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by webwanderings 1440 days ago
What's the deal with copycats and similarities? This looks like a copy of bearblog.dev and one cannot tell who has copied whom. Is there anything on the Internet that is trustworthy anymore?
10 comments

Hi! Co-creator of prose.sh. This blog was heavily inspired by bear. We have acknowledgements at the bottom of this page: https://prose.sh/ops
This looks dope. I live at the command line and ssh is secure and good. Question on pricing. Because if I invest time in this I’d like to know it will be around. Sure I’ll have the data and can push to anything else but it’s still nice to know that this will be paid and reasonably around for years to come.
We have heard this a couple of times and read you loud and clear. We would price the blog to pay for its costs. Join #pico.sh on libera or sub to https://hey.prose.sh to get updates
Glad to hear it!
They have commented elsewhere that they are experimenting to see what "sticks", so definitely assume this may disappear soon. OTOH, code is open and easy to self host.
if you're worried about this going away, why not use something like hugo. It's markdown, and there are dozens of places that will host for free. I host on Netlify (free). If they go away or start charging, I have many more options, and as it's hugo/markdown, there's no lock-in. You can do that on the command line (ultimately it's just a text editor and git).
Did not know about netlify hosting Hugo for free. Thanks for the tip.
Agreed, seeing both atop the frontpage simultaneously is confusing. An enlightening explanation for the rest of us would be great.

For reference, here is the "Bear Blog" thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127363

Back in the 90s we considered the ability to "View Source" an indispensable tool not just for learning but also for keeping the spirit of the early web alive.

If your design is so precious to you, you can use flash or DRM or something similar so nobody can copy your design quite as easily, but this is a disappointing attitude to see.

You can create your own versions of things that other people have already made. Consult local law for limitations.
These are open source apps, copycats are great and should be encouraged. That’s the nature of open source!
Ah yes, reminds me of this video "everything is a remix": https://vimeo.com/563833916
I think this is a great trend. Why have only one website doing it?
Nobody owns ideas or designs
Yes, how dare one site inspire another to make something similar. Not sure how that automatically makes it untrustworthy... would rather have more players in the minimal blog space than only one or two
A lot of people (especially software devs) seem to have zero ethical quandaries over completely ripping off other people's designs, mechanics or ideas without even so much as giving attribution to the original source that directly inspired them.

I feel like these are the same people that are absolutely losing their shit over something like github copilot though. Cognitive dissonance is fun.

Fortunately, prose is doing the right thing by giving credit where credit is due. Sadly this is typically the exception rather than the rule.