

Ask HN: How similar is too similar? - nmusra

Hi there.  Recently I was searching for a specific kind of web app, and found quite a few options, none of which were quite what I wanted.  However, one was very close.  (I'll call it Smokey.)  Unfortunately, it has a few problems.<p>It seems like the Smokey's creators worked hard on making sure its core functionality performs well and is usable, but the site is fairly rough around the edges, and doesn't have a few features I'd enjoy having.  Maybe more importantly, the creators seem to have moved on to greener pastures - while the site is still running, and ostensibly generating some income for the owners, it is barely supported (as evidenced by user complaints and topics about that very issue in the support forums).<p>I want to make my own version of this kind of web app, and likely even try to sell it once it is polished.  My problem is that I'm enamored with Smokey's basic structure, and what I really want is to improve on it and add to it, rather than go in an entirely different direction.  Obviously, though, if I did exactly that, I'd have ethical (and probably legal) problems.<p>I want to make a website that's similar to Smokey, but improved and more featureful.  How can I do this without being a scumbag, and without getting into sketchy legal waters?  How different does my site have to be?  Thanks for your help!
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byoung2
I've wondered about this as well. Consider the offline world...if I wanted to
open a fast food burger chain, how different could it possibly be from
McDonald's, Burger King, et al? Maybe I improve service, food quality, or
speed, but the basics are all the same.

Online, if you want to create a new auction site, search engine, or video
sharing site, it will likely look like Ebay, Google, or YouTube. Is it just
the code and business processes that are protected?

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nmusra
Well, I'm certain that the code is protected, but I think "look and feel" is a
slippery thing. Regardless, even if it's completely legal to copy the entire
look, I still want to be as ethical as I can.

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jacquesm
As long as you don't copy any of smokey's code you should be fine, the rest is
'look and feel'.

I'd stay away from copying their lay-out exactly, even if it might be legal it
is bad form.

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nmusra
I have no intention to copy any code - it's the "look and feel" that interests
me. The bad form is what I'm trying to avoid - I want to do this, but I want
everything to be on the up-and-up. I'm just not sure what that entails.

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jacquesm
Well, consider google. When they rolled out the competition was called
'altavista'. Google did exactly what altavista did, the layout was roughly the
same (in fact, googles was considerably simpler, and there were no ads at the
time), there were search boxes, results pages and so on.

The only thing different iirc, is that the altavista logo was mostly 'blue'
and showed some mountains, the search box was yellow and they had a bunch of
useless buttons on their homepage.

So conceptually, not a lot of differences. But in execution there was a world
of a difference.

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nmusra
Sounds a little like "bad form". ;) In seriousness, how would you go about
avoiding that? Doing what someone else is doing, better, still makes me uneasy
if the two products seem too alike.

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jacquesm
It's difficult. I would ask someone not familiar with the competitor to come
up with a user interface, then maybe tweak it until I'd be happy with it.

There are usually more paths that lead to a valid solution, but you're so 'in'
to that other one that it can be hard to see that without starting from
scratch. But since you've already seen it there is no 'from scratch' for you.

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nmusra
That's a good idea; thanks!

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jacquesm
You're welcome, that's what those Ask HN posts are for right :)

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Raphael
Friendfeed?

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nmusra
Haha. Not quite.

