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I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

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Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#231

Post by joyjoyjoy »

eecc wrote: post #48
Animats wrote: post #41

This thing wants the password for your bank account? WTF? That's way more than it needs. Enough info to authorize an ACH transfer, maybe. But the login password for your bank account? No way. That voids Bank of America's security guarantee.[1] If you provide info for an ACH transfer, and the other party abuses that info, it's reversible. If you provide login info and the other party abuses that info, it's not. [1] ht…

German online payment system called Sofort wants the same... ( https://www.klarna.com/sofort/ ) The instructions asked me to provide account, card number and OTP login code... then it’s just a matter of scraping all my past 10 years transactions and keep the session alive to snoop on exactly how many condoms I buy... Criminals

I am not sure how much information they get from your account. Could be just the balance and transaction confirmation. Also, you need a separate transaction authorization. The log-in information is not enough to initiate a transaction.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#232

Post by daniel-cussen »

fj39dkf wrote: post #133
mdpopescu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? If you believe in Imaginary Property, you own the copyright to your code until you get paid. He won't be trusted with sensitive projects that he doesn't get paid for .

Do you mean intellectual property? It would be defined in the contract, but usually the contractors never own the copyright to code written for other people. Anyway, I agree with the other comments that this is unprofessional and immature. We have a civil court system to deal with these kind of issues.

We also have a banking system to deal with these kinds of issues. The client should have payed.

Lawyers say the legal system has its limitations and that not every morally legitimate gripe has a legal remedy.

Your comment reminds me of the typical objection, why crackdown on these evildoers instead of these worse evildoers? Why not both?

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#233

Post by naner »

qafy wrote: post #123
Animats wrote: post #41

This thing wants the password for your bank account? WTF? That's way more than it needs. Enough info to authorize an ACH transfer, maybe. But the login password for your bank account? No way. That voids Bank of America's security guarantee.[1] If you provide info for an ACH transfer, and the other party abuses that info, it's reversible. If you provide login info and the other party abuses that info, it's not. [1] ht…

If you aren't comfortable with that you better not use any fintech apps like Cash App, Venmo, Wealthfront, Robinhood, any Intuit products, etc. These services use Plaid (like this app does) or similar APIs like Quovo, Yodlee, etc. Even financial institutions themselves like Citi Bank, American Express, Chime, PayPal, etc use these APIs to link your accounts. And to be clear, the app itself never has access to your cr…

Yep this behavior has been normalized by our industry, much to the embarrassment of everyone involved. Move fast and break (other people's) things?

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#234

Post by lawtalkinghuman »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #225
ncallaway wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he's not paid, what validity does the contract have? What does this mean? The contract is valid absent payment. A contract has to have consideration for both parties to be a valid contract, but a promise of payment is a perfectly valid consideration and would make the contract valid.

How can a promise of payment, combined with a refusal to honor that promise, be valid consideration? It doesn't differ from a promise of nothing.

This seems like very basic contract law 101 stuff.

The promise of payment is the consideration. A contract is literally an exchange of promises. When you go into a car dealership and buy a car, they are exchanging a promise (you get a car!) for your promise to pay them.

The refusal to pay is a failure to live up to the promise - that is what makes it a breach of contract. If not paying meant consideration didn’t exist, then nobody would be able to sue for breach of contract for non-payment. If breach meant the contract was invalid, you wouldn’t be able to enforce the contract.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#235

Post by slips »

jwr wrote: post #179
qafy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't comfortable with that you better not use any fintech apps like Cash App, Venmo, Wealthfront, Robinhood, any Intuit products, etc. These services use Plaid (like this app does) or similar APIs like Quovo, Yodlee, etc. Even financial institutions themselves like Citi Bank, American Express, Chime, PayPal, etc use these APIs to link your accounts. And to be clear, the app itself never has access to your cr…

Well of course I won't use anything like that! I find it mind-boggling that people even consider giving a third party their bank account login+password. It's like saying "yes, I want to be robbed of all my money, please take these credentials and spread them forth to whichever leaked data pile they might end up in". My bank considers transactions done using login credentials to be final. There is no recourse if someo…

