OmniWeb icon stolen by MS!
 

I was looking through Microsoft's Vista site today when the icon for "Community" in their nav bar jumped out at me. It's OmniWeb's! Well, not exactly, but close enough. Same perspective, very similar color palette, same lighting point. Granted their missing the terrain relief and weather effects, but still!

from [url]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.mspx[/url]

You know, I think you are right - the pseudo-perspective that includes as many continents as possible is so obviously the same in that icon that it has to be a rip-off:

[img]http://homepage.mac.com/jtyzack/.Pictures/screenshots/comparecontrast.jpg[/img]

Note, that perspective also first appeared in Rickster's icon sets for OmniWeb 4.1 many, many years ago and it wasn't new to OmniWeb 5.x.

However, it isn't quite as blatant as this one:

[url]http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/microsoft_workgroup_manager_icon[/url]

That's right -- I remember Rickster's terrain- and weather-free icon. Almost a dead ringer. Rick, you out there?

They were even more similar before they tweaked it a bit.

From Jan 2006:
[img]http://home.comcast.net/~filehost/lpnw/IE7vOW.jpg[/img]

I don't know, it is kind of generic, and it's missing some of the detail even taking account of the resolution. Look at Europe and Africa.

That was my first reaction as well, but that's the thing... it isn't generic. Rickster specifically designed the pseudo-perspective to show as many continents as possible on one globe (you can't see 5 continents at once like that in the real world). IMO, they have just trimmed the edge of Africa a little (and if you look at the enlarged pixellated version I posted, you can even see the botched job they did of it) to make it less obvious that they ripped the icon off. Anyway, this is just another example of the great Panic [url=http://www.panic.com/extras/ripoff/]rip-off[/url], only applied to [url=http://www.panic.com/extras/ripoff/images/ripoffs/rip27-full.jpg]OmniWeb[/url] (fwiw, that is a dual occurrence of ripping off; both Panic - it's their office, and OmniGroup - that's another alternative OmniWeb icon).

Possibly inspired by, but not a direct take. Looking at the continents around the edge like Africa, you can see less of them on the MS icon, like they're further around the globe. They've definitely drawn this one from scratch.

Actually, it is most definitely a direct rip-off. All they have done is rotate the OmniWeb icon -15 deg and then trim away the edge of Africa (you can even see the pixels that they have painted over as they still form the outline of the edge of Africa that is now missing). They've also painted over Spain, the UK, and Sweden and Finland to accommodate the shadow from the swoosh, but other than that it is a pixel for pixel match to the OmniWeb icon:

[img]http://homepage.mac.com/jtyzack/.Pictures/screenshots/MSOWiconripoff.jpg[/img]

(...and yes, I have too much time on my hands). :p

That's not all they've [URL="http://theappleblog.com/2006/12/11/microsoft-gives-up-trying-and-starts-blatantly-copying/"]copied[/URL].

Too bad they didn't copy the code. They might have a stable product if they did that.

How can it be copied! It is a picture of the Earth. I am not believing that Microsoft would have needed to rip it off from OmniWeb. Sounds ridiculous to me.