Design, especially good design, is hard work. I totally understand a designer being frustrated when their work is copied, even if that copying is reverse-engineered rather than just cut and paste of the css.
Personally, I think the design is ugly and hard to use. The OP (of Obtvse thread) should get a designer and make some much needed changes.
Edit: Downvoters - is it because I said design is hard work, or because I said I thought the design was ugly?
I didn't downvote, but my opinion is this: if you don't want your design copied, make a product that can't be copied easily.
For example, bitbucket copied githubs design for the most part, but people still use github because there is so much more to their product. BB can copy them all they want, but github will have the users and will be considered good design while BB gets called a 'clone'.
If you make a blog platform, which is simple to clone, just open source it and move on. This is a case where imitation should be flattery. Bask in the glory of knowing the world is switching from wordpress to your platform.
(theres also longterm revenue possibilities in that case for a savvy businessmen)
Well I thought about this later and I think that Dustin's ideas of a simple,minimalist blog website do have some value in the creation of this product.But I still think it is extremely low compared to the value of Rails or the server OS(probably Linux) or even the database (probably MySQL) that this product will run on.
Dustin's initial response to this (which he edited later) and his general attitude might have contributed to my opinion.
Personally, I think the design is ugly and hard to use. The OP (of Obtvse thread) should get a designer and make some much needed changes.
Edit: Downvoters - is it because I said design is hard work, or because I said I thought the design was ugly?