I guess this is more of a comfort seeking question than legality one.You see, for the past couple of months I have been brainstorming and developing a product, all by myself. I was planning to release it under some kind of free license. While I know no idea is ever a unique one, I was quite happy to note that the way I had visualized my software, in its form and purpose, was one of its kind, albeit bits and pieces resembling others. That private project was quite cherished one.Now I find there is a product, at least a decade old, that is so close to mine that mine looks plagiarized. While with the rest of them I had a 8:2 in my favor, feature wise, with this product it seems transposed, including the philosophy. I admit I can vaguely recall hearing the name of it but never thought of reading about it - the name didn't seem to invoke interest etc - until now. I read about it and now I am distraught and agonized.There is no risk of any legal action as that software is in free domain and mine is still a private project, and I don't know if it will be ever make any money from any buyer which will then lead to trouble, but that is not the point of the question.The point is how to stay focused and enthusiastic as before? I have about a month of work pending, mainly programming and complete testing, and this has completely left me drained. I am in a fetal position. I am telling myself about Newton-Leibniz, Faraday-Henry kind of independent activities with similar to same results but that isn't helping. I don't want this to spill over to my regular life and work life.I can sense two issues that are pricking me. (1) I wanted praise for my creativity. (2) I was harboring a small desire of a possible chance of making good money by attracting a buyer.This might be a casual and almost an inconsequential problem for the citizens of the business world, but I am from a different world.Help.
My most cherished dream project seems to resemble a product that already exists. What shall I do?
personal projects
I would say, stop coding, stop testing and take a couple of days or weeks of and try to find a way to enhance and expand your product feature-wise and do it in such a way that it sets it apart from the other product. You may be able to think up some radical changes you hadn't thought of before.