The world of social networking is in a tizzy this week, as popular website Facebook (a MySpace for college kids) has been ripped off by a Chinese company, i.e. the design and function has been completely copied. You can see a side-by-side comparison at the link. The Chinese version, Xiaonei, is clearly a ripoff.
This is the latest in a recent spate of website design ripoffs coming out of China, and while it's reasonable for companies to be upset, doesn't the no-harm/no-foul rule apply here a little? It's hard to imagine that Facebook was set to make any inroads in China, or that this company will impede on Facebook's turf. Furthermore, even if Xiaonei can cop a design, they probably won't be able to out-innovate Facebook and make a superior social-networking experience , should Facebook expand Eastward.
What's funny is that many in the open-source/web2.0 scene were hailing the E.U.'s rejection of software patents earlier this summer, equating them with oppression. It's one thing, I guess, for the hip goateed European who, shucks darn, just wants to be allowed to code, to do so; but when a Chinese company cribs your web-design, it's time to get the WTO involved.
I'm not sure how you equate the open source community with a for profit business. But the problem with software patents is that a number of companies have tried to stake out well known algorithms or make a long list of fuzzily designed processes and collect money based on law suit.
Most of the industry is disturbed.
Copying an entire web site brings up other information property issues such as "look and feel" a bit fuzzy.
To get an idea of why the patent and copyright is an issue, if IBM had enforced all that it held in the seventies and eighties it could have blocked the production of almost all electronic devices. Though very much into trying to protect intellectual property (with little success) it avoided the shut down of the economy that you're comfortable with.
Related to this is IBM has succeeded in preventing clones first of it's mainframe and then it's PC there would not have been a "commodity" computer with multiple suppliers. While I have all kinds of caveats about the devolopment this competition was considered a good thing.
And incidently I am not sure why many on the right who oppose open source code and standards are on the Internet. This is how it was built long before the term was made. AOL and others had their own systems, I feel that those who want to be politically consistent insist that these be resurrected and all believers that the loop can be patiented and any software company that uses it then forced into court stick to their politically correct system.
Posted by: sarah | December 21, 2005 at 08:14 PM
for you american who cannot even read other languages. Your face is a copy of African chimpanzee. Do you pay the loyalty to them?
Posted by: freeforall | May 28, 2007 at 10:00 AM
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Posted by: Afterwardsborder | December 05, 2009 at 03:14 PM
Open source is NOT PIRACY and the two have nothing to do with each other. The problem with software patents is that the US Patent Office is grossly ignorant of software and grants patents for items that, in any other realm, would be instantly rejected as patentable. Some software patents resemble what I would characterize as Campbells Soup patenting the use of the letter C on a soup can for labelling purposes. A software example is Amazon patenting the use of shared memory in web site software. Shared memory is a feature of operating systems for general use by software. Patenting its use is as absurd as patenting the use of wheels on vehicles used in commerce.
Posted by: jim | August 15, 2011 at 07:39 PM