cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10882099
Thankfully I don’t use any of their products, but this really pisses me off. They claim that this open source project “causes significant economic harm to their company”
This is ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous. How can something that enables the user to efficiently control their AC cause “significant economic harm”???
Consider forking the repository or mirroring it to another platform like GitLab, Codeberg or your self-hosted Git server, so the project can continue to exist and someone can maybe fork it and maintain it.
The effected repos are: https://github.com/Andre0512/hOn and https://github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn
If you don’t know about Home Assistant, check it out. It’s an amazing piece of open-source software, that you can run at home on your own server and use it to control your smart home devices. That way, you don’t need to connect them to the manufacturer’s (probably insecure) cloud. It gives you sovereignty over your smart home instead of some proprietary vendor-locked garbage. Check out their website and the Lemmy community: [email protected]
I also highly recommend Louis Rossmann’s video about this: https://youtu.be/RcSnd3cyti0
He makes awesome videos in general, consider subscribing.
As Rossmann said, don’t ever buy anything from such a shitty company that doesn’t respect their customers. This move by Haier is nothing other than a slap in the face for everyone, who just wants to comfortably control the product they paid for. This company is actively hostile towards their paying customers. Fuck these bastards!
Better yet, make an example out of Haier. Prove to companies everywhere that allowing open source compatibility can only be good for them.
I literally buy based off Home Assistant support. If it needs to be smart and it’s not supported by home assistant it’s not coming in the house.
When asked for a statement, the company answered “Yes we’re idiots, and wanted everyone to know”
@SharkAttak @Dehydrated way to ensure all internet searches on your brand deliver a “not compatible with stuff” impression to all prospective customers.
Sadly, I know them as one company that makes dirt cheap TVs, so they’ll still keep making money.
Cheaper than TCL?
Eh, same tier, I think.
I almost certain you’re being sarcastic, but please tell me I’m wrong. If that quote is actually true, that would be fucking hilarious!
I extrapolated and condensed based on the company actions.
GitHub also has a legal defense fund for developers. GitHub lists it on their DMCA takedown page.
When GitHub processes a DMCA takedown under our circumvention technology claim review process, we will offer the repository owner a referral to receive independent legal consultation through GitHub’s Developer Defense Fund at no cost to them.
They created this fund after claims were made against a YouTube downloader from a third party. (not Google)
I don’t know if this would be an anti-circumvention claim, but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to ask.
That’s the same company that has this on their ‘about us’ page:
“Haier company history: since its creation in 1984, the company has been run by the same CEO, Zhang Ruimin, who has always had a clear objective: to build high-quality, reliable products. Within the first year of his appointment, in response to complaints about faulty fridges, his radical action of smashing the fridges with a hammer in front of employees has been recognised as an important cornerstone of the brand.”
I call hypocrisy!
I was planning to replace a lot of my white goods this year.
This move has 100% eliminated Haier from any of my decisions.Don’t discount the economic loss they experience from not being able to harvest and sell your data (even possible in the EU, though harder of course)
I’d like to thank Haier for their transparency. ♥️
Any idea what the consequence is if the author instead transferred ownership entirely to an owner based in a country that would give no fucks about a lawsuit? Sure, the OG owner loses the project but would he avoid culpability?
Kinda like how VLC is based out of France because there’s no software patents?
Anyone that wants to take the legal heat can just fork the projects and continue hosting it. I don’t blame the original developer for not wanting to deal with it, even if the legal threat sounds very ridiculous (a project like this would be the opposite of financial harm, how many of us check if something works with home assistant before buying a device?).
Alright. Let’s get the ratgdo guy on this. I’d pre-order a rathvac today.
This is sad to see. I have a hOn device which I recently connected to WiFi to see what features it would have. Sadly it had to connect to the internet to work so I didn’t play with it too much. I checked this plug-in out then and was hoping I could use it.
You probably can still use it. Just don’t ever update the appliance because they will probably do something to break to api on purpose.
I sent them a nasty gram from their contacts page. I don’t own anything from them right now but you can damn well bet I will avoid them if when/if it comes up.
I pointed them to Louis’ video also
I assume a zero chance of any purchases is a larger economic hit than allowing a small diy community to interact with their PURCHASED and OWNED product.
I didn’t go nasty, but did do my bit to point out how short sighted this move was:
I just wanted to say that your silly take down notice on the Home Assistant developer, who was enabling greater satisfaction for customers who bought your products, was a perfect example of the Streisand effect in action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Thanks to you, I (who didn’t own - and now probably never will - any of your products), am not only aware of your silly, unethical, and pointless behaviour, but have now taken steps to preserve the developer’s code for future use.
You could’ve fostered this innovation, and gained yourselves the admiration of global, active and thriving community of like-minded people. And potentially gained more paying customers in the process.
Instead, you have achieved the opposite. Well done.
It won’t make a lick of difference, but hopefully they get the same sentiment enough times that they at least understand what a fuck-up this was, on their part.
Edit: at least I know they got it
I’ve just done the same thing, said I don’t own any of their products but I certainly won’t be buying them in the future and I will be actively discouraging people from buying their products, which will actually hurt their profits, and also put a snide little PS at the bottom saying "Good luck issuing cease and desist notices to the hundreds of forks of the software (803 so far according to another post) which will cost you real money instead of the made up MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that you claim this is open source software is costing you. It’s companies like you that make buying consumer electronics a quagmire
Nasty was probably strong word. I mostly expressed my disappointment and that I would steer clear going forward. And that would have a stronger economic impact on their bottom dollar.
Yeah - they need to hear this a lot. They could absolutely have taken a little time to understand what need the dev was filling here. Ultimately, this could’ve been a free kick for them, had they handled it the right way.
My guess is someone saw what was being built and said “hey, we can build something similar and sell it”, hence the C&D.
Still a ridiculous move. If I buy an appliance, I pay for it and I own it. I am allowed to do with it whatever I want. If I want to use my own solution for controlling it, hosted on my own server, I should have every right to do so. Fuck corporations and their shitty cloud solutions.
Looking at their twitter this is haier Europe and haier US doesn’t block home assistant at all. I assume these repos are specific to haier Europe though.
Is there a list of these takedowns? I know Mazda NA is another company that has killed a HA integration.
How long until they start banning you from using thermostats made by other companies
