I can't claim to have followed the LV fiasco on HN in all of its detail, but the parts I saw were mostly respectful and pretty well balanced. The "Designer News sucks" post was not, but that particular battlefield is a distraction. The main thing is still the Flat UI debacle, without which none of this would have happened.
Is Flat UI a ripoff? Yes, sure, and they come across as more than a bit sleazy. But are they in clear violation of LV's copyright? Absolutely not. In design as well as in pretty much every other human endeavor, all things are derivative. That's a core truth about technology and civilization in general. The Flat UI dude did not straight-up copy LV's stuff though. Still, he re-implemented it and he deserves to be called out for it. He should at least have given LV some credit for inspiring him.
That's where it ends though. The rest is all on LV. That DMCA abuse was stupid and unnecessary. Sure, you can blame HN for making that observation but that doesn't change the fact that it's not the observers fault you screwed up. Failing to admit that (and apparently making DMCA jokes on Twitter in bad taste) only serves to emphasize why people are upset with you.
LV, you used a bad law in questionable circumstances to shut up something that was no threat to you. Then you doubled down, smugly and with not a small amount of self-righteousness, when people called you out on your ethics.
The saddest part of this is that you could have easily turned this into an ad for your stuff. If you simply had come out and graciously acknowledged the similarities between Flat UI and your icons, people would have sided with you. Your implicit counter-argument that it doesn't matter if you're acting badly as long as it's the other guy who broke the law is interesting, but it's also far from certain things will actually turn out this way in a court of law.
This was a failure on many, many levels. Doubling down on bullying while at the same time crying "not fair!" is just one of them.
If you're using words like "asshole," you are definitely adding fuel to the fire. I sense you know this. In general, your argument strikes me as a "Tu Quoque:" They are bullies, so it's wrong for them to point out when we are mean.
You then go on for a while about what makes them bullies, all of which is tangential to whether or not HN is mean.
I caution against this kind of rhetoric. It leads to a place where the rule is, "It's ok to be mean to people we don't like, for whatever reason."
Civility is a form of justice. It should be extended to those we respect but also to those we don't respect. Extending justice to the guilty is part of what makes a nation just. Extending civility to those we disrespect is what makes a community civil.
You're right, actually. I'm going to change that single word. I hope that enables you to see my post in another light, because I don't really recognize your characterization of what I said. To make it absolutely clear: at no point did I mean to imply that LV deserve to be bullied only because they are behaving badly. I did use the "a word" to describe behavior, not personality, but I acknowledge that was misguided.
I was just about to add that it's important to distinguish between "harsh" and "mean."
"Dude, you fucked up" is harsh but not mean, and while it isn't to everyone's taste, it can be a bitter pill that provides the cure. It doesn't really cross the line to mean until the intent becomes more of making someone feel bad than pushing them to get better.
Disclaimer: I didn't read the original post, so I'm not sure where it was in your post that the word 'asshole' used to live.
In my circles, at least, 'don't be an asshole' and 'you are being an asshole' is harsh-not-mean, while 'you are an asshole' is mean-maybe-harsh. The explicit declaration of state of being, rather than observation of behavior is the differentiator.
Wait what did this have to do with LV or the DMCA takedown notice? Isn't design news just a hacker news clone aimed at designers? I would assume this is just a community post. Either way you're comment is still completely off topic.
I thinking that is stupid to make DMCA takedown for this - http://designmodo.com/flat-free/ just check layervault site :)
the difference is more that visible...
I think that Flat UI is 95% unique, and is very well.
This post is completely independent from the LayerVault/Flat UI fiasco. This is a post by one of Designer News' posters about a post on HN. Designer News happens to be hosted by LayerVault and they have as much to do with this post as YCombinator has to do with a "Tell HN: Designer News sucks" post on here.
But that's a proxy war, right? Would that even have happened if not for Flat UI? No way. Of course that "Designer News sucks" post was unnecessary and mean, I think most people can agree on that. However, this is not some independent spat, it connects to this fiasco through the many layers of all-around failure as I said.
Is Flat UI a ripoff? Yes, sure, and they come across as more than a bit sleazy. But are they in clear violation of LV's copyright? Absolutely not. In design as well as in pretty much every other human endeavor, all things are derivative. That's a core truth about technology and civilization in general. The Flat UI dude did not straight-up copy LV's stuff though. Still, he re-implemented it and he deserves to be called out for it. He should at least have given LV some credit for inspiring him.
That's where it ends though. The rest is all on LV. That DMCA abuse was stupid and unnecessary. Sure, you can blame HN for making that observation but that doesn't change the fact that it's not the observers fault you screwed up. Failing to admit that (and apparently making DMCA jokes on Twitter in bad taste) only serves to emphasize why people are upset with you.
LV, you used a bad law in questionable circumstances to shut up something that was no threat to you. Then you doubled down, smugly and with not a small amount of self-righteousness, when people called you out on your ethics.
The saddest part of this is that you could have easily turned this into an ad for your stuff. If you simply had come out and graciously acknowledged the similarities between Flat UI and your icons, people would have sided with you. Your implicit counter-argument that it doesn't matter if you're acting badly as long as it's the other guy who broke the law is interesting, but it's also far from certain things will actually turn out this way in a court of law.
This was a failure on many, many levels. Doubling down on bullying while at the same time crying "not fair!" is just one of them.