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An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

kvirkvelia.com

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Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#181

Post by Aldo_MX »

jtbayly wrote: post #75
netr0ute wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PAY. FOR. IT. What about the Linux kernel and numerous other FOSS?

He was paying for it. 2%. Then the open source hero started taking 30%. Without warning or disclosure. Defending this is a great way to trash the reputation of open source.

The reputation of open source is already trashed. Companies like Amazon abused what started as a passion for many people, and that passion is now costing them their wellbeing so they're revolting.

The real open source belongs inside the GPL bubble, where you are legally obligated to share back, and it was battle tested when closed platforms like iOS gained traction.

Did people help pressure Apple to make licenses like GPL viable in their walled garden? Or did people dissed GPL-ed software because they couldn't use it in the Apple ecosystem? The moment we conceded with "LGPL with linking exception" marked the loss of the iOS battle.

Remember that GNU exists because Stallman couldn't ahem install a printer. And guess what? People avoid the distros with ONLY FOSS components because "it's impractical". If a distro becomes popular is because it includes a collection of proprietary drivers.

Our convenience is what made open source what it is today. And you know what? I accept my fault in the great scheme of things.

I was burned by people profiting with work I made for free while I was struggling to survive during the 2008 crisis. I am already familiar with the feeling of betrayal by the people who was supposed to support my work. Open Source was not for me.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#182

Post by Ansil849 »

withinboredom wrote: post #179
Ansil849 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this scenario I proposed in another comment, you are fine with? If on line 37, page 409, of a car rental agreement that you sign, it states that if you are an hour late in returning your vehicle, the car rental company will take your firstborn, and you sign this agreement, then it's on you, right?

Well, it would be non-binding since you can’t sign away another adult’s rights (assuming your first born is over 18). If the first-born is under 18, I guess it would depend on adoption laws as to whether this is something you can give away via a contract. Folklore is full of this kind of stuff. Always read what you sign. Always. No exceptions. Better yet, get a lawyer to read it too.

Except that's not practical in real life. Do you get a lawayer to read the 40-page pamphlet full if liability disclaimers that comes with your coffee maker or any other appliance?

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#183

Post by wizzwizz4 »

abofh wrote: post #116
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact MIT protects the creator from any of those consequences. Eh. For something like a keylogger, not really; there are laws against writing and distributing malicious software. In the UK, you can write malware for educational purposes, but woe betide those whose malware escapes or “escapes”: no MIT license disclaimer will save you.

Sudo Rm -rf / Running that without a proper license may cause unexpected behavior, contact me to obtain a license. If you are a licensed user, it will likely render your system inoperable. What law did I just break?

Considering it's:

• short enough, and non-novel enough, not to count as a copyrightable work

• explicitly described as malicious in the accompanying documentation

• not viable for use in a cyberattack (since it can only be run once you've already won)

• doesn't actually work, due to a typo

you probably haven't broken any laws. But, again, I'm not a lawyer; please seek legal advice from an expert in the laws of your jurisdiction if you want an accurate answer.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#184

Post by withinboredom »

Ansil849 wrote: post #182
withinboredom wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it would be non-binding since you can’t sign away another adult’s rights (assuming your first born is over 18). If the first-born is under 18, I guess it would depend on adoption laws as to whether this is something you can give away via a contract. Folklore is full of this kind of stuff. Always read what you sign. Always. No exceptions. Better yet, get a lawyer to read it too.

Except that's not practical in real life. Do you get a lawayer to read the 40-page pamphlet full if liability disclaimers that comes with your coffee maker or any other appliance?

Well in the EU, those are basically non-binding by default. So not usually unless I want to go to sleep. But for everything else, yeah. If I rent a car, I read the whole thing right there at the counter. Buy a phone, same thing. If anything looks sketch I ask for a Print-out and do send it to my lawyers (this is why I pay €5 a month for legal insurance!) I usually hear back from them within a few hours. Why would anyone blindly sign a contract? Yeah there’s some dark patterns (like giving you the contract at the last possible second) but the only way to fight that is to be a dick and sit there reading the whole thing and clogging up the queue.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#185

Post by drran »

nerdawson wrote: post #127
drran wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of software can release his work under any number of licenses, or none at all. An author can release the same code under MIT, Apache, GPL, MPL, or commercial license at the same time.

If the code is tagged as being MIT in GitHub and includes an MIT license file, can an author reasonably argue that an end-user is receiving the code under a different license?

> If the code is tagged as being MIT in GitHub

Yes

> includes an MIT license file

Maybe. MIT license permits additional license restrictions on top of license. For example, MIT code can be copied into a proprietary system with a different license, which will forbid copying code out.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#188

Post by krageon »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #90
joshstrange wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use it for free, that doesn't mean it won't take a cut. I could write code under MIT that is a keylogger, it's free to use, doesn't meant there aren't other consequences. In fact MIT protects the creator from any of those consequences. Sure, based on the license, someone could fork AdMob Pro and remove the ad sharing but that's not what the blog author did.

> In fact MIT protects the creator from any of those consequences. Eh. For something like a keylogger, not really; there are laws against writing and distributing malicious software. In the UK, you can write malware for educational purposes, but woe betide those whose malware escapes or “escapes”: no MIT license disclaimer will save you.

> malicious software

Keyloggers don't have to be malicious (e.g. you can use it for a global hotkey hook). Thus, writing such software doesn't have to be done with that mindset at all. That being the case, it is ambiguous whether or not those laws apply.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#189

Post by InsomniacL »

abofh wrote: post #158
InsomniacL wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You.. Ran... Their.. Code.. I did not... > He didn't demand you give him money, he said if you ran his code, it will act as he intended. He did not... He said it would act one way, then it secretly acted another against the contract that was entered in to > It worked as intended. It did not... Even their staff admit they never intended to charge him 30%

Quoted post unavailable.

1, I've never ran his code, that's a true statement.

2, The licence agreement states a 2% charge. Then proprietary code on their licence server, outside of the code in this repository increased that to 30%. refer to the email dated 13/04/2017 > "...and a random higher rate will be applied.."

3, Email dated 14/04/2017 > "You did not attempt to hack our server"

Can you be more specific about which of my claims are un-true?

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#190

Post by vertex-four »

y4mi wrote: post #59
vertex-four wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is listed as MIT in the package.json, the LICENSE file, and the plugin.xml file. That’s more than reasonable enough to consider it MIT, and that’s where license information would be picked up by e.g. any license-scanning tools. With the multiple contradictory statements, even just within the README, though, my company’s lawyer would say we can’t use this dependency at all if I showed it to them.

Afaik, the MIT licence grants you the freedom to do whatever you want with this code. This code is written to share revenue with the author after a threshold, but that's merely the application/code working as intended. You're free to fork the code, remove this sharing and republish the dependency under another name for example, that's the only thing that MIT is about

The argument in this thread is that you can’t, and you agreed to the other License Agreement. See the root comment, which thinks that this code is not under the MIT license.
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