What my previous post would have said if I had removed the inflammatory filler text is this:

Do you have any intention of removing this blog post once you guys sort things out?

It sounds like you guys are getting that figured out, and that’s all that matters.

The weird thing is, you can’t have it both ways, by that I mean be gainfully employed by day with corporate healthcare and freelancing at night. So, Apple by contract rights surely owns all of Kaz’s code anyway, regardless of the fact that he developed it in his free time. Corporations get to own everything and every invention their employees create because their contracts require it. Is it right? Probably not, but our immature economy has no precedents for how to handle such issues in which a created good can be infinitely copied without much additional cost of production. Apple doesn’t blog about infractions, they just sue your pants off when it even resembles something they made, not to mention using the actual thing they made. That is the world of code I know.

I am no expert on intellectual property (a dubious term, all those in this conversation would probably agree), but since my code has been integrated into his while he works for a large IP-paranoid corporation, it is not far-fetched to think that Apple now owns that part of my code as well.

If he was working for himself or this other world of kum-by-yah code sharing you envision just magically created itself, all of this would be a different story. I know this only from personal experience having had to leave REAL Software in order to retain any sort of copyright over my work.

Further, as part of my business it is in my interest to point out the bad business practices of others, especially those that would seek to compete with me for clients. Your point is that these practices are so widespread therefore not worth speaking about. I simply don’t find rampant copying in the work of the web professionals I admire, so perhaps we are looking at different sites.

My feeling is that criticism is an important and integral part of the trade. In that light my complaining was effective, because Kaz changed the offending sites so quickly, albeit criticism tinged with whiny little bitch particles (gee, no personal disrespect taken). You clearly disagree, so I won’t try to make the business case any clearer to an anonymous poster, except to point out a particularly nerdy example: Panic’s Ripoff Express.

As for Kaz: He and I are coming to some sort of agreement with regards to remedying the fact that my post makes him look like a douchebag. After trading emails with him, I don’t retain any animosity towards him personally, as it sounds like he is working through a lot of the same problems that I had to work through when I started out.

I’m guessing (correctly) that he’s working with local Austin artists who don’t typically have the budgets to afford a lot of post install configuration and tailoring. Hence they all get the same standard template, which unfortunately uses much of your markup.

Anyway, I’m not that sympathetic to your cause. In fact, I’d rip your CSS and layout if I needed a clean white default skin as well. It’s well done, readable, and easily modified. Such is life on the web, and in the world of code.

I’d say this blog post is bad for business for the both of you. He ends up looking like a douchebag to those uneducated in the ways of the web, and in turn you end up looking like a whiny little bitch (pardon my frankness, no personal disrespect meant).

Perhaps you guys can come to an agreement on a one time template rights fee ($99 at gooeytemplates.com gets you something far more useful than what I’m seeing here) and you can send this blog post off to /dev/null.

Just my $0.02. It’s your blog, do what you want.

SEO rapper on design coding

Now bust a move.

I know where you’re coming from. I keep getting myself into situations where I’m building a site for a friend, an artist, a non-profit, and other well-meaning folks who don’t exactly have money falling out of their pockets. Some turn out great, but then there are those projects that end up sucking out a bit of your soul, not to mention eating up way more of your time and resources than you originally intended. I’m preaching to the choir, but it’s these kind of projects that really beg for a simple written contract, anything so that both parties involved know upfront what’s being offered and what’s being given in exchange. I’m still bad about writing up contracts for projects like these, and I usually end up wishing I had one by the end of it…

In any case, just wanted to say that I’ve always admired the Okay Mountain site. I’d credit it as being the site that turned me on to using WordPress as a simple but elegant CMS!

(I’m staying out of the issue of design ownership that your post raises, but I thought I’d share this: we spent all last summer trying to hire a new web designer, and one of the applicants tried to pass off a stolen version of shauninman.com as his own portfolio site. Chutzpah!)

“You just coded it.”

Do you have any idea how ignorant that is? php does not = HTML. Do you even know how to code? It’s not like choosing which myspace layout you want! And no, that piece was not any better in context.

Hunter was not asking for a $3000 painting. I was actually present and he was asking for something that was $1600. I told him if he really wanted something from them that badly we could use something from the Urban Outfitters catalog. That’s basically what it is, right?

Let me break it down for you, since you clearly missed part of his message. OKMT asked Hunter to do them a favor because they knew they couldn’t afford him, so they came to an agreement. That agreement was bullshit at the time, but Hunter chose to go along with it because he really wanted to help them out (ie. Nathan asked him and he loves Nathan). Yes, most of those guys are really nice, but no one stuck up for Hunter when they knew they were wrong. The thing is that if you even knew Hunter you would know that he would have done it FOR FREE if they were upfront with him. He just wastes his time like that. He’s really sweet in that way and this really hurt his feelings. Yes, it’s like 10 years later, but it was a shitty thing to do.

