Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ground control to Major Trial

virtualize.sh

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 201 posts

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#121

Post by josefx »

florbnit wrote: post #10

> 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.

Tinfoil hat: The entire thing is just an ad.

"Our product is so great aerospace companies are literally stealing it, also have you seen our new 30 day trial? So back to that aerospace company and how cheaply it could use our software, just take a look at our current offerings..."

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#122

Post by actionfromafar »

threeseed wrote: post #110
plam503711 wrote: post #26

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…

Huh? Blocking them seems much more "actual fight" and disruptive than going for legal action. Legal action was invented to settle disputues without resorting to raw power.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#123

Post by plam503711 »

josefx wrote: post #121
florbnit wrote: post #10

> 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.

Tinfoil hat: The entire thing is just an ad. "Our product is so great aerospace companies are literally stealing it, also have you seen our new 30 day trial? So back to that aerospace company and how cheaply it could use our software, just take a look at our current offerings..."

It is not, but yeah, we also have NASA as customers. However, we do not chase specifically aerospace companies. We are simply an open source alternative to VMware. So doing an ad explaining how to literally git pull the product without even talking to anyone or giving your email to our sales would be a weird strategy :D

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#124

Post by koakuma-chan »

c16 wrote: post #95
koakuma-chan wrote: post #15

What's Xen Orchestra? $1800/host/year seems pretty expensive

$1,800 on $130,000,000 a year sounds expensive? Company dinners/outings have almost certainly cost the business more.

The article mentions 4000, so 1800*4000 = 7.2 mil

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#125

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Edman274 wrote: post #119
plam503711 wrote: post #26

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…

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 t…

> Threatening legal action costs nothing.

Not really. If you want it to have teeth, then it should come under a lawyer's letterhead, and that usually costs something (probably not much, for one letter).

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#126

Post by ruffrey »

As a solo-founder I have experienced this on a massive scale over nearly 15 years. It's really strange how happy people are with unethical behavior, yet on my end it just doesn't feel right to cut off peoples systems. After multiple attempts to contact them, we will often disable their accounts. It is against the social contract. It is stealing. In many cases companies may have 15+ free trial accounts, the company itself absolutely dwarfs our 3-person company. The cost is beans for them. But they just don't care.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#127

Post by stickfigure »

Tell them that their free trial is over and their company will no longer receive free trial keys. You can do that. It doesn't require a lawyer and it doesn't require threats. Just "We're glad you like our product! Unfortunately we can no longer support you with free trials." Be polite.

If they secretly keep getting free trials by pretending to be unaffiliated, then escalate to 1) blocking the fake ones when you discover them (very annoying to them, even if you don't get them all) and 2) as a very last resort, legal threats.

The goal is to get them onboarded as paying customers. Every other outcome is effectively a loss. You want to be polite but firm.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#128

Post by ruffrey »

I have a theory this happens because for individual contributors, the effort to buy SaaS software in the era of "vendor risk assessment" is a nightmare. So you end up with grassroots avoidance of that process, at all costs, inside the company.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#129

Post by TechDebtDevin »

rocketvole wrote: post #20
matt-p wrote: post #5

I think the most depressing thing is how unsurprising this is. This is why free trials require credit cards upfront, as they're more difficult to fake, not because you're about to be stealth billed. It's thanks to people like this.

it's practically trivial to bypass this if you really want to. CapitalOne in the US allows you to have virtual cards that can be verified but you can delete and block at any time for free if you have a credit card from them. I'm sure the practice discourages casuals from gaming trials, but it just feels like it's making life miserable for paying customers but doing almost nothing to stop bad actors

privacy.com

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#130

Post by threeseed »

Edman274 wrote: post #119
plam503711 wrote: post #26

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…

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 t…

> Threatening legal action costs nothing

It costs your reputation as a vendor which is permanent.

You don't threaten legal action against companies before calmly advising them of the situation.

Post reply on HN