Developer Andre0512 has received a takedown request from Haier to take down an open source Home Assistant integration with many of their smart appliances, sold under the names such as Haier, Candy and Hoover.
The HA community as a response has already created many forks at the moment of writing (https://github.com/Andre0512/hon/forks)
Announcement: I have to take the project down in the next few days
Dear User,
We are writing to inform you that we have discovered two Home Assistant integration plug-ins developed by you ( https://github.com/Andre0512/hon and https://github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn ) that are in violation of our terms of service. Specifically, the plug-ins are using our services in an unauthorized manner which is causing significant economic harm to our Company. We take the protection of our intellectual property very seriously and demand that you immediately cease and desist all illegal activities related to the development and distribution of these plug-ins. We also request that you remove the plug-ins from all stores and code hosting platforms where they are currently available. Please be advised that we will take all necessary legal action to protect our interests if you fail to comply with this notice. We reserve the right to pursue all available remedies, including but not limited to monetary damages, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees. We strongly urge you to take immediate action to rectify this situation and avoid any further legal action. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Haier Europe Security and Governance Department
I sure hope he doesn't buckle and leaves these repos up.
Hosting source code, libraries, even apps - cannot violate a TOS. Haier can go sue their own customers that use the library or block them if they want to be like that.
- there are several pro-bono groups like https://softwarefreedom.org/ that might be willing to give legal advise or write a counter-scary-letter back / tell them to F*CK OFF
- do nothing, ignore. take a deep breath, and get on with life.
- if they try to DCMA takedown, use the administrative process to defend and Github will put it back up.
- if still too risk adverse, please at least leave the repos up and just push a top commit that empties them and leaves a README.
- maybe everybody that reads this should fork the project on github
