The large home appliance manufacturer Haier has issued a notice of license revocation to the software developer for creating Home Assistant plugins for the company’s appliances and publishing them on GitHub.
Haier is a multinational corporation specializing in home appliances and consumer electronics, selling a wide range of products under brands such as General Electric Appliances, Hotpoint, Hoover, Fisher & Paykel, and Candy.
German software developer Andre Bache stated that he received a legal threat demanding the immediate removal of his plugins from the GitHub platform.
Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that enables users to control and automate smart home devices through a centralized interface. Andre Bache's plugins for Home Assistant allow users to manage air conditioners, air purifiers, dishwashers, induction cooktops, ovens, refrigerators, washing machines, and dryers from Haier, Candy, and Hoover.
According to a notice posted by the repository owner, Haier claims that these plugins cause significant financial harm to the company and violate copyright laws, demanding that the developer remove them to avoid further legal proceedings.
We are writing to inform you that we have discovered two Home Assistant integration plug-ins developed by you (https://github.com/Andre0512/hon and https://github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn) that are in violation of our terms of service," reads the notice from Haier Europe Security and Governance Department.
Specifically, the plug-ins are using our services in an unauthorized manner, which is causing significant economic harm to our Company.
We take the protection of our intellectual property very seriously and demand that you immediately cease and desist all illegal activities related to the development and distribution of these plug-ins.
Haier's legal threats have frightened the developer, who announced that the project will be removed within the next couple of days. Meanwhile, this situation has sparked a backlash from the community against Haier's actions: users are calling for consumers to boycott Haier, considering the company’s approach excessively aggressive. So far, the repositories for Haier plugins have been forked 228 times, many of which occurred after news of the legal threats.
Source: linux.org.ru
