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Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice (www.bleepingcomputer.com)

submitted 7 months ago by Dehydrated@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[-] Corngood@lemmy.ml 195 points 7 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.world 97 points 7 months ago

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

[-] fishpen0@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago

Ghetto fork it. GitHub will nuke the forks done via the fork button with the initial DMCA

[-] Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi 30 points 7 months ago

Fork it on a different platform - GitLab or something like it - we really should diversify our code repos. Microsoft has too much power with GitHub

[-] Monument 10 points 7 months ago

I’m sure it exists outside the sphere of my knowledge, but this saga made me wonder if there’s some sort of Git/Bay-type site for software developed in the public interest, but is otherwise belligerent to corporate pressure.

[-] Iapar@feddit.de 8 points 7 months ago

this is an option for people who are looking for alternatives.

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[-] Dehydrated@lemmy.world 92 points 7 months ago

Yeah they have no legal basis for their ridiculous claims and demands. This company is just full of shit.

[-] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 14 points 7 months ago

It is likely costing them more from whatever cloud service their platform is hosted on.

But, that's on them for not putting locks on their api.

[-] corroded@lemmy.world 159 points 7 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.

[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 19 points 7 months ago

The project was accessing Haiers cloud API, not just your appliance. Not that that it makes this any less shitty, but there is a difference. They aren't saying you aren't allowed to access a product you own, they are saying you aren't allowed to access their servers.

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[-] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 16 points 7 months ago

Here's to hoping people start ripping their app apart to call out what information they're collecting for sale.

[-] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 88 points 7 months ago

"Hey! We were gonna charge a subscription for that! Fuck you for doing it first, competition is not allowed."

[-] akwd169@sh.itjust.works 16 points 7 months ago

Does homeassistant even charge a subscription?

[-] Thann@lemmy.ml 45 points 7 months ago

No, its free an open source, but it out competes their spyware

[-] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 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

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[-] machinin@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

The software is free, and you would never need to pay anything to get set up great system for yourself. In addition to that, they also offer a service that you can subscribe to that gives you some benefits. You can replicate all the functions on your own, I believe, but the service makes it extremely simple.

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[-] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 87 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Just letting everyone know that GE appliance is also owned by Haire.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances

Besides that, they also own the following brands: Hotpoint (U.S.), Hoover (Europe), Candy, Fisher & Paykel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haier

[-] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 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.

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[-] wikibot@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

GE Appliances is an American home appliance manufacturer based in Louisville, Kentucky. It has been majority owned by Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier since 2016. It is one of the largest appliance companies in the United States and manufactures appliances under several brands, including GE, GE Profile, Café, Monogram, Haier and Hotpoint (Americas only, European rights held by Whirlpool Corporation). The company also owns FirstBuild, a co-creation community and micro-factory on the University of Louisville's campus in Louisville, Kentucky. Another FirstBuild location is in South Korea, and a FirstBuild location in India opened its doors in 2019.

^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^

[-] eah@kbin.social 61 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I bunch of people have forked the projects on GitHub and changed the README.

https://github.com/Andre0512/hon/network
https://github.com/thempc/hon/commit/f4169cce29fb5a5d669cad627fd6d66e681a5896
https://github.com/fbanwjdmzoasjdn/hoe/commit/70835712ec71086996d47a22b509629ab14c12dd
https://github.com/RearDoor/hon/commit/db2776b1ce3b86aa3ff1e63ebe34999e2df88800
https://github.com/EvilGremlin/hon/commit/263084b46829e00361a26b7cb186303e17128684
https://github.com/abc123me/hon/commit/b4186ad014d73566019cca3ba7422cb09cde5ec9
https://github.com/mon5termatt/hon/commit/5b40cf6947c95c1ea9b0c5b214be0520c32f829a
https://github.com/cathalferris/fuck_you_haier/commit/d896e02bb6d4b188192a7c60fb7e2f6b17c0a14c

[-] trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 38 points 7 months ago

The mistake is forking and hosting it on GitHub. If Haier sends GitHub a DMCA takedown notice, they will comply, and the forks will be deleted too. Use other hosting services for redundancy and keep a local copy.

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[-] Dehydrated@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

Awesome! This is why I love the Lemmy community.

