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Ground control to Major Trial

virtualize.sh

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Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they could sue you. Even if the suit is baseless it’ll cost a lot to defend, and you might accidentally give them some basis in the process

This doesn’t make sense as a risk… can’t anyone in the US already sue anyone else whenever?

Yes but the company in question has no motive to sue. They aren't named and any lawsuit would be completely fraught and easily dismissed. On top of that, they would be revealing themselves by suing. It gets more complicated if they are named and now have an actual reason.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: If supplying an email address opens up a 30 day free trial, you can hardly complain when people do supply email addresses... especially when, to smooth the experience, there is absolutely nothing else but a email address field and a "start free trial" button. People will always find ways to use things to the limit or abuse them. You need to consider where to put the limit to balance user experience…

We'd have to see the ToS, but I'd suspect the lawyer that wrote it didn't say email, they said individual. Further, I suspect there's a clause in there about commercial usage.

Then you need an explicit check box "I have read and accept the T&C" and those T&Cs allow you to block an account, which is often the most effective option against abusers. If you go legal every time someone abuses a free trial you might as well give up free trials.

As things stand there is no point in going legal. Either let it slide or block them and use it for PR with a blog post and an HN submission (wait a minute ;)

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#113
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m actually considering reaching out directly to the CEO and telling the full story. But honestly? There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it. That’s part of what makes it so disappointing. We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. It also sends a message to others in the ecosystem about the kind of nonsense…

> publicly calling out the behavior > I’m still holding off on naming the company directly Does not compute. Why not name them?

> Does not compute. Why not name them?

Legal risk. If the company decides to be a litigious prick about being named & shamed they might not win, but before losing they'll cost the product owner a pile of time and, at least temporarily, money.

Stating the errant company's industry and size gives us plenty of information to make an educated guess, without actually stating the name. I suspect that this action blocks any useful future relationship as much as direct naming would, so that risk has been taken, but I also assume that no such beneficial relationship was likely to happen anyway so doing this is worth it to get the publicity, both through the story and perhaps a little cheeky marketing down the road (“as used extensively by the famous company we won't name, but you can guess”).

One thing I would definitely do at this point, now the company knows they have been detected, is to try¹ make sure all support for that company is on the lowest priority possible. Absolute minimum response time 24 hours. 24 working hours, especially if the issue seems urgent to them. No responses beyond automated ones outside of normal business hours. Never try to guess: any missing information in a support query gets queried and the subsequent clarifying responses are subject to the same 24+ working hour latency. If anyone tries the “we are a big company, you should prioritise this” thing, respond with “With an email address like that? Yeah, nah.” or more directly “We know, a big company who knows it is massively in breach of our licence, and yet we are still generously responding to you at all.”.

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[1] They may of course have/find crafty ways to get around this too, but if they are determined to avoid doing the right thing at least make them work to avoid doing the right thing!

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#114
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m actually considering reaching out directly to the CEO and telling the full story. But honestly? There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it. That’s part of what makes it so disappointing. We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. It also sends a message to others in the ecosystem about the kind of nonsense…

> publicly calling out the behavior > I’m still holding off on naming the company directly Does not compute. Why not name them?

Because this is almost always just the fault of some low level engineer trying to save some time rather than some systemic issue at the heart of the company.

The company will just apologise and the CEO will make sure to tell everyone they know never to deal with this vendor ever again. IT is a very small world and reputations last a long time.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#115
This is a classic case of IP abuse, and it's tough to ignore. If the company has been using your work without a license for a decade, that’s a huge liability on their side. It might be time to remind them that open source is not free labor, and they can’t just brush off 10 years of unpaid work. At the very least, they should come to the table for a serious negotiation.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#116

I got distracted a few paragraphs in by the realization that the text was AI-generated.

I first write my entire text and then after that I use a LLM to fix the grammar and have a better flow. I'm doing my best but I'm not a native US speaker. Before LLMs, people complained about the weird sentences or mistakes I made. Pick your poison ;) Anyway, I'm doing my best to keep my own "signature" in writing, but it's really hard when you see a better phrasing generated on your original more limited vocabulary.…

LLMs don't have good "flow" either. Their signature style is full of clichés. Personally, I would prefer to read the quirky non-idiomatic structures of a foreign language speaker than something fixed by an LLM.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m actually considering reaching out directly to the CEO and telling the full story. But honestly? There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it. That’s part of what makes it so disappointing. We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. It also sends a message to others in the ecosystem about the kind of nonsense…

> There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it Why would you think that a CEO would involve himself in matters like this ? Especially given that whichever aerospace company it is would be far more concerned with issues like tariffs, geopolitics, recession risks etc than whether or not a company is using an open source versus a community edition of some forgettable infrastructure component. Also c…

"forgettable infrastructure component": this is what runs their entire IT. We build both the hypervisor and the backup/orchestration for it. Our stack could kill their entire operations if it's down because $whatever. 4000 virtual machines running isn't just the print server or the coffee machine.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#118
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> publicly calling out the behavior > I’m still holding off on naming the company directly Does not compute. Why not name them?

Lawsuits aren’t fun.

Aren't they? I sued a huge multinational company years ago, as an individual. People predicted the apocalypse. I won. It was lots of fun.

(It was in France so the lawyers' fees weren't what they are in the US. But the way people advised me not to sue, was very similar.)

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#119

> We’re not going to waste days chasing them. But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art. Oh for the love of tech, do chase them. This absolutely has to be in void of the terms of your trial take them to court. If not, then at the very least name and shame the company, so some dumb manager orchestrating this silly theft will get fired and someone more mature can be rotated in.

I’m actually considering reaching out directly to the CEO and telling the full story. But honestly? There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it. That’s part of what makes it so disappointing. We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. It also sends a message to others in the ecosystem about the kind of nonsense…

If you don't do anything legally threatening, then you make it that much harder for every single OSS vendor to make money, because the precedent is getting established that there is no penalty for breaking the rules.

When I was a teenager I would do super cut-rate work on computers for people, and my father did helpfully point out that undercharging for valuable work just makes it harder for people whose day job is to do the same work, because then they have to compete with a naive teenager. You're the kind hearted OSS / freemium vendor in this case. Threatening legal action costs nothing. Punishment is meant as a deterrent for antisocial behavior. Failing to even threaten them will result in less money going to people who deliver a public good.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take my words back! I saw that your company is in Grenoble. Just drop me an email, and I will personally come to your office and help set up tirreno to resolve this trial abuse.

I'm open to discuss, please add me on LinkedIn :) (you can find it in the author icon at the end of the blog post)

I had sent an email. (-;
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