[aneth]

I certainly don't think it's anyone's place to judge something as a "ripoff" versus "inspired." That is in the heart of the creator. And I think it's ridiculous to judge something on such an extreme binary scale - as either a soul-less copy or an inspired innovation.

Look at Android - it's a "ripoff" of iPhone, and copied much of the design and function. Except it's entirely different. It has created a new, more open and more dangerous ecosystem for applications. It has made iPhone-like functionality available to different markets and fulfilled different requirements. It has lighted the fire of competition under Apple.

While it may annoy you to have "copies" out there, I can guarantee you there was a reason those copies were developed. Nobody spends their hours reproducing existing functionally without some idea of how they will be better in product or distribution, regardless of their ultimate success. They may have been inspired by your work, but almost certainly they saw a need for something better in some way.

[ericd]

That last part is patently false. Many clones of software projects are developed entirely to get a piece of that other project's pie without any thought to being better, in the same way that Louis Vuitton counterfeits exist solely to capitalize on the design and brand cachet of the real thing.