<story><title>Inspiration vs. Imitation</title><url>http://cushionapp.com/journal/inspiration-vs-imitation</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Vaskerville</author><text>A similar thing happened to me years ago. I had a project that surprisingly became a bit popular and there were two competitor projects that ripped on the work.&lt;p&gt;The first one ripped our entire site and simply changed all the texts slightly, and also the look of our system. But, it was oddly different code - why copy the look completely (including our graphics) if you are going to write a new system?&lt;p&gt;The second one, done by a somewhat semi-famous person at the time, copied our minimal, custom forum. I have no idea how much work that must have been to port Vanilla to look like ours. Friends asked me if I had joined their team which is how I found out.&lt;p&gt;I never publicly said anything which chewed me up for a really long time. Both of those projects failed long ago. A copycat likely also won&amp;#x27;t know how to do other things for themselves and you can bet that they won&amp;#x27;t know how to execute their project when things get serious.&lt;p&gt;Cushionapp, you&amp;#x27;re doing it right. Make your app as innovative and unique as you can and just keep doing your thing. Never bother looking at their site&amp;#x2F;app again...</text></comment>
<story><title>Inspiration vs. Imitation</title><url>http://cushionapp.com/journal/inspiration-vs-imitation</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>krat0sprakhar</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll agree with the others here - you&amp;#x27;ve shown an exceptional attitude in dealing with this situation. I&amp;#x27;m rooting for your app to do really well.&lt;p&gt;As an aside, this is first time I visited the blog and I have to say that the way you&amp;#x27;ve been open about the product development &amp;amp; expenses[0] is truly amazing. Just by skimming over the list, I found a couple of great tools that I could use for my projects. When (if?) I ever build a SAAS app, your blog is where I&amp;#x27;m coming straight back to.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; but this community is built on sharing what we know.&lt;p&gt;Thank you for living up to this. You, my friend, are doing a great service to the community. Wishing you all the best.&lt;p&gt;[0] - &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cushionapp.com&amp;#x2F;expenses&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cushionapp.com&amp;#x2F;expenses&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>