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Uh, so what? It's an incredibly basic design. It's not as if it's some blatant ripoff of an extravagantly designed theme.

They changed the logos and such (so it's not as if they are pretending to BE you), and made the colours their own. I'm not quite sure what you're mad about?

I would disagree with the concept of ownership of any kind of design work. Especially in the case of code considering how one-dimensional CSS is, there's really only one or two ways to build a site like this anyway.



There are lots of free and premium themes to build a "basic site" like this, and anyone can get a license to use the design legally. Why steal from someone who isn't willing to license?

CSS is open source by default, but this doesn't mean there's no copyright.


I'm not talking about current U.S. copyright legislation.

First off, I don't agree with the concept that anyone has the right to 'own' information in the first place (especially lines of code).

It isn't 'stealing'. It's not as if they have deprived hackermonthly of their site. At worst they copied.

I'm not sure what you are saying in regards to CSS being 'open source'. My point was that between syntax and formatting standards, CSS has very little creative control (in terms of the actual writing of the code). Sure you might decide to do 4 space indents, choose one line rules vs. multiple, etc. But usually there is a best way, or most standards compliant way of structuring and styling the design.

What I'm saying is two people coding the same design could easily produce nearly identical code, with the only differences being small irrelevant differences in formatting.


CSS is not open source by default. The default is that copyright exists on any creative work from its moment of creation.


There's open source and there's Open Source. It's always been a fuzzy term, hence the move towards Free Software.

In the strictest, most literal sense, yes, the source is publicly available and readable by default.


No, it is not a fuzzy term.

Open source means it is licensed under an open source license. Even Microsoft is not trying to steal the term, opting for 'shared source' instead.


They didn't just copy the layout idea. I mean What is it? A horizontal bar at the top with links to different pages. That's fine.

What they did was copy the actual files itself. Which is evident from the comments in the CSS. That's not fine.




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