This whole meta-discussion about how it's hacking because it's open source made me realize: Pirating has been around for a lot longer than the internet. How many grandmothers out there shared copyrighted recipes with friends and family on 3x5 cards? It honestly never occurred to me till this minute that that might have been considered copywrite infringement.
According to the US Copyright Office, recipes aren't generally copyrightable. Listings of ingredients certainly aren't, and the instructions can only be copyrighted if they are a "substantial literary expression". I'm guessing that "mix stuff, cook it at 350 until done" isn't going to qualify.
Going by the law, that's true, but what makes a recipe distinct from sheet music? They're both simple printed instructions informing appropriately skilled personnel how to produce a piece to be consumed. "Substantial literary expression" is a hedge. Many chefs have the same kind of distinctive culinary traits as writers have literary traits or as composers have distinctive styles.
I don't know the real legal reasoning, but in general the score for a symphony is quite a bit more detailed than the words on your grandmother's recipe card. IIRC, a piece of music 8 seconds or less cannot be under copyright (can't find any reference; sorry about that). I would think the typical recipe card would fall under that line of reasoning, whereas a page or two article on how a chef makes a complicated dish would probably be a creative work.
Length is a red herring; compare the copyrightable poetry in 'Haiku in English' (e.g., "tundra", in full) with signature dishes, like sachertorte or Waldorf Salad.
I guess these are more science/engineering than hacker, but I think the following cooking sites match the title pretty well:
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/
When I want to make something new and complicated, I go here first. Great layout, photos with every step, and no assumed prior knowledge.
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/
The magazine has more content than the website, but when I took the time to read a two page essay about how to make pork lo mein, down to what cuts of meat I could reasonably expect to find in an American grocery store, I was not disappointed. These are the same people who endorsed wadded up paper towels as the best turkey lifters after extensive testing.
Of course, for real recipe hacking, I go to the substitutions section of the Joy of Cooking to see what insanity I can dig up. My best to date is a non-dairy chocolate cake that used lots of mayonnaise, and I really want to experiment with flax seeds as an egg substitute.
Please don't do things to make titles stand out...
If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."
The word hacker here is gratuitous. The words 'open source' give a clear enough idea of how the site operates. And the site should stand on its own.
(I am amused that TrevorJ managed to think a plausible tie in.)
Agreed, this is getting idiotic. The site is cool enough, we don't need to arbitrarily add "hacker" to titles as though it magically means the link belongs here.
I withdraw my claim that this counts as Hacker news now that tsuraan has made me aware that recipes can't be copyrighted, hence "open source" recipes are pretty much useless as a concept.
So yeah, even my rather tenuous argument is now moot.
I usually don't want to go out and buy all ingredients needed before making the food. I want a website that tells me the list of food I can make with ingredients I already have in kitchen.
ok - what the hell possible reason could there be to downmod that? I am genuinely interested in pg's recipe for goop on rice - it wasn't a joke. Jesus Christ.
Now, I haven't searched the site, so I don't know how many cheap/easy/tastes-good recipes they have there (which are the kind the folks on HN seem to be most interested in). But based on the interest expressed in the aforementioned thread, I think there is a decent argument for it being appropriate for HN.
the ingredients list of recipes cannot be copyrighted but "when a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions... there may be a basis for copyright protection."
