Tweetings is a derivative of Heltweetica.

Let me set the record straight. Tweetings for Mac is a derivative of my Heltweetica app. Some people seem to think that my app is a copy of their app, but they’re wrong.

There’s an app in the Mac App Store called Tweetings for Mac. It’s a Twitter client, just like my Heltweetica is a Twitter client. In fact, version 1.0 of Tweetings looked almost identical to my Heltweetica. Why is that? It’s because Tweetings uses Heltweetica’s source code.

I made the source code to Heltweetica open-source with a BSD license, and Tweetings uses Heltweetica’s source code. Tweetings even includes the required license text in its Acknowledgements. But the guy who made Tweetings has never contacted me about it, so until the Mac App Store opened, I didn’t even know about it. Also, the only way to see this BSD license is to first buy the app, and then go to the Help menu and open the Acknowledgements. You can see it in the screenshot above, and I’ve copied my license below.

While this little window in Tweetings fulfills the letter of the law, it’s not cool that Tweetings never publicly acknowledges what it’s based on and a derivative of. I keep hearing from people who think I copied them, when that’s not the truth. Heltweetica is the source, the first, and the original.

HelTweetica
Copyright (c) 2010, Felt Tip Inc. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
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3. Neither the name of the copyright holder(s) nor the names of any contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
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