However, I guess $250 for 60 hours of work is a fair trade. The work he did for them would have cost them over that $3000 painting you think he wanted. How rude of Hunter to think he got screwed. Oh and they sent a 1099 for $250!! So he made 70% of $250. It’s fucking hilarious.

Kaz — When it comes to updating a site, I don’t think anything could be easier than WordPress. Maybe Hunter was quick to judge thinking they would be able to use it, it’s pretty straight forward.

I’m sure you’re a great guy. I think Hunter was a little harsh, he knows that and he feels badly. But guess what, Hunter isn’t that bad of a guy either. Yes, we live together, and most of the time I think he’s wrong, but this is one of those times where I think he’s actually pretty spot on.

Hunter is a big supporter of open source. Like he stated, he would have been fine if you would have just asked. He’s a hard worker, even when it’s for free.

I’m not sure where you got this, but just to set the record straight - I coded custom WordPress plugins from scratch for Okay Mountain in PHP. I have as paid consulting work coded ecommerce systems, content management systems, and point-of-sales systems from scratch in PHP and have coded several sites exclusively in PHP. I know the object-oriented features in PHP5 like the back of my hand.

To be sure, the portfolio on this site is woefully out of date, but I have been coding PHP since I worked for REAL Software as their only web developer in 2004. As you know the CSS and XHTML structure are inter-dependent, so the choices made in both are where the real work comes in.

WordPress templating is certainly nice because you get a lot things for free like built-in search, caching, nice url’s, a cool admin that you can edit anywhere, a working news system that creates lots of google traffic, a bunch of plug-ins, but it is not used on all of my sites. It takes a lot of PHP skills to template WordPress by the way. My choice to use it, though, is primarily in the interest of saving my clients money so they don’t have to pay me to bug-fix my framework or purchase DreamWeaver or one of those other visual editors. They get the bug-fixes, and new versions for free because it is open source, y’know? They also get the freedom that if they need to work with someone else, they can just find someone that understands WordPress and they will be good to go. Its a win-win and value for my customers.

As far as I’m concerned the issue is done. I will gladly move on. I hope you do make it to supporting yourself with your web work. The personal and the professional between us are fine, it’s a small town after all. Thanks for the efforts to correct the issue, i will make note of it in the post.

hunter

all points taken. nothing worse than working for free. i think we should move on. i am willing to continue this conversation offline or in person if you like.

i don’t like to work for free, and i have had my share of stingy customers. i see where you’re coming from. it’s a pretty tough audience here in austin to get paid what we’re really worth.

thanks for letting me post my tirade, which i now consider to be a little on the angry side. honestly, i have nothing against you personally, i just felt attacked and wanted to settle the score. i wish i could take some of the things i said back, and it maybe best for all of us if we just scratched the whole thing and started from scratched. do you really want this flame war on your blog ?
it’s always so easy to type things out rather than say them in person.

i second your sentiment about coding as art. i take pride in the development work i do, and i understand that you would too. allison was defending me and her friends, and you and i both know that people that don’t work on the web don’t really think of coding as an art (thus the difficulty getting paid what we’re really worth). that said, i had forgotten a little bit that michael was the original designer of the layout — he’s the one who should be pissed ! :)

If i were in a situation where someone else coded someone’s design, I think as a result of this and my experience now, I would ask for permission. Things seemed a bit hostile when the switch happened, and you and I never talked.

I ask for 1/2 payment upfront, and 1/2 payment upon completion to prevent these situations from happening: no secret there, I learned that the hard way (no pay, sliding scale, etc…) — but after years of bad moves, I feel like my work is paying off, and although I don’t rely on it to live, I am relying on it to build my next life, away from all this.

i have read lots of articles about plagiarism online, and it is mostly hilarious, i concur. the bignoob has an article about that a few months ago, and i thought to myself i would be mad if that happened to me. from where you stand, i understand how you felt. i hope we are able to move on now that the score has been settled. (has it ?)

I hope you can work things out with Sterling, I personally have never had any problems with him or anyone around OKMT. But again, I demand half upfront. I have a great relationship with Michael, Sterling and OKMT and I don’t intend to change anything with them.

i have had to work with people that are awful from start to finish, and it’s one of the worst things out there - some of my clients to date even have cost me countless hours for free. i try to avoid these when i can. i am sorry okmt and the bunch is that experience for you, and that they’re great to me. lose some win some, no ?

anyway - i think we both have a much better understanding of the situation at this wee hour of the night. for what it’s worth, i want to say that i would have preferred to not get into all that, and i am starting to think you neither.

i feel like there are two things going on here, one’s personal and one’s business, and these two don’t mix. if we can’t mend the personal, i hope that the steps i took will mend the professional.

best to you and your endeavors, all i really want is for people that do websites to be compensated appropriately (cause i am one of them) and for nice people that are cool and friendly to not be insulted publicly (i am one of them too :P). anything you can do to help with that cause, i am behind you 100%.

signing off -

k.

