like it. I'm using Trello now, but the interface doesn't work that convenient on mobile I think. So I was thinking to make a client of my own using the Trello API, but this way I can change the original interface to my likings, and hopefully other's likings, so it gets merged :). EDIT: A lot of people seem to think it looks to much like Trello. While I agree that the interface looks strikingly similar (or maybe eve…

If your "independent" clone is hot linking assets from the original, you probably have less control than you think. Ironically, Trello probably knows (or could learn) the IP of every person to use this.

As far as I can tell, they're not actually hotlinking anything - they just copied it once into their repo. Did I miss something?

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#86

Post by nickysielicki »

nhayden wrote: post #80
nickysielicki wrote: post #60

I don't understand the ethical dilemma many of you are raising. I've never believed there's such a thing as plagiarism of style, only things like algorithms and methodologies. If someone makes a wierd looking chair, and I like it and make my own, and they try to tell me I'm stealing their ideas they can fuck off, especially if I'm not selling this chair but just using it for myself and helping others build their own…

The case for infringement would be very weak to non-existent if they recreated the look and feel writing the CSS themselves from scratch. The issue is they took the original product and modified some spacing and other minor details and redistributed it. Any written work like this is copyrightable.

You're forgetting that they wrote the entire backend as a part of this.

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#87

Post by zevyoura »

thedufer wrote: post #84
tedunangst wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your "independent" clone is hot linking assets from the original, you probably have less control than you think. Ironically, Trello probably knows (or could learn) the IP of every person to use this.

As far as I can tell, they're not actually hotlinking anything - they just copied it once into their repo. Did I miss something?

The copied css has references to image URLs in it.

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#88

Post by thedufer »

zevyoura wrote: post #87
thedufer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, they're not actually hotlinking anything - they just copied it once into their repo. Did I miss something?

The copied css has references to image URLs in it.

Oh, I see it now. I was searching for trello.com, but they're using images that come from cloudfront.

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#89

Post by madeofpalk »

thedufer wrote: post #84
tedunangst wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your "independent" clone is hot linking assets from the original, you probably have less control than you think. Ironically, Trello probably knows (or could learn) the IP of every person to use this.

As far as I can tell, they're not actually hotlinking anything - they just copied it once into their repo. Did I miss something?

Yes, you missed this commit. Where they copied across CSS from Trello, including image URLs.

https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/blob/348081d9eca451...

Re: Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello

#90

Post by icebraining »

pb2au wrote: post #77
icebraining wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe in open source, then you need to be respectful of copyright law. It is the foundation for open source licensing. I don't see how that follows. I support open source, that is, the free distribution of software code. Open source licensing is just a necessary evil to account for the fact that copyright is anti-open-source by default. A few decades back, when the US and other countries required registratio…

It depends on your meaning behind "free distribution", but arguably most open source licenses don't exist to provide that specifically -- they exist to permit it while abiding by the other conditions on the license. For example, if you don't respect copyright law, you wouldn't be able to argue that a corporation taking GPLed code and incorporating it into a proprietary product is immoral nor taking BSD licensed code…

For example, if you don't respect copyright law, you wouldn't be able to argue that a corporation taking GPLed code and incorporating it into a proprietary product is immoral nor taking BSD licensed code and removing a link back to the original author is immoral.

No, I just can't argue that on the grounds that people should have a right to prevent others from copying their work. I can still defend it without incoherence on other grounds. Just because in some jurisdictions you have to use copyright to defend those rights, that doesn't make those rights dependent on accepting copyright.

For example, here in civil law countries, there's commonly no "copyright" as such; there's Moral Rights (which protect stuff like attribution) and Economic Rights. Therefore, there's no implication that abolishing Economic Rights like restricting others from copying must also abolish attribution rights.

Essentially, the attribution right is the goal, and copyright is just a method that can be used to achieve that goal. There's no incoherence in defending the goal without supporting this method of achieving it.

And that applies to the GPL as well - I can defend the right to prevent others from using your code in closed binaries, without having to defend the wider right of prevent any copying at all. (Though in my particular case, I wouldn't mind losing copyleft if copyright was to be abolished)

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