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Creator of free Adobe clones unveils open-source Microsoft Office Excel, PowerPoint, and Word replications — Autodesk tools and other subscription-based services may come next (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 22 hours ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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Brandon Thomas, developer of ArtCraft, a suite of open-source creative tools meant to replicate Adobe applications for free, has now announced apps to replace Microsoft Office tools such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, respectively, named GridCraft, DeckCraft, and WordCraft, that are created with Claude. Thomas has shared his new clones to ArtCraft GitHub, making them free for all to download.

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[–] 3 points 13 hours ago* (3 children)

If you made an exact clone of Photoshop

Yes but you wouldn't actually need to make your clone very different for the copyright to be entirely different and then surely you wouldn't get sued? And I think in this case, it is definitely sufficiently different, it's a completely different tech stack and while the UI is similar, it's probably not identical (I haven't checked though). But also you can't really copyright UI beyond the design itself, the functionality is free game as far as I understand.

Also worth remembering that different countries may have different stances on this. I'm curious how the EU might handle it.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 hours ago

    Yes but you wouldn’t actually need to make your clone very different for the copyright to be entirely different and then surely you wouldn’t get sued?

    Are you confident enough to bet 6-12 months of dev time and resources(possibly lawyer consultation fees) on that assumption ? because up until recently that's what someone would need to do to find out.

    It might be fine, but the threat of litigation is a part of the deterrent.

    But also you can’t really copyright UI beyond the design itself, the functionality is free game as far as I understand.

    As with all of these things, it's region specific.

    However, game mechanic patents and copyrights exists and are litigated regularly.

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  • [–] 4 points 12 hours ago* (1 child)

    you can't really copyright UI beyond the design itself, the functionality is free game as far as I understand.

    It's not just copyright. There are also patents to worry about. Those cover a specific process, like "click here, and the code selects all regions matching the same color (+-5%)". If you make an exact copy, surely you've violated some patents.

    Sure, patent protections don't last as long as copyright, and they can be defeated if you prove that it's "obvious" or can show prior art, but it's still an expensive legal battle against a megacorp. A vibe coder will likely fold at the first cease and desist.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 hours ago

    There may never be a need to challenge Adobe's patent lawyers in court.

    This person used AI to clone commercial software, and then released the cloned software. Imagine instead someone developed an AI that could clone most commercial software...and then they simply published the AI open source. Now, anyone can download a tool that can clone software like Photoshop. They can clone Photoshop on their own computer, and that cloned copy never needs to be distributed anywhere.

    Imagine Adobe trying to go after people that did that. It would be like trying to go after people that violate a patent for some device that they build in their garage, only use personally, and never sell. Could you in theory go after home tinkerers for patent infringement? Sure. But in practice it's impossible to do at scale. Adobe will never even be able to find the people to sue.

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