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Bye bye BetterSlack

g3rv4.com

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Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#81

Post by eertami »

overcast wrote: post #70
shawn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's our right as developers to modify and upgrade the tools we use. It's important to ensure that this remains true both today and in the future. I wanted to give you a moral boost, in case you were looking for a reason to take a stand. But if you don't want to, that's entirely valid.

Ok Stallman, now back to reality where people do own software, they do have legal restrictions on its use, and it's not a human right to circumvent it.

Yeah and I also own the machine that's rendering the HTML and executing the Javascript. Nobody has any legal right to prevent me modifying my browser and changing how it interprets said javascript.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#82

Post by jorjordandan »

g3rv4 wrote: post #66
mosselman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I... just don't do it." You mean you do not ignore cease and desist orders by principal? Why? There should be at least some criteria by which you judge which ones you can ignore and which you can't? What if they told you to cease and desist programming forever on any project because they state in their terms that once you mess with their UI with JavaScript you are not allowed to program anymore? Ridiculous right? So…

Because... I have lots of things to work on, lots of things I want to build, lots of people I want to talk with. None of them involve talking with a lawyer in a different country over something that's really not that important in my life.

I got a cease and desist for a extension that improved the look of Craigslist. I just ignored it, I've never had to talk to a lawyer or anything. But that's my situation, I understand that other people may feel differently. EFF offered to review my case, but I didn't wind up following up with that either. Might be an option for you.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#83

Post by noxToken »

g3rv4 wrote: post #66
mosselman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I... just don't do it." You mean you do not ignore cease and desist orders by principal? Why? There should be at least some criteria by which you judge which ones you can ignore and which you can't? What if they told you to cease and desist programming forever on any project because they state in their terms that once you mess with their UI with JavaScript you are not allowed to program anymore? Ridiculous right? So…

Because... I have lots of things to work on, lots of things I want to build, lots of people I want to talk with. None of them involve talking with a lawyer in a different country over something that's really not that important in my life.

I see all of these comments in here telling you that Slack doesn't have a leg to stand on, that you should do your best to stick it to them, that you're in the right, that you should ignore them, etc. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "If I were in this person's shoes, I'd probably distribute it privately to a few people who might want it, and in spite of all the hard work, let the project die in official capacity."

On principle, I want to side with all these other commenters. Fact of the matter is that time is precious. Glad you're doing what you feel is important to you.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#84

Post by overcast »

eertami wrote: post #81
overcast wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok Stallman, now back to reality where people do own software, they do have legal restrictions on its use, and it's not a human right to circumvent it.

Yeah and I also own the machine that's rendering the HTML and executing the Javascript. Nobody has any legal right to prevent me modifying my browser and changing how it interprets said javascript.

They do when you want to redistribute it with their name, which is the whole point of this discussion.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#85

Post by sbr464 »

Could Slack just defend against people doing this? Similar to how companies defend against Ad Blockers, Password Managers etc? Those also allow you to modify/tamper with elements, hide annoying things etc. Do you join lerna and block everyone now?

I could agree with the name change, even if to not stir up a hornet's nest

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#87

Post by phailhaus »

g3rv4 wrote: post #43
castis wrote: post #28

While I completely understand your decision to pull it; both their decision to flex their legal arm and your decision to not stand your ground are equally disappointing.

I guess... I'm sorry? and I'll try to do better next time, I promise.

How dare you choose not to put yourself in legal jeopardy for the sake of random people on the internet!

Please feel free to ignore everyone here. You made a Cool Thing, it didn't work out, whatever. You'll probably make more Cool Things in the future and I hope they'll stick!

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#89

Post by scoom »

tptacek wrote: post #61
whoisjuan wrote: post #27

I think you can safely ignore this cease and desist. Just change the name and add a disclaimer so your users know that by using your extension they are violating their acceptable use policy. This is no different than any user writing a Tampermonkey script to modify any website they want to modify. Even further, this is no different than a user opening the Dev Tools console and modifying things there.

He should talk to a lawyer, especially if he accepted a binding agreement by using Slack that forbids any of the research he did to figure out how to get his integrations to work.

A binding agreement? Why would he sign one of those?

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#90

Post by mst »

canadaduane wrote: post #17
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #5

Folks, use IRC, XMPP, Matrix, etc. Using proprietary protocols is dumb .

I worked at a medium-sized company during the transition from IRC to Slack. The problem the company had was a split in comms networks. There was a lack of will on the part of engineers to move to GChat, and non-engineers were unwilling to respond/engage on IRC. Marketing, Sales, and Admin were using GChat, while engineering used IRC. Getting everyone on the same comms platform was a major improvement. I'm not saying…

I confess that, overall, that's been my experience with a few customers and that getting everyone on the same platform was ace.

But as somebody who's got gchat gatewayed to IRC, replacing two things I can use from irssi with one thing I can't has always annoyed me.

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