It is a clone but with some features. As i know creator of this coin is 2 independent dev with no any connections to bytecoin.
From the OP:
Dashcoin (DSH) is a cryptocurrency started on July 5, 2014. Dashcoin is a fork of Bytecoin and uses the unique algorithm CryptoNite. Our goal with Dashcoin is to create a perfect mirror image of Bytecoin, the first CryptoNote based cryptocurrency, at any given moment of time. Automatically.
And has changed direction since the first post, no rules here saying this coin couldn't split away from bytecoin...