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Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

smartcar.com

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Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#581

Post by chii »

samsudden wrote: post #397
reredacted wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we don't know that, do we? They only showed some auth code. The OP does _not_ show that Otonomo has duplicated any business APIs, and Otonomo took their docs down. Unless someone has proof Otonomo copied more than just the examples documented in the OP, this is just pure PR fluff.

Yes, unless the business API was duplicated as well (and as noted above, there is no indication that they were), it just points to someone being lazy in writing up auth documentation. Duplicated parameter names would be expected in this case, and preferred actually, so that they conform to the OAuth spec :-) The descriptive text is not an exact copy as well. From what we know, the only damning bit is that parameter v…

> business API was duplicated

I would like to believe that interoperability trumps copyright in this case - a competitor copying an API/protocol and making a compatible, competing service is good for the consumer.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#582

Post by owenmarshall »

Sabinus wrote: post #527
shard972 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't hold my breath on law being disrupted, they are quite happy the way they are thank you very much.

You don't need the permission of encumbants to disrupt their industry. You just take their customers.

The legal industry - an explicit manifestation of state power - will require a great deal of guns and soldiers to disrupt.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#583

Post by chii »

ddebernardy wrote: post #305
phkahler wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you completely, but Oracle vs Google is still going through the courts on this exact issue - copyright on APIs. I've seen product roll-outs delayed because that case isn't settled yet. For VCs to jump in knowing that's what this was seems risky, but maybe they factored that in.

This isn't (only) about copyright on APIs; it's also about copyright on the API docs.

The docs definitely is a violation, but that's a foregone conclusion when even the examples are exactly the same.

The copyright of the structure of the API, however, is still something to be debated about.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#584

Post by chii »

rat9988 wrote: post #143
seibelj wrote: post #54

So they built a new product to a competitor's API spec? There is nothing wrong with that, the API itself is a plug - you need to implement the backend to compete. It is super lame and dumb to have ripped off their doc, but the API format itself is not an issue to me. If I were going to implement a competitor to Google Maps, it would make sense to copy the Maps API so people can migrate seamlessly. That is the nature…

Api design is part of the value.

And not all value is capturable under copyright. If you want this level of capture of value, use patents instead.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#585

Post by aiisjustanif »

megaremote wrote: post #456
reredacted wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Otonomo took down their API. Can you confirm that more of their API other than the authorization code was duplicated? Honestly duplicating auth APIs are perfectly fine. If you showed proof of business APIs being duplicated, I'd have more faith in your claim. Right now this looks like a publicity stunt on a baseless argument.

> Honestly duplicating auth APIs are perfectly fine. You don't get to say this.

Unless I'm going crazy. I guess we have a big industry problem around auth then. We only have some many types/ways to implement auth and we all use them.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#586

Post by mikorym »

gepoch wrote: post #437

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere so I thought I'd post it to see what you all think... IANAL, IMHO, etc. I searched for one of the unique tokens in the docs: https://www.google.com/search?q=0facda3319 That pulls up their SDK github repo: https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk/blob/master/doc/readme.... Which is published with a standard MIT license: https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk/blob/master/LICENSE.md Whic…

> "...subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

Which they did not do.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#587

Post by LeonM »

neoquisitive wrote: post #173
LeonM wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will need additional hardware in the car to achieve this. Smartcar just does a really thorough job of hiding this fact. AFAIK the is not a single car manufacturer (not even Tesla) that has any API available. Most cars don't have internet connectivity anyway. Disclosure: I do NOT work for Smartcar, but have build multiple backends for P2P carsharing and bike rental platforms.

Disclosure: I used to work for Smartcar. This is patently false. Smartcar does not require additional hardware. Quoting from their product page: > Our API works with the embedded telematics module built into most new vehicles. No need for aftermarket hardware like OBD2 dongles.

Only a very, very small selection of cars support this.

As it stands now, the documentation is very much misleading as Smartcar makes it sound as if you can use this on any vehicle. Look again at sahaskatta's response, he/she made it sound as if you just have to read the docs to 'unlock your car with an app'. But in reality, you'll also need to have a brand new and very specific car if you want to do this.

Sahaskatta also asked for 'any feedback I have'. I gave that and now I'm being downvoted for my criticism...

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#588

Post by simonh »

intertextuality wrote: post #565
atq2119 wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how git works. The main point of putting something on GitHub is to allow people to git clone it. Every git clone is a fork of the project. If you don't want something forked, don't put it on GitHub.

I understand how git works. I'm discussing the edge case scenario where someone uploads something but doesn't add a license. In that case, forking and cloning should be disabled, at the least.

Github is a publishing platform. Publishing is the act of releasing something for distribution. Cloning or forking a repo is the standard method of distributing something using Git. All Github's terms of service do is ensure it's clear that if something is published to their platform, they will distribute it in those ways.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#589

Post by nailer »

ajhurliman wrote: post #560
intertextuality wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously such an implementation would disable cloning as well.

The onus is on the end user to make it private.

Just thinking aloud, but GitHub could warn, when setting up new projects that don't have an OSS license, that the user may wish to make the repo private.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#590

Post by bengrunfeld »

Oh please.... tech companies are NOTORIOUS for cannibalizing each other's ideas, IP, and designs. The general exit strategy these days is "Sell out before Google or Facebook says screw it and just copies your product".

Copying an API? Because of some similar wording and similar structure. That's literally scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel - and yes, that's two bottoms!!

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