Microsoft’s “Sina Steals” Post Explained

September 1, 2006

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Microsoft’s Garry Wiseman claimed yesterday that Sina, a Chinese classifieds site, “had not only lifted our previous user interface’s look & feel, but also directly copied some of our graphics.” Wiseman wasn’t pleased, but he didn’t say anything too nasty. Still, some moderately aggressive comments accumulated, and now Wiseman has updated the post.

“Wow.. lots of reactions to this post and I’m actually surprised at how much this has blown up,” he wrote. “The post above was merely an indication of surprise whereas people seem to think we’re feeling mortally wounded by it. We’ve moved on to a new UI (although we still use the pushpin icon for various things) so we were more bemused by what Sina was doing.”

This came in response to comments along the lines of “didn’t Microsoft do the same thing with Mac interface particularly the trashcan. I believe the MS answer was to consider it flattering to be copied.” The person who wrote that chose not to leave their name behind, in case you were wondering.

Wiseman explained that his post “was mainly intended to raise the issue of cross-border copyright infrigments [sic] and signal that it’s not acceptable. I wasn’t expecting much sympathy (the usual MS bashing / irony comments were expected), but at least some more discussion about ensuring that people signal that it’s not OK for people to lift graphics from your site because next time you may find it’s your product that has been leveraged’ for design in a different country.”

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