[-] QHC@lemmy.world 45 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I don't use Haier products but a similar thing happened with Chamberlain when they blocked the MyQ integration even though it was using the legitimate API and not breaking any rules. No attempt to work with anyone in the HA community at all, just shut everything down.

On one hand, this means projects like Home Assistant are getting popular enough to have enough usage to effect these companies. So that's great! In the long term, we'll all figure out solutions, but in the short term it feels like an increasing fight between corporate and open-source control over smart devices.

[-] Muehe@lemmy.ml 8 points 7 months ago

Just here to leave the daily reminder that API reimplementation may constitute fair use under certain circumstances.

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[-] wesker 45 points 7 months ago

So what do we do, all fork the repos and upload the source to archive.org?

[-] Dehydrated@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

Doesn't sound like a bad plan

[-] wesker 44 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Two repos:

Fork that shit. Upload the source anywhere you can think. Do crime.

[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

Let's hear Barbara SING!

[-] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 25 points 7 months ago

That would be illegal, and you should absolutely not do that. Just like you shouldn’t clone the invidious repos just in case (/s)

[-] wesker 27 points 7 months ago

It may or may not be illegal, they're just throwing their weight around under the suggestion that it's illegal. Knowing well that a single dev working on a plugin in their freetime isn't likely to want to invest in legal proceedings.

Which is even more reason to do the above, to stick it to them.

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[-] mrbubblesort@kbin.social 9 points 7 months ago

Why would it be illegal? A cease and desist is just a fancy letter saying do what we want or else we'll go crying to a judge. If the original dev hasn't done anything wrong (I'm not familiar with the project but I'd still say that's highly likely to be the case) then there's nothing to worry about. So make all the clones you want, and watch a dumbass company Streisand itself

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[-] praise_idleness@sh.itjust.works 44 points 7 months ago

makes their product easier to use and to be used however we see fit

Haier: You can't do that!

[-] Dehydrated@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago

Corporations and their shitty proprietary cloud services...

[-] APassenger@lemmy.world 38 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Matter. Get it adopted. Buy and implement only Matter devices in the future.

Needs a year or two, but if we can get that tech widespread, this cloud stuff will be less essential.

[-] skizzles@lemmy.ml 28 points 7 months ago

That's interesting.

Here is a better link for it that isn't pushing Google products. Not implying you are doing that, just wanted to provide a non Google link is all.

https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/

[-] vividspecter@lemm.ee 18 points 7 months ago

Buy Zigbee in cases where there isn't a Matter alternative. It's not quite as interoperable as Matter but it's fully offline once setup (and some newer coordinators have dual zigbee/Matter support). Avoid cloud connected WiFi devices like the plague.

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[-] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago

Not sure why I'd want some private cloud system when HA can work on its own. I'd go zigbee, which doesn't require any cloud.

[-] APassenger@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Matter works with HA and HA works with matter, keeping it local and easier (is the hope).

Edit to add: it's not really a private cloud. It's a mesh/WiFi network that transfers data based on the item type.

[-] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 7 months ago

Eh? Matter is an open source standard, not proprietary in the slightest.

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[-] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 34 points 7 months ago

https://www.haierappliances.com/support/contact-us

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[-] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

That is one ugly ass building. It looks like it’s swelling from long term water damage.

[-] IHawkMike@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

It's a shit company for pulling this, for sure. But I kinda like the building.

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[-] ExLisper@linux.community 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There's so many issues with all the smart/IOT devices that it's just not worth getting into. Few if any manufacturers offer proper, open integrations and when it comes to home appliance there are more important features than that. Just get up to turn off your AC, that's still the best solution.

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[-] SteveDinn@lemmy.ca 17 points 7 months ago

The first thing I do when researching a new electronic thing is to search "[brand] home assistant" to see if there is already an integration for their stuff. If not, I usually keep looking.

[-] Kushia@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 months ago

Last Haier appliance I had was a heap of shit anyway so no great loss avoiding their garbage in the future.

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[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 points 7 months ago

Good news is there is a lot of forks that were made by various users. I have a copy of the source...

Unfortunate news is that development is likely stopping so if they change the API I don't know if there are any fellas that will come around to fix it...

[-] Dehydrated@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

Usually, the open source community finds a solution for everything

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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024

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