DOMnews, well, news: Coincidence or Plagiarism?
I just got informed via email that The XHTML compliant scroller at ibloomstudios looks spookily like a slightly edited version of my own DOMnews script .
I don’t want to point fingers and Nick claims in the comments that he did the script himself.
Am I paranoid?
- DOMNews source
- XHTML compliant scroller source (hope it is OK to show that source here)
Update: Nick has taken the article off-line, agreeing that the code is similar. He had claimed in the article beforehand that the code was taken from a horizontal scroller without giving the source or credit though. Now it might be interesting to know where that horizontal scroller is, as Nick doesn’t know any longer. Anyone?
March 6th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
You are not paranoid. It looks like he took your code and changed a couple of variable names and added a couple of things and poof it his code now.
March 9th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Seems more than a coincidence.
Surely, it is impossible to create something purely innovative in js (most of the time).
Take, for example a DHTML tooltip, or a draggable layer. Most probably it has been implemented by hundreds of different developers
in hundreds of different ways.
imho, inspiration is not copying the code and altering it to suit your needs.
Here is what I think the proper way of doing it should be:
i. observe the page what it does etc.
look at the source code if necessary.
ii. then close everything and implement the idea in your way (i.e. as they say in literature classes ‘express it in your own words’ )
iii. And cite the owner somewhere (in the source code, on your site etc) if you think the idea is original and unique.
You are not Siamese Twins with that guy, are you :)