[hannesfostie]

What Dustin did, is build a blogging engine he wanted to use himself. He then invited people he respected to write on the platform, people he knew would deliver a certain standard of quality that he'd love to connect his name to.

He never said the platform would never be opened, in fact it looked like he might do just that some day.

What you did was not just use a concept (add idea to list, expand on it and then publish it when ready), you just took his entire design and published it to the public. Taking a concept and opensourcing it is fine, copying a design and mocking the original creator is not.

As much as I'd like to use Dustin's blogging engine (it's the way I'd like to write), I will never use yours out of principle.

[delinka]

"As much as I'd like to use Dustin's blogging engine..."

And you can't. Because you're not invited. Because you aren't witty enough.

Maybe dcurtis is not a tool, and he's a great designer, and he just used poor writing to explain that he's testing his blog or curating writers for a network of bloggers. But his exclusionary description, his flippant replies to complaints - these things set off his potential competition. And his response? Ranting and flailing (which he deleted.)

If this entire thing had started with more mild language ("I created this thing to solve these problems. I'm creating a network of bloggers around/under/over/through it. Maybe I'll open it to the world eventually. Or I might not.") then he would have garnered a much more supportive response.

And STILL someone else would have created a clone and made it available publicly. And he could have replied, again, with something less jilted. For example, "It's great these ideas are getting attention. I'm curating writers and you won't get that from a github repo. I'm not crazy about having the design cloned, so might I suggest making your version theme-friendly?"

As to the feelings of Mr. Curtis, I can only say that if this cloning is a problem for him, perhaps he should create works (and make appropriate registrations for those works) with stronger legal protections.

[yummyfajitas]

...mocking the original creator is not.

Where did Nate mock Dustin, or even speak negatively about him? Reading his post I find only one mildly negative comment:

"I felt Dustin missed out on what have been a great open source contribution."

[hannesfostie]

I assumed that's why he got the name wrong. He edited it after I wrote the comment, I suppose it was a genuine mistake.

Still doesn't change how I feel about this. He could have opensourced the engine on itself, taking the design as well is a blatant ripoff.

Another thing is this: The goal is simple: when you see the Svbtle design, you should know that the content is guaranteed to be great.

By stealing the design, he is completely boycotting Dustin at making this vision of his come true.

[yummyfajitas]

The author has already changed the design in response to Dustin's criticism: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3744438

I'd chalk the design similarity up to "I...typed in rails new obtvse, and a few hours later I'm here."

[hannesfostie]

I don't know man, he didn't change all that much if you ask me. He also couldve taken the extra "few hours" to make something that actually looks different before releasing it if you ask me.

[slantyyz]

If Svbtle's design is that great and reaches any level of popularity, you'll see tons of mimics pop up, and Dustin's so-called vision won't happen anyways.

[thisisblurry]

While minor, the name of the platform itself, Obtuse, is an antonym of Subtle. If that isn't a shot at Dustin, what is?

[brown9-2]

Well, there is also this part of svbtle that seems pretty ripe for mocking:

The writing platform that helps you liberate ideas. With just two features, it's the essence of blogging.

Membership by invitation only.