

Clone software to start my own business. Is it ethical? (discussion) - SingAlong
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.829048.17

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keeptrying
Was google a clone of altavista? Was facebook a clone of friendster? Was the
ipod a clone of all other mp3 players? Is Mockingbird a clone of Balsamiq?

Just copying an idea is fine. And if you do any kind of market research, your
essentially figuring out which idea is the most profitable to copy.

Its finally all about execution.

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Timothee
You're right, it's all in the way you execute. But starting off with the word
"clone" doesn't sound good.

I'd say Google was "a take" on search engines like Altavista, Facebook "a
take" on social networks like Friendster. They didn't start as "clones".

Maybe it's just a matter of phrasing but I was surprised by the number of
replies like "go ahead, clone it!". Being inspired by, revisiting... are words
that sound better to me. Between his decision on cloning and the outsourcing,
it doesn't bode well.

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dkarl
"Clone" doesn't sound bad to me coming from a programmer. Any programmer who
is good enough to create an exact clone will find it psychologically
impossible to do so. There's no way a programmer could complete a clone
without thinking, "I can do better... they should have done it this way... it
will be much better and more successful if I change this part."

Maybe I'm wrong, though, and I'm probably naive. Are there any software clones
that aren't just inferior knock-offs, implemented by cheap labor hired by
someone who never intended to match the quality of the original? I wouldn't
count any product that beats the original in any meaningful way, such as
better support for a certain language.

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michael_dorfman
Peldi is a class act.

He's wrong about one thing, though: "I wish you luck, but not too much" is
much older than Obama-- here's a usage from 1932:
[http://books.google.no/books?id=10wCi1LnRFoC&pg=PA15&...](http://books.google.no/books?id=10wCi1LnRFoC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22I+wish+you+luck,+but+not+too+much%22&source=bl&ots=xMn0FQ8dyu&sig=Wecm0-KvNcYlldtj6UTHZMcxuTE&hl=en&ei=xBiBTODzJ4jaOJC1yYcO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22I%20wish%20you%20luck%2C%20but%20not%20too%20much%22&f=false)

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antidaily
Too bad you can't link directly to his comment.

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cperciva
You mean like this?
[http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.829048.1...](http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.829048.17#discussTopic829090)

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ujal
From the perspective of a customer I would go so far to say that it is
unethical not to copy it.

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10ren
Wow, I think that's actually true (about followers making you the leader). I
had a competitor (following, though not cloning), and it freaked me out (like,
seriously), and for this reason (and others) I ended up stepping back somewhat
from the space. But looking back... my best sales were from that period.

I also had liked being the one and only - but that's ego, not business.

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Zak
Making an exact (more or less) clone of a successful product isn't especially
unethical to my way of thinking, but it is _stupid_. The original product has
a "head start" in the marketplace and you're almost certainly going to be
playing catch-up in terms of market share and (here's the less part of "more
or less") features.

What does make sense is a near-clone with a killer feature added. Google was
like Altavista, but with results that are actually useful. reddit was just
like delicious/popular, but with voting. Myspace was just like Friendster, but
with uptime. Cheap/free when the competition is expensive usually counts as a
killer feature, but isn't always the most effective way to make a profit.

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dman
I mostly agree with you but one small caveat - most companies do a relatively
poor job of extracting economic value from their products on a global basis.
So in this case if the OP is willing to work the Chinese local market much
harder than Balsamiq can then the whole endeavour might actually be
worthwhile. In short you dont have to beat the global maxima of product
providers, just the local maxima.

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Zak
Localization is very much a killer feature. Being just like Google[0] but with
a China-centric instead of US-centric worldview seems to be working great for
Baidu.

[0] In terms of core-product, in the ways that matter to most users

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jon_hendry
From the looks of it, he wants to clone Balsamiq not because he thinks he can
do the concept better, or because he has a different take on it, or because
he's inspired by that sort of functionality, but because they say they make a
lot of money.

That's all.

He basically wants to ride on their coattails, and presumably sell a cheaper
knockoff.

Which is, I think, rather sleazy.

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jamesbritt
"Which is, I think, rather sleazy."

Why, exactly?

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jamesbritt
To whomever modded me down: Are you capable of expressing an informed answer
to a serious question, or is it that you just get dumbstruck at the prospect
of explaining something you'd rather just take as a given?

The idea that plain copying for the sake of making a cheaper knockoff is
somehow wrong or sleazy is prevalent in many places, but never well
articulated. It seems entirely a cultural thing, something that bothers some
people because that's all they've known.

If there's a deeper reason, I'd like to know what it is.

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Revisor
On a side note: The guy is outsourcing his core activity - the actual
development of the product. That can't end well.

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akkartik
Part of the discussion is about whether the core activity is marketing. That's
an interesting question.

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wallflower
Very good discussion. Is it software or marketing or the people who wrote it
or the community they have grown? The software is Balsamiq btw.

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lincolnq
Wow! I had a really strange experience there. I read the first post, thought
to myself "Wow, this is a terrible troll, the rest of the comments can't be
worthwhile", and hit Back. ("make use of open source projects, which is
immoral" was the breaking point for me to decide it was a troll).

Then I came back to HN to complain about the troll, read your comment and the
others here, and promptly turned around and went over to the site again to
actually read the comments. And it's true! It was a very good discussion.

My troll filter isn't very sensitive -- I usually give people the benefit of
the doubt -- but it unambiguously went off here.

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dpcan
If he clones, that's one thing. If he competes, that's another.

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mkramlich
This is one consequence risked when an ISV is very public and explicit about
how much money they make. The chance is always non-zero, but surely it is
increased if you reveal numbers in public and they are large.

That said, I love Balsamiq and appreciate most everything he has shared with
the public. And I think what this Chinese guy is proposing is scummy, at least
in how he treats it.

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goodgoblin
My view is its similar to opening a laundromat across the street from an
existing laundromat. Is it unethical? Wrong question. Would it piss you off if
you owned the other laundromat? Yes. Golden Rule applies. On the internet any
website is right across the street from any other.

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dooshydoo
I don’t understand the ambivalence for stealing. If you’ve ever tried to teach
someone something, you know it’s impossible to get them to where you are.
Maybe worse, maybe better, but never your equivalent. And if it's worse, no
worries; if it’s better, it fuels your own development.

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jpmc
Why reinvent the wheel? If you can find a foundation from which to build a
better service/app/mousetrap why not? Consider utilizing a clone a part of
natural software evolution. Spend more of your time and effort on making it
better than just making it.

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known
"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery." --Charles Caleb Colton

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josefresco
I see your quote and raise it...

"Good artists copy great artists steal" - Pablo Picasso