You likely are just going through the token system, not putting your details directly into the application. Next to nothing works like that.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#236

Post by georgesteve147 »

greenyoda wrote: post #131
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The copyright of a work belongs to its creator by default. (That's U.S. law; no contract is required to make that happen.) If it meets the criteria for a work-for-hire, the contracting party is the creator from the beginning for copyright law purposes (this is significant for reasons other than those under discussion; copyright transfers can reversed by the legal creator during a legally-specified window that occur…

For contractors (in contrast to employees), it's not a "work for hire" by default. The contract must explicitly state that it's a "work for hire", and various other conditions must be met. From Wikipedia[1]: On the other hand, if the work is created by an independent contractor or freelancer, the work may be considered a work for hire only if all of the following conditions are met: - the work must come within one of…

Do you need hackers for hire? Do you need to keep an eye on your spouse by gaining access to their emails? As a parent do you want to know what your kids do on a daily basis on all social networks in others to make sure they're not getting into trouble? Whatever it is, Ranging from Bank Jobs, Flipping cash, Criminal records, removal of mugshots ,DMV, Taxes, crypto currency fraud investigation Name it, they can get the job done www.assuredhacks.com

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#237

Post by novaleaf »

dboreham wrote: post #223
novaleaf wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a kind of similar situation in that Msft owes me aprox $7k in royalties but they lost track of it internally. I've been pinging them every 6 months about this for the last 4 years, hoping to avoid litigation. in the usa, you can't expect a lawyer to take a case without paying their fees up front. So $5000+ for any case. Assuming you win, you are still looking at years before you might actually get paid (if eve…

This story sounds a little fishy to me. If they just "lost track of it" you don't need to sue. You need to dig out your executed contract with MS, and your set of unpaid invoices and start making phone calls. Ultimately if that fails, pay a lawyer a few hundred to send a letter to the address in the "Notices" section of the contract, demanding payment. That'll get the attention of someone who will get you paid. Otoh…

No dispute. just bureaucracy.

it's royaltees from xblig (xna on xbox360). they admitted to not paying me in email, but don't know where the money went.

I actually emailed msft legal about it aprox a year ago, which got traction for a couple months before their activity died off again.

so yes, as you say the general plan I'll probably go with is to retain a lawyer to send threatening emails. that'll cost in the area of $350. Just tried my best to resolve this without that drama.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#238

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

xwdv wrote: post #81

Don’t understand why someone would throw away their integrity by doing this. When a client refuses to pay, the standard procedure is to take them to court and then make them pay what is owed + attorney fees. Instead, this developer has put himself on industry blacklists by doing this. No way he’ll be trusted with sensitive projects. Don’t do this.

What industry blacklists? Is that like your high school Permanent Record?

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#239

Post by paulsutter »

kentrado wrote: post #186
paulsutter wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never seen a contract like that, have any examples?

It's the copyright law. You own your work, all rights are reserved until by means of a license you give it away. No payment would invalidate the license.

No actually most contracts assign full ownership and not a license.

What about partial payment? What about a payment dispute? in all these cases ownership remains as defined in the contract.

You could try to make a contract that works the way you describe but it would be unwieldy and I’m skeptical anyone would use it.

It’s really straightforward to call a collections lawyer. In most cases the money is paid after one or two letters.

Not paying money owed can have bad consequences. The collections lawyer reminds them of this, and the situation is remedied in short order.

On the other hand, pulling some cowboy stunt to teach them a lesson (like releasing their source code, or the related idiotic idea of sabotaging their website or business) could lead to paying significant civil and even criminal penalties.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#240

Post by bobbiechen »

ryacko wrote: post #130
giancarlostoro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b) The client can use the AGPLv3 version gratis too, even if they modify it, as it will be on their own server anyway. The AGPL covers using code in servers. They would have to provide code for any server side changes.

License exceptions exist, including the "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil" exception. It just wouldn't be free software anymore.

A fun story, posting the link for those who haven't seen it -> https://web.archive.org/web/20170722132351/https://dev.hasen...
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