Appliances giant Haier reportedly issued a takedown notice to a software developer for creating Home Assistant integration plugins for the company's home appliances and releasing them on GitHub.

I’m not really big on “let’s make a movement”, but this independent dev has been hit with a cease-and-desist from making a FOSS Home Assistant addon for their Haier air conditioners.

Haier claims that they are losing out on millions of dollars due to this plugin which… lets you control their air conditions from home assistant. They haven’t bothered to explain how that’s possibly worth millions of dollars - they’re just claiming it.

So of course they hit the Streisand button and are demanding that he takes it down. He of course is complying… in a couple of days. Maybe you see where this is going.

It would be an absolute shame if any of you just happened to create a fork, or clone the code, or mirror it in your own instance. An absolute shame.

Just so everyone here knows which repositories NOT to clone or fork, here are the two links:

and please, don’t repost this anywhere, or share it in other communities, or anything like that. It’s a shame that so many people already know and are making clones. I’m just letting you know so you don’t do anything like telling others who may make their own copies.

(sidenote: Haier owns GE Appliance, so for our American folks it may affect you folks too)

  • the_beber@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    11 months ago

    I hate how cease and desist are essentially blackmail. Even if you did nothing wrong, you can still get fucked over by costs of a potential legal battle.

    • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      It’s a bigger problem in the States than elsewhere. In the US, awarding legal costs is the exception, not the norm, so someone with a lot of money and access to lawyers can basically intimidate a defendent into avoiding court. In the rest of the world, courts are much more likely to award costs to a defendent who has done nothing wrong - if you file a frivilous lawsuit and lose, you’ll probably have to pay the costs of the person you tried to sue.

      This guy’s in Germany, so I think he’d be alright if he clearly won. The issue, however, is that courts aren’t really equipped for handling highly technical cases and often get things wrong.

      • density@kbin.social
        5·
        11 months ago

        But the defendant still has to put the funds up in the first place? It’s a huge gamble and most people don’t even have the ante available.

        Is there anywhere in the world that has a robust and comprehensive public funding for legal entanglements of all types?

        • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          Yes they do have to fund their defense to begin with, however there has to be some balance struck. Until the court proceedings are concluded it isn’t known which side is in the right.

          I think most countries’ public funding for legal representation is limited to criminal matters, and even then you have to qualify (eg have a very low income or be unemployed). With civil matters, it’s up to you to find a lawyer you can afford, or one who will take it on pro bono.

          If the defendent is obviously in the right, then it should be more likely that they can find a lawyer who will work pro bono.

          • density@kbin.social
            0·
            11 months ago

            it isn’t known which side is in the right

            vs

            If the defendent is obviously in the right

            • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              11 months ago

              Before the trial happens, it could really go either way, even if the defendant is obviously in the right - there could be some procedural slip up that causes them to lose anyway.

              However, a lawyer isn’t going to assume that they will make some slip up, so if it is obviously in the defendant’s favour they will work pro bono. There is still some risk for them, because if they lose they don’t get paid, but they’re confident they’ll win.

              Edit: wrote the reply thinking this was a conversation about awarding costs to the defendant, that was a different thread. The first paragraph remains unchanged though.

              I wish Lemmy showed you more of the context than just the last reply.

              • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                11 months ago

                I wish Lemmy showed you more of the context than just the last reply.

                You can keep pressing on “Show context” to load more replies, up until the top level one.

                • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
                  1·
                  11 months ago

                  Yeah I know, however when you reply to someone from a notification you just want to reply.

                  Also, when you move up the context on a Lemmy thread you see each comment and all its other comments. If the comment chain you’re replying on isn’t the top thread, then you get cluttered up with all the others. On reddit, context meant you only saw the comments that directly lead to the comment you were deriving context from. Furthermore, context was derived from the comment URL with a ?context=3 suffix, so you could easily specify how far up the chain you wanted to go.

                  Lemmy does context differently, but I prefer reddit’s method.