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i don't see any meaningful disagreement here. "substack is powered by Ghost" in the twitter thread was rhetorical hyperbole, sure, but "we built our own theming API that’s compatible with themes built for Ghost" just means "we replicated the exact html/css structure of ghost" ... and what precisely is the difference between that and "using ghost"?

Similarly, for the "search library" - they only claim it's "open source", which ghost already specified in the twitter thread, and that they get it "from jsdelivr, not ghost's CDN", - but it's ghost's open source repository here - tryghost / sodo-search - and it wasn't pinned, so ghost could insert arbitrary code into it! So they were using ghost's code here, and ghost could, with an update, put in anything.

Not that substack did anything illegal here - even if they left out a few MIT license notices, that doesn't really matter (nobody's looking in substack-main-b1923123iweq.js for ghost's copyright notice).

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"we replicated the exact html/css structure of ghost"

That's not how theming integration works?

It means their backend has a generic programmatic article list / nav list / blog title that can be plugged into arbitrary HTML/CSS structures. The structure doesnt matter, only the components. Almost all blog have the same basic components. So it makes sense that one theme can be used by a different platform.

The only time :marseywait: it wouldn't make :marseyyarn: sense is if they did something different... like not have "subheadings" or not support certain types of navigation :marseymap2: on mobile, etc

Medium's a good :marseythumbsup: example of a non-standard blog. Substack and Ghost :marseypumpkin4: were always similar though.

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that's not how theming integration works

if you actually look at the screenshots, "--ghost-accent-color", <div id="ghost-portal-root">, etc. they really did copy the ghost site's specific structure! which - again, is morally fine, but whatever.

and you skipped over the search bit, where the claim that 'substack is using our code' and 'is depending on our CDN' were basically true - ghost owns tryghost/sodo-search, and could've popped arbitrary code into bari's substack and accidentally broken it - something that mr. best acknowledges and says was fixed!

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Duh that's the theme's source :marseymissing2: code? Of course the HTML :marsey404: and CSS would have the same attributes.

They already explained the search :marseyprostateexam: part is an open library. That's the whole point :marseynoyoufellowpedo: of OSS.

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They already explained the search part is an open library. That's the whole point of OSS.

you're r-slurred. all of ghost is open source. the initial thread was saying substack was using ghost's OSS software. that isn't explaining anything the original tweet doesn't!

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Guessing you're not a programmer?

Substack merely supports using themes and theme makers using a single :marseykiwimom: search :marseyprostateexam: JS component is perfectly fine

Substack isn't using the library... they support using ghost :marseynecromancer: themes... That the theme maker choose to use an open source :marseymissing2: JS library made by ghost :marseyghostlaugh:

Big difference. That's not "powering Substack".

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they had to code a shim ghost-like api on their backend to support the search component ... this isn't just "using a theme" lol see here.

Like, that search isn't "a search the theme library uses", the search is ghost's search, and the theme is a ghost theme. the theme maker did not integrate the search library. Ghost did, the theme sits atop ghost's already-existing search library, and substack added the ghost search library to weiss's site because weiss wanted to use a ghost theme on her substack.

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