
Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello - mquandalle
https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/
======
austenallred
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 completely, blatantly stolen.

If you want to build LibreOffice as a free alternative to Microsoft Word,
that's great. But taking Microsoft Word's code and uploading it into an open
source GitHub repository? That crosses the line. I don't care what legal
ramifications there are or what constitutes copyright infringement or what is
legally actionable (heaven knows the law is often off base from what is
right/moral/ethical, especially in software). That's another discussion, but
this is messed up.

Can you create a task management system in Meteor.js that is inspired by
"agile" methodology and similar to Trello? Sure. But blatantly taking code,
especially without even putting a creative spin of your own on it, is just
plain wrong.

~~~
nadams
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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYzjJHtldec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYzjJHtldec)

They may just wrap Windows API - but I've seen ribbon interfaces running on
Windows 2K with VB6.

Even if one would argue that falls into "fair use" \- consider two more
examples:

Zelda Classic[1] - they used original artwork from the original Nintendo game
and re-created the game on the PC

Mari0[2] - the original Mario but with portals (including level design and
graphics)

Now from what I can tell - Nintendo doesn't shutdown/care about these people
because they aren't making money off the games. But if these games aren't
infringing on Nintendo's copyright - I don't know what would be.

[1] - [http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?96754-Zelda-
Classi...](http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?96754-Zelda-
Classic-2-50-1) [2] -
[http://stabyourself.net/mari0/](http://stabyourself.net/mari0/)

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

~~~
nadams
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.

------
ericskiff
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?

~~~
huhtenberg
Even setting aside the legality of this rip, doesn't the ethical aspects of it
bother anyone as well?

Designing a simple and functional UI is _really_ hard. It takes ages to sift
through possible options, discard the fluff, iterate over the details and
while the end result _is_ endearingly simple, it ends up fronting a shitload
of sweat and tears. And then someone just waltzes in waving their Libre flag
and the middle finger to lift the whole thing just as if it's a no big deal. I
don't know about you, but this really pisses me off. This is as disrespectful
as it gets towards people who did the original work and it also reflects
really poorly on the O/S in general.

~~~
markdown
If you want to see a completely original UI with not a single thing "borrowed"
from elsewhere, my 5yr old has some drawings to show you.

This specific case takes it too far, there's no doubt about that. But you can
be sure that the Trello designer was heavily influenced by those that came
before him. UI designers spend half their time looking at UI's designed by
others to see what works and what doesn't.

In fact, more often than not, UI design _should_ be copied. You don't design a
completely different light switch just because you want to be original.
Function before form.

~~~
huhtenberg
Of course the cross-pollination is required. But this LibreTrello thing is a
blatant rip - the look and feel, the semantics and interaction flows, all the
details. Everything, to the dot.

It's still would've been not a big deal if it were just a temporary
placeholder design and it got released to the public accidentally. Gotta start
somewhere, that's understandable. But they act _entitled_ to what they did.
This is what the problem is. They don't recognize or acknowledge all the work
that Trello devs did to get things where they are. And they did a lot of it,
which is plainly obvious from the fact that there was no other Trello before
them.

------
Globz
Wow...this looks like a clone of Trello, sorry I cannot support this.

I have been using Trello for a long time and I refuse to give credits to
someone who blatantly stole the assets, code, etc. and didn't even care to AT
LEAST add a different touch to the project. I love open source but this
project is off the limit concerning copyrights.

~~~
zo1
What code did they steal, exactly? They re-implemented all of the
functionality, and I'm not sure they took take the JS either. So at this
point, it leaves CSS + Look&Feel, and I think they took some icons, though
that seems like more of an oversight as it's still a young project from the
looks of it.

I don't see this as any different to such works as OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon
Deluxe) and CorsixTH (Theme Hospital). Both open-source remakes of the popular
closed-source games. Obviously they don't bundle the media (graphics, etc),
and just ask end-installers to point to the installation files of the
originals. You could argue that hot-linking css is quite similar to that,
though not exactly.

The real problem is them putting this not-yet-sanitized-of-all-copyright-
infringment onto a public-facing site with a domain and everything. If it was
still on Github, then that's fine. But they jumped the bandwagon a little too
soon, and people are escalating it incredibly quickly.

~~~
cheald
The CSS is distributed in the Github repo, ostensibly under an open-source
license, which the project maintainer has no right to use, distribute, or
relicense. It's about as clear a case of copyright infringement as they come.

(And that's not even mentioning that reusing someone else's CSS likely
requires you to reuse their markup, too.)

------
dewey
"Yaşar received an email from Trello, Inc. asking him to rename the Metrello
project. Do you have any idea for a new name?" [1]

Apparently it was even called *trello a few weeks ago, so they are definitely
aware of that project already. Curious why it wasn't DMCA'ed earlier already.

[1]
[http://crater.io/posts/8azTCHojZq8CoJpAR](http://crater.io/posts/8azTCHojZq8CoJpAR)

~~~
vohof
I had to check for dirt on my monitor on that one.

