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.
  • corroded@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    If any appliance manufacturer says that accessing your own appliance (that you own) outside their software ecosystem is financially “damaging” to them, they might as well be saying “Hey, just so you know, we’re collecting and selling your data.” If you have already purchased the appliance and their software is free, there is absolutely no other way that using a 3rd-party application could damage their bottom line.

    Thanks, Haier, for letting me know never to purchase your products.

  • Corngood@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    My non-expert take on this:

    Haier claims these plugins cause the firm significant financial damage

    Don’t care. Competition is not damage.

    violate copyright laws

    Prove it.

    plug-ins developed by you […] that are in violation of our terms of service

    The plug-ins never agreed to your ToS. Better sue your customers instead.

    • asbestos@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      Hijacking the comment to say: Fork the shit out of this repo immediately. Fuck Haier.

      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        Home assistant does not, but Haier would rather you use their proprietary SmartAir2 app that vacuums up every tiny bit of personal data for resale, and could potentially turn into a subscription service later.

        Mind you smartair2 has a 1.4 star rating on the play store if that tells you how well any of their software and devices work lol

    • Thorned_Rose@kbin.social
      1·
      9 months ago

      I’m so sad about Fisher & Paykel. It was a local (New Zealand) manufacturer that prided itself on quality. It had such a great reputation for quality it eventually took that great quality internationally. And then capitalism and enshittification got its grubby hands on it and turned it into another trash brand. Yet another quality local company disappearing off overseas, screwing over local workers and trashing the quality in favour of profit.

  • trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    Anyone know how the plugin developer responded?

    Would be dope if the response was ‘Fuck you, prove it’

    e. Well, the response was in the article, big disappointment “gotta take down the plugin”.

    It’s haier’s responsibility to prove damages

    • misanthropy@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      Would you risk going into massive legal debt for project you make no money from? Or would you continue to develop it for yourself and no longer post it publicly.

        • misanthropy@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          And the dev might have to pay a lawyer to defend himself in court while the company tries to prove their point.

          Sure, he might get it back. Maybe. But he also would likely end up in debt defending himself, even if there’s no real merit to the case.

          • trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            taking pro se forces the company to provide evidence and pay for lawyers while you just wait for their case to build, if they don’t have a case, then there’s no problem, if it gets to trial they have to prove damages, since there aren’t any, that will be difficult to prove.

            Taking pro se is not recommended in most situations but in this one, where the damages are entirely made up, taking pro se would not be overly tumultuous