Did PayPal Just Clone Stripe’s API Documentation? | Hacker News Reader

Did PayPal Just Clone Stripe’s API Documentation?

techcrunch.com

52 pointsdwynings34 comments

(I work at Stripe, and I'm the author of the tweet cited in the article.)

The visual design and structural layout of the documentation is certainly not of Stripe's creation. That's all Jeremy Ashkenas. He gave us permission to riff on it a few years ago.

I called their docs a clone on Twitter because of the original elements that were copied: the language switcher along the top; sample curl invocations on the right, with sample responses immediately afterwards; etc. Even the tiny details, like the order of the sections and URLs themselves, are shockingly similar: theirs now too live at /docs/api. The strangest detail, in my opinion, is copying the motif of having a blueprint in the background on the homepage.

The end result is that they're pretty much identical.

All of this is fine. This is just a set of arbitrary design decisions, and they're absolutely free to copy them. We assert no ownership. But given how arbitrary the design choices are, the fact that they picked all of the same ones was somewhat surprising to us -- especially since there are many ways our docs could be improved. (We hope to do so soon.)

"(I work at Stripe, and I'm the author of the tweet cited in the article.)"

#humility

I would have gone for something like 'sup bitches this is Patrick Collison'. Perhaps thats why I'm not the CEO of Stripe.

Uh no, actually for him to NOT write what he did would make him a dick. So what he wrote is really the only thing he could have said without coming across and conceited and arrogant.

You registered an account to make this statement? Writing "I'm one of Stripe's cofounders", as he does in his profile, would not "make him a dick" but it is interesting that he didn't do so here.

Honestly, I just don't really like the self-aggrandizing ring of "I'm CEO and cofounder". And I don't think it's particularly relevant most of the time. Yes, I'm a cofounder, but the important part is that I work at Stripe—alongside many others.

That's character, right there folks. I'd work for character.

Well said. I would up vote multiple times if I could.

The world needs more business leaders with that kind of humble, thoughtful, and down-to-earth attitude and approach.

Compare PayPal's typically corporate cult of ego statement: "Under David's leadership..."

>Compare PayPal's typically corporate cult of ego statement: "Under David's leadership..."

To be honest, I do wish such CEOs was more common.

> The visual design and structural layout of the documentation is certainly not of Stripe's creation. That's all Jeremy Ashkenas.

For those curious, he's referring to Docco:

https://github.com/jashkenas/docco

http://jashkenas.github.com/docco/

Which is used on the Coffeescript annotated source (amongst other places): http://coffeescript.org/documentation/docs/grammar.html

Is this really news? That two sites have a vaguely similar layout for their docs site? If they were actually identical sure that would suck - but it's quite a stretch to call it a "clone".

The web has always been about getting inspiration from other sites on the web. As long as it's not an obvious ripoff - this is how we move forward. Building on what works. Let's worry about bigger problems.

A voice of reason! It's definitely a stretch to call it a clone.

Like many other news aggregators, a scandalous-sounding headline is a great way to pull clicks on HN.

Exactly right. This isn't news at all.

The idea that the design similarities are a coincidence is just not believable on any level. Anyone that has worked with PayPal or eBay API documentation knows it's a complete disaster, and just happening to build new documentation that similar to a competitor with best-in-class documentation seems ridiculous.

If you want to see an example of some typical PayPal documentation, feel free to peruse this 150 page pdf on adaptive payments:

https://www.x.com/sites/default/files/2102_pp_adaptivepaymen...

Isnt this the default stylesheet of rocco? http://rtomayko.github.com/rocco/

Rocco is open-source.

Right. That's the first thing I thought as I was looking at that format for an API I'm building myself (other options include things like Swagger). Point is there are a bunch of formats and a lot of us use variants on what already works. Nothing to see here.

Richardjordan, I'm posting this in response to your comment, way back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5144288

Would you be willing to email the list of links etc for learning Ruby that you mentioned in that comment? Please send to info(at)tximmigration.com ... thanks!

Hi... sure I'll email you - might not get to it till after the weekend of kids' activities and family chores is over though :-)

They all use a document generator: http://jashkenas.github.com/docco/ (MIT License)

That is why they look so similar.

For what it's worth, we (Stripe) don't use docco. Though, the design was repurposed with permission from @jashkenas.

I probably was not the first person to extend the idea of the side by side layout to an API spec and example, but I had not seen anything like it when I built the Stripe docs two years ago.

They look similar design-wise, but both also look similar to Asana's API docs: http://developer.asana.com/documentation/ . It's just a nice way of laying out documentation.

Looking through the PayPal docs quickly, they don't show any particular similarity to Stripe, besides both being REST APIs for a payments platform.

This is stupid. These are run-of-the-mill websites using standard design concepts none of them invented, they are barely similar.

Of course new, better products will inspire others to try to best them; looking too similar is a sign that the competition is failing at that.

Are we going to get up in arms about copyright of documentation?

If anything its an improvement.

This isn't even about documentation being covered, but supposed copying of the layout of the documentation. If there was ever a non-story, this is it.

Basically, both PayPal and Stripe have text on the left half of the screen, and code on the right half. The right half also have buttons to switch between the different languages for the example.

There is no copyright claim here, the article says it's not illegal and they are right. But if MySpace decided tomorrow they wanted to finally catch up to Facebook and the result was a new site that was a near-exact replica of Facebook, naturally people would call them out on that.

I agree with you except for a few things :

1 - We are talking about an api documentation not a website used by 1B members .

2 - The person who called them out works at stripe...

3 - The design we are talking about is far from being very unique to stripe (today), except maybe for the blueprint.

If indeed paypal is copying stripe, it would have been more convincing demonstrating this through a set of new features they allegedly copied from stripe. That would have been more convincing and worth writing about.

As a user of both APIs, I'd say that Stripe's documentation is a major competitive advantage.

It's a two-column documentation layout. Beyond that, it looks as similar as any two documentation sets on the internet.

Non-story.

I would just like to point out that, in the wake of the Flat UI DMCA fiasco, talking about things like this publicly was the recommended course of action, as opposed to some sort of pathetic legal action. So that's what Patrick did. He didn't himself seem to make that big a deal of it. So what are you complaining about (those of you who are complaining)?

This could be a good thing for developers who need to support multiple APIs.

I've loved the django document generator[1] but it does not seem to adopted widely. Is the side-by-side layout more appealing?

https://readthedocs.org/

um, how is this even a thing?

I'm just glad they're trying to improve it.

If only they'd copy stripes customer service instead.

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