The good folks over at MetaLab reported being ripped of by Mozilla earlier this week.  The open source Mozilla project, JetPack FlightDeck, was showing using UI mockups that clearly used the MetaLab UI elements and not just “borrowed” pieces or was the object of inspiration.

Mozilla issued a public apology to MetaLab today stating:

At issue are early mockups for one of the Jetpack developer tools that included design elements from the MetaLab web site. While the design direction being implemented does not utilize these design elements, we inadvertently included the early mockups in our blog post and videoannouncing the next phase of development for the Jetpack SDK.

We’ve since removed all of the early mockups from our web sites, and updated the videos and screenshots with the correct content.

We sincerely apologize to MetaLab for incorporating design elements from their web site in our early mockups and for posting them publicly without proper attribution.

I applaud Mozilla for not waiting to make a public response and clearing this up as soon as possible.  And you really should check out MetaLab for their design services.  The site is gorgeous and they have created some amazing interfaces for clients such as Ball Park: Simple Invoicing.

Links

Mozilla JetPack FlightDeck

MetaLab Blog