I don’t understand your reducing my work to “just coding it”, as in that it takes no time or creativity. Yes, Michael Sieben sent me 3 jpg’s from which to work. Yes I coded the site from these, and yes it took a lot of work. It is also strange that you suggest that I view my HTML work as art. I don’t.

Now, your misunderstanding of my “nice favor.” That was our agreed on deal. I realize 3000 would have been way outrageous.

But do you really think 1600 was really that outrageous for a website? Its a beautiful drawing, but I’m not sure it took 60 hours to make. Maybe his time is just way more valuable than mine. At most it would have cost OKMT 800, which is a great deal for that site, and would have been something they could have afforded. If they could not afford it, then I would simply not have done the site, no harm done right?

But, whether or not it was a good deal should have been worked out in advance. It is a classic story in all the freelance world, Customer needs something really quick and perfect, agrees to pay, Worker finishes work, doesn’t get agreed on payment. I was not surprised that it happened, just disappointed.

Do you do work for free? I hope you never have to and I really hope you stand up for those artists that do.

hunter

But really, do you consider Okay Mountain a customer? If you think that I consider them a previous customer of mine, then I’m not sure how you define customer. How much do they pay you? From what I understand you make your living working for Apple. If that is not true, please correct me.

I make my living only from freelancing and I work to support my art. That means that anytime I do web work for free is work that I don’t spend with my family and don’t spend on my art. Whoopdy-do right?

The stealing doesn’t really hurt my ego, but it is certainly within my rights to point it out when it is blatant. Its more funny than anything else. I don’t think you would have needed to write so much, if deep down you didn’t know it was just a wee bit shady. Michael Sieben’s site has been up for a long time, so it wasn’t until you re-used it a third time that I thought it too much. I didn’t seem like a temporary site to me, as you were using it in your portfolio on your website. What am I missing?

I think you overstate my argument in your sandycarson.com example. OF COURSE, you didn’t copy that one from me. I didn’t mention it did I? Am I supposed to be fair and balanced? I don’t think so. You obviously can code and design, so thats why it is so strange that you weren’t inclined to do that for all your sites. From what I’ve seen, people in this “web world” you speak of point out copying all the time especially when it is obvious. I usually find it just hilarious.

I appreciate all the ways in which you have corrected this. It does show a lot character and makes me think twice about writing what I did. There are some phrases I regret. I should not have called you lazy, that was a low blow and spiteful.

But I don’t really find it necessary to insinuate what all of my customers think. It was more than I expected to be sure, as I have never wronged you except in this clear exposition of you using my work. Had I been properly paid for it or had you simply dropped me an email, the issue would never have come up.

as for this:
“when you handed over the site to okmt, you relinquished all rights to these files and they could’ve deleted them, turned them to pink, or kept them as is and take credit for them. you quit, because you weren’t keeping up with their needs, and your ego was offended that anyone would tell you what to do, that you were a web developer and that you knew better than they did.”

Maybe I relinquished the rights to okay mountain, but when does that mean they transfer to you to re-use? What am I not understanding? As for quitting, it wasn’t really a job, since I wasn’t really getting paid appropriately, so I’m not sure I can quit something that isn’t a job. But, I mean isn’t your best friend Sterling arguing that artists should be paid for their work? This is another point where I just don’t understand, but maybe I’m still totally egoing out from all those art classes.

I’m not saying that he should pay for my websites as “Art”, as in capital A, but I couldn’t put anymore time into it. It was an awful experience start to finish, and I regret agreeing to do it. As you said, everyone makes mistakes.

I wasn’t offended by the “client” telling me what to do, I was offended by someone agreeing to a deal and then going back on his word. Maybe the solution wasn’t simple enough for them, but it was good enough and from what they told me, they appreciated it. On several occaisions they complained about WordPress. This is true. But, I was very clearly in saying that I would work until they were completely happy with it. That was until I felt that we were no longer working together in good faith.

If they felt differently than they should tell me. I don’t think it follows from one pro-bono-client’s experience that I am obsessed with tools or don’t listen to my clients. That’s a bit of a low blow. I can only survive with my clients satisfied, so I do everything I can to support them.

As a freelancer, wouldn’t it bother you if a client told you they would give you 1600 and then write you a check for 250? I worked 60 hours on it, and the work was clearly good enough to use on several sites. The fact that my time is not worth much to Sterling, favor or not, is just hypocritical. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

hunter