It still seems that the consensus is that if something is posted
here on LPF then that is the person that the design is owned by...
And anyone else seems to be considered a thief...
Not necessarily a thief, but a liar, if he says he "developed and tested the circuit over the past year" by himself, when the first driver he sold on ebay was a direct copy of Woop's PCB, and the new one a slight modification...
The problem is Prior Art... just like the DDL circuit... Woop's circuit
is almost exactly identical to the National Design Engineer's Appnotes
Examples #4 and #7...
Does that mean Igor and Woop stole the design from National's
Engineer???
So anyone can "copy" their App Note designs... just like Woop did..
You misunderstood. Yes, Woop did use a schematic out of the datasheet, but he drew his own board to accomodate the parts... Later he designed his own circuits, with more components, and capabitilies - circuits that are not in the datasheet. Some of them are posted in that thread...
I also drew my own board based on the datasheet cct. first and later made a new, different circuit to suit my needs, after testing the one from the datasheet and deciding that while it's good enough for LEDs (which it is meant for), LDs have special requirements...
For example, after making the circuit from the datasheet, i spent a week behind a scope, testing it under every possible and impossible operating condition, to see if there is anything that could go wrong.
I found severe noise on the input and the output of the datasheet circuit, so i made several new circuits with different parts and part placements (position of components matters a lot in such high freq. ccts.)...
I ended up using one of my modified versions, with quite a few parts more, and a slightly more complex circuit (altho i always try to keep circuits simple, because the simpler they are, the harder it is for something to go wrong)....
What i said (or was trying to say) was, that the seller copied not Woop's schematic - because like you said that particular schematic is from the datasheet and not Woop - i said that the seller copied Woop's implementation of that schematic. The PCB layout...
Why? Cos he didn't know how to convert a schematic into a PCB by himself... And then he went on to lie he
developed it himself (and that it's the best driver ever, with zero ripple and other fantastic but unspecific claims). Also, he lied to me about his intended use for the driver, while asking for help while making it...
I don't have a problem with the fact that Woop's PCB was copied, or let's say used...
Woop posted it in a public place, which usually gives everyone the right to use it...
The part that does bother me are the lies and exagerations used to sell it (and most of the sellers other offers).
For example, the part about the driver having specs that exceed any other driver known to mankind, while the same exact driver is posted right here for anyone to use...
There is nothing wrong with using a circuit or PCB someone else came up with and posted. But in that case it usually doesn't hurt to give credit.
If not that, the lies about the developement could still have been omitted, without it affecting sales in any way. So could the lies about how perfect and wonderful it is, if specs were simply provided instead...
Otherwise, seeing how the components on the circuit were moved around by a few milimeters, the chip rotated and replaced with a version with legs (easier to solder, but inferior in power dissipation capabilities), i'm guessing the seller at least learned how to use a PCB drawing software over the course of the last year.
That's something too, i guess.
Besides, it's posted all over the forum, altho it was a while back.. 
