I guess morally, if you are talking about an current product, we will have to disagree. Just because something is legal does not make it right morally. But, if you can sleep at night I suppose that's all that matters.
in general, to me it's ok. it's only a matter of ethics and conscience if one wanted to copy an existing circuit and make a profit out of it.
but for old and discontinued pedals, i guess copying is a "saving grace", on the part of end users. our moral threshold may be or may not be the same, but we can agree that copying and passing them off as their own - without due credit whatsoever - is never acceptable.
EDIT: to add, the reason many opt not to disclose what the circuit is is to avoid using the original pedal as marketing push to sell. you have first-hand experience of this and i believe it is not cloning that you were against entirely, but the actual use by another pedal builder of your company's name in pushing his sales. also, personally i believe too that copying a pedal and announcing that it's another fuzz face already gives it a sort of unfair advantage since the builder is essentially riding on the FF's fame to sell. quite a dilemma actually. one could choose to tell what it is, and get instant sales due to the copied pedal's popularity, or make a copy but keep mum what it is and work his way up to sell. it's a really difficult choice to make.
