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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

#51

Post by zo1 »

tghw wrote: post #25
thirdtruck wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a blatant imitation[1]. At the same time, the design is incredibly refined, so there's only so much room to move away from without making sacrifices solely for the sake of differentiation. EDIT: [1] According to a comment below, it's a straight-up copy of the CSS. That goes well beyond "blatant imitation."

Imitation is different than directly copying the CSS. They copied the CSS.

Which is totally fine for development purposes (prototype) and work in progress mockups. But they should have changed it before putting it on a public-facing .com domain.

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

#53

Post by agmcleod »

Been kinda building a trello-like app myself. But it's far more simplistic in features, and i'm trying to build it so it's way more mobile friendly. I have the front end as open source, and the web back end as closed. Not sure why I am doing it this way, but I hope to put out a proprietary iOS app for it at some point.

More or less started it to learn ReactJS. http://gitub.com/agmcleod/desert

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

#54

Post by syrnick »

mwg66 wrote: post #46
austenallred wrote: post #21

I love the idea of open source tools, but this goes way too far. This isn't just rebuilding a popular concept, this is taking code that was written by a for-profit company and blatantly stealing it. There's an important difference. The earlier versions of this repo still used the Trello logo. Trello's CSS is blatantly used, even using trellicons, the custom icon font created by Trello. The entire front-end is complet…

If the authors have genuinely copied CSS and icons (I haven't checked) then I would expect Trello Inc. to pursue the authors for copyright infringement (justifiably). The point is to be very precise with the criticism. Is the work stolen (protected by copyright law) or is it just a convincing clone?

They have clearly original Trello content checked in the repository.

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

#55

Post by tedunangst »

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.

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

#56

Post by rev_bird »

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…

> How can libre software have evil intentions?

This might not be a particularly nuanced view, but I'm totally fine with non-libre software being used to make a profit, if there's a market for it and there isn't some kind of extortionary force at work. Taking the code and "liberating" it could be considered nefarious because it directly undermines a company's ability to profit off of intellectual property that is entirely theirs.

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

#57

Post by 300bps »

austenallred wrote: post #21

I love the idea of open source tools, but this goes way too far. This isn't just rebuilding a popular concept, this is taking code that was written by a for-profit company and blatantly stealing it. There's an important difference. The earlier versions of this repo still used the Trello logo. Trello's CSS is blatantly used, even using trellicons, the custom icon font created by Trello. The entire front-end is complet…

Hmm. I've spent some time making my own Trello clone but mine has changed a little more than the one in the OP. First of all, mine is called Trellu. Check it out and let me know your thoughts:

http://goo.gl/n8Ca0M

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

#58

Post by Jugurtha »

tedunangst wrote: post #44
Jugurtha wrote: post #42

Reading all what is said, I can't keep myself from having words spring into my head: UNIX, GNU, Linux, Minix... I can use grep, cat, ls and so many commands on so many different machines... Same names, same functions, and the same UI (black screen, anyone?).

Was GNU grep implemented by somebody writing the code or running "cp unix/grep.c gnu/grep.c"?

To the best of my knowledge, the people behind this project wrote code.

I don't know if it's a Bash script containing your one liner, though... But they seem to have their own code. (I don't think Trello's code is freely available).

Bear in mind, I'm not for or against. I'm just putting the thing in perspective and to be compared with what happened throughout History.

When I do Ctrl+K, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W, Ctrl+Tab in Firefox or Chrome, they all have the same side effects.

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

#59

Post by zokier »

nadams wrote: post #37
austenallred wrote: post #21

I love the idea of open source tools, but this goes way too far. This isn't just rebuilding a popular concept, this is taking code that was written by a for-profit company and blatantly stealing it. There's an important difference. The earlier versions of this repo still used the Trello logo. Trello's CSS is blatantly used, even using trellicons, the custom icon font created by Trello. The entire front-end is complet…

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…

There are lots of semi-related issues raised in your post.

Generally copying/cloning a design is legally OK, but copying the implementation/execution of that design is not OK. This is well demonstrated in the font industry. You can copy a typeface as long as you do it "cleanly" (ie by not reverse engineering the font files), which is why there are lots of cheap copies of common fonts. This is probably the most relevant aspect for this project. They can copy the look'n'feel of Trello as perfectly as they can, but they can not copy Trello assets, CSS etc.

Then there is the Ribbon. Being software Microsoft has it patented which makes clones of Ribbon more in the gray area. On the other hand the enforceability of such patents is somewhat questionable.

Lastly the games. In addition to copyright infringement I suspect there is also risk of trademark infringement. What makes trademarks interesting that they are thought to need enforcing to remain valid, so companies generally are less willing to a blind eye to tm infringements. Also unlike copyright which considers where the work comes from, trademarks generally consider only what the work looks like and if it can be confused to the original trademark.

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

#60

Post by nickysielicki »

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 chairs, too.

Style sheets are within these same bounds as far as I care. They're not intellectual property or content. There's nothing profound about aesthetics. No hard work in refining it. It's something that's composed entirely of intuition and trying to copyright that seems immoral to me. CSS is dressing, not content, and dressing is the only thing they have stolen from trello.

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