------
pxlpshr
I don't endorse a blatant rip off of the UI and the assets. You can do better
than that. Otherwise, good job on the development effort and open source
initiative.

~~~
thirdtruck
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."

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

~~~
zo1
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.

~~~
cheald
I'm going to suggest that it's not even good for prototype work, because it
invalidates any claim to clean-room implementation and makes it very easy to
cross the line between original work and ripoff.

------
yellowapple
I think if this had been actually clean-room reverse-engineered, it wouldn't
be getting the backlash it's getting.

The fact that the LibreBoard devs outright ripped off Trello's CSS and HTML is
a bit disappointing. Perhaps with the DMCA notice they got, they'll consider
scrapping the current UI and coming up with something a bit more, you know,
not blatantly copy-pasted.

That said, being able to use something reasonably-Trello-like for internal use
(with data under the control of the entity using it) is a fantastic idea, and
the fact that LibreBoard does that reasonably well (from what I can tell)
gives me some hope that they'll manage to pull themselves out of this muck.

EDIT: And apparently there is, in fact, an effort to actually create a UI that
isn't a blatant Trello ripoff:
[https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/issues/94](https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/issues/94)

------
cstrahan
Nice! I'm glad to see Cap'n Proto and Sandstorm seeing some love.

For those not in the know:

[https://sandstorm.io/](https://sandstorm.io/)
[https://capnproto.org/](https://capnproto.org/)

(I'm not affiliated in anyway, just a fan of Kenton Varda's work, which also
include Protocol Buffers)

------
janus
It's so sad that such great work can bring so many negative repercussions just
because the project creator's decided to blatantly rip off Trello's assets.

The project would be under such a different light had they decided style it
themselves... I think they're so much better than this.

~~~
kjs3
What "great work". He took someone else's work and said "look what I did".

~~~
lucio
They should rewrite the CSS from scratch.

But for everything else is seems it is original work. And that's a big part of
the project.

------
fiatjaf
Some time ago I made Youfle[1]. I was trying to make a Trello clone, but for
structured data, like a direct interface to a document database that could be
used (and/or extended) by not-so-simple but yet data management contexts. The
idea was to make something versatile like a spreadsheet and yet powerful as a
database. The design resembles Trello (and, differently from Libreboard, it
has card drag-and-drop and horizontal scrolling with click-and-drag
capabilities). It works offline and saves data to PouchDB (IndexedDB on your
browser, probably).

Documents should be written in YAML, but they also accept free text. The
custom indexing, map and reduce functions, pagination, querying and other UI
features were not implemented yet. To edit a card, double-click on its title.
Adding the ID of other card as a value to any property of a card you create a
link between the two, which you can see if you click on the body of the card
after you stop editing.

If anyone has feedback to share about this, please let me know. The code is at
GitHub[2].

[1]: [http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/youfle/](http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/youfle/) [2]:
[https://github.com/fiatjaf/youfle](https://github.com/fiatjaf/youfle)

------
gitaarik
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 even just exactly
the same), I think the intentions are not to evil. How can libre software have
evil intentions? Of course it can, but since it's libre and everybody can read
and change the sourcecode, it likely won't happen.

And, in the end, isn't that why we have libre software at all? We want to have
control over the software, instead of the software having control over us,
right?

~~~
tedunangst
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.

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

~~~
zevyoura
The copied css has references to image URLs in it.

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

------
imslavko
It is a great example of a bigger open-source Meteor apps in a wild along-side
with Telescope ([http://www.telesc.pe/](http://www.telesc.pe/)) which is also
well documented and is extensible.

------
dogecoinbase
For the curious, they're hosting their rework of the UI off github in order to
comply with their DMCA takedown:
[http://git.libreboard.com/libreboard/libreboard/](http://git.libreboard.com/libreboard/libreboard/)

------
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](http://gitub.com/agmcleod/desert)

~~~
ay1n
There's typo in the URL, should be:
[https://github.com/agmcleod/desert](https://github.com/agmcleod/desert)

~~~
agmcleod
Ah thanks :)

------
rcarmo
Wow. Just wow. Two years ago we had an internal row about people using Trello
and possibly exposing internal data (which we attempted to solve through
various means).

Having this as a Docker container is _great_ for in-house use (although I
haven't checked the internals and am not very enthusiastic about their using
Node...)

------
peeyek
They received DMCA takedown notice from github because the user interface
[https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/commit/14e6b2fb9149...](https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/commit/14e6b2fb91496d4e35412a5106b559a271490291)

------
fiatjaf
Well, apparently they reimplemented all the logic by their own, they just
copied the visual from Trello, with a single CSS appropriation. They shouldn't
have copied the CSS, but they can still "uncopy" it and write their own
styles.

------
vdm
So now we get to set WIP limits?

------
Jugurtha
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?).

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

~~~
Jugurtha
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.

~~~
krschultz
The people in the project cp -rf'ed the assets from Trello proper including
CSS, proprietary fonts, icons, and images.

~~~
Jugurtha
Indeed.

------
codereflection
Trello is free, so is this meant to complete with Trello Gold?

~~~
Spooky23
I can't use Trello at work because some of the data that would be placed there
may have a restrictive information classification.

I'd love to be able to buy a different tier of Trello service instead of
stickers, but an open source clone will do too!

~~~
GETah
We've got an application that is very similar to trello (www.iferapp.com) that
we are planning to offer in self hosted mode - we are going into beta very
soon.

------
sergiotapia
Fantastic! Gotta love the people who salivate at the mouth with talks of
litigation. Just tweak the UI and this product is a great alternative.
Congratulations on your launch

------
nautical
Just the CSS for god sake ! ..... there is much more to it than that ...

~~~
cheald
Well, it shouldn't be too hard for the author to write original 'Just CSS'
then.

------
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.

~~~
nhayden
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.

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

~~~
bdcravens
Quickly reading through the code, it looks like the frontend is the bulk of
the code. Which makes sense: Trello is really a pretty simple app; the UI
experience is where the real magic is.

~~~
bbcbasic
Could even be done as a couchapp.

