Cole Consulting recently posted a request on GetAFreelancer.com for an engineer to produce “an exact clone” of LibraryThing, giving $100-300 as its desired price. An Indian engineer won the bid at $260. (The engineer gave his hourly as $10, which makes for 26 hours of programming. I wish him good luck with that!)

Some things for Mr. Cole to consider:

• People can of course makes sites like LibraryThing in many ways, but an “exact clone” would certainly infringe on my intellectual property.
• I have added a strong anti-reverse engineering clause to the terms of service. These terms are enforceable in New York and Texas (Cole’s whereabouts are variously given). I’m not sure about Amritsar.
• LibraryThing is social software. You’d need to clone a lot more than the code…

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