How is this any different than software? Certainly there are many cases where a startup or company tries to make a product and us geeks say "It's stupid to pay for that I can redo it in a weekend and put it on Github" and we fawn over the OSS project and grill the original company.

And certainly there are other cases where OSS blazes the trail. But copycat software gets a hall pass when it you get to download it for free? Or is your post just a different iteration on the iOS/Android fanboy-ism?