I had a similar response to Blizzard over bnetd[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/...

rapind · on March 20, 2011

And wasn't battle.net a Kali ripoff in the first place?

potatolicious · on March 21, 2011

In the same way Facebook is a ripoff of Friendster, or iPhone is a ripoff of Windows Mobile.

Taking an existing idea and implementing it far better than the incumbent is not ripping off. It's progress.

Ripping off involves wholesale copying without adding anything original, substantial, or worthwhile to the effort.

rapind · on March 21, 2011

I don't think that's really a good comparison of what happened with Kali, battle.net etc. (there was actually another one before Kali but I can't remember it's name).

It's more like a great indy iPhone app that increases the value of the phone and even becomes one of the reasons people are buying the phone. Then Apple decides to build the same functionality right into the phone making the app obsolete. That's a much better analogy.

Now I'm not against Apple doing that at all. In fact I think it's a no-brainer, and failing to do it would be disappointing. It's just a shame that the little indy guys who created that market for them get shut out. Toss them a couple million bucks or something you know?