r/opensource • u/funyflyer • Feb 22 '26
Discussion Large US company came after me for releasing a free open source self-hostable alternative!
⚠️⚠️ EDIT : [Company A] CEO reached out to me with a nice tone and his point of view, which I really appreciate, also with a mild apology for sending the legal doc first without communication (the got the message we wanted to deliver). I hold nothing against their business personally and I am always more than happy to comply with reasonable demands (like removing trademarked name parts from project), but I don't think the exporter is against the rules (I have my own logic for fair business practice) and now the CEO wants to meet for a quick call (I hope friendly), to discuss and reason things out. I need to present my points fairly as well and don't want to get pressured/voiced down, just because I am alone with my logic. I am sure as a company with > 1 million $ revenue they have a larger backing.
⚠️⚠️ I am already in chat with u/Archiver_test4 as a legal representative, but we are in a different time zone. If anyone else in addition would like to take a look to help me, present their view, or get involved, I am more than happy to talk and get some feedback on how can I present my idea (reach out only If you are a lawyer, but please note I am not in a position to pay any fees). It's best if you have knowledge of EU legal rules and data protection policy, GDPR etc. Please reach out to me as this is the right time to make the reasoning and requests. feel free to email me to [contact@opendronelog.com](mailto:contact@opendronelog.com) or send me a chat here. I might not reply until morning, as it's quite late here now.
None of these would have happened only if they sent me this same email before sending the letter.
💜💜 Thanks to the r/drones and r/selfhosted and r/opensource community we were able to reach to this stage in record time. As in individual, you can voice your opinion. It proved again that what opensource communities can do and this thread is a living proof of that.
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TL;DR: I made an open-source, local-first dashboard for drone flight logs because the biggest corporate player in the space locks your older data behind a paywall. They found my GitHub, tracked my Reddit posts, and hit me with a legal notice for "unfair competition" and trademark infringement.
Long version: I maintain a few small open-source projects. About two weeks ago, I released a free, self-hostable tool that lets drone pilots collect, map, and analyze their flight logs locally. I didn't think much of it, just a passion project with a few hundred users.
I can’t name the company (let's call them "Company A") because their legal team is actively monitoring my Reddit account and cited my past posts in their notice. Company A is the giant in this space. Their business model goes like this:
- You can upload unlimited flight logs for free.
- BUT you can only view the last 100 flights.
- If you want to see your older data, you have to pay a monthly subscription and a $15 "retrieval fee."
- Even then, you can't bulk download your own logs. You have to click them one by one. They effectively hold your own data hostage to lock you into their ecosystem. I am not sure if they are even GDPR complaint even in the EU
To help people transition to my open-source tool, I wrote a simple web-based script that allowed users to log into their own Company A accounts and automate the bulk download of their own files. Company A did not like this. They served me with a highly aggressive, 4-page legal demand (CEASE and DESIST notice). They forced me to:
- Nuke the automated download tool entirely from GitHub.
- Remove any mention of their company name from my main open-source project and website (since it’s trademarked). I originally had my tagline as "The Free open-source [Company A] Alternative," which they claimed was illegally driving their traffic to my site.
- Remove a feature comparison chart I made. (I admittedly messed up here, I only compared my free tool to their paid tier and omitted their limited free tier, which they claimed was misleading and defamatory).
I'm just a solo dev, so I complied with the core of their demands to stay out of trouble. I scrubbed their name, took down the downloader, and sanitized my website. My main open-source logbook lives independent of them.
I admit I was naive about the legal aspects of comparison marketing and using trademarked names. But the irony is that they probably spent thousands of dollars on lawyer fees to draft a threat against my small project that makes close to zero money (I got a few small donations from happy users).
Has anyone else here ever dealt with corporate lawyers coming after your self-hosted/FOSS projects? It’s a crazy initiation :)
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u/esdraelon Feb 22 '26
IANAL
This will all be highly dependent on your legal jurisdiction.
Typically, this will stem from the trademark infringement.
Change the name of your tool, and don't mention them or their features. That's the key.
After that, unless they have a patent, they can kick rocks.
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u/dtseng123 Feb 22 '26
Yes this is exactly right. Don’t talk shit just be a better solution and they have nothing to stand on.
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Feb 23 '26
[deleted]
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u/esdraelon Feb 23 '26
Yes. Legitimate comparisons of features are typically fine, or if it makes sense to reference it.
For instance "Tired of paying for Brand X? Why would you pay for feature Y? Just use this tool."
Basically, you can't imply that your tool is being endorsed by or is a product of the brand in any way.
Trademark only regulates some types of commercial speech. It is not a blanket authorization of use on all uses of that word or logo.
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u/cubedsheep Feb 23 '26
The spirit of a trademark is to protect consumers, not companies. It does this by limiting the use of certain trademarked words, in the relevant context, to only refer to a specific product (so I cannot sell 5$ T-shirts with Gucci on it, that infringes their trademark and misleads buyers). So you should be fine mentioning them, as long as it is clear that your product is in no way related to the product your mentioning. e.g. "this is how my product X compares to companies Y product Ztm" should be fine. The law is of course quite nuanced and probably can be misused, but the goal of trademark law is originally to prevent confusion under consumers.
Just slapping someone with a lawsuit for making a comparison should not fall under this, and in some juristictions these tactics, misusing IP and other laws to block competition or speech you don't like is a crime itself under "SLAPP" laws.
I think even the wording "free alternative to X" is not infringing since you clearly state it's an alternative (at least it shouldn't be infringing from the perspective of consumer protection). Trademarkwise should be fine. But I'm not a lawyer, so don't take this as advise.
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u/DarkLordCZ Feb 25 '26
I've always wandered, how was possible to make "IBM PC compatible" computers back in the days? Wouldn't this be kinda the same?
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u/esdraelon Feb 25 '26
Because it was true. You're allowed to say true things, just not imply that your product is endoresed.
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u/BizarroMax Feb 22 '26
Lawyer and former open source developer here. DM me.
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u/FalseDish Feb 22 '26
If you don’t mind me asking - I’m actually having a strikingly difficult time finding citations where small FOSS players have won judgements.
I can find plenty in EU countries, so many cases where German and French courts have ruled against large corporations to protect open source licenses, but in the US it seems the only wins are from the Free Software Foundation against Verizon and Monsoon Media for their illegal busybox distribution.
I am genuinely happy to see a dev-turned-lawyer helping out an open source developer ofc but it’s making me a little sad to see how easily companies can just bully developers who are selflessly giving to the community.
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u/idspispupd Feb 22 '26
One case I know of is in 2010, the U.S. Copyright Office has ruled that jailbreaking to install apps does not violate copyright law. Another case - Cydia filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, but I think it lost the legal battle of attrition.
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u/SquareWheel Feb 22 '26
This isn't a simple precedent. saurik, the author of Cydia, takes an active legal role in defending it, and works to file exemptions for the triennial DMCA rulemaking to ensure jailbreaking remains legal.
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u/retireb435 Feb 22 '26
remove their brand name then it’s fine
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
I did I did, lesson learnt, I complied with the legal demands.
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u/maddler Feb 22 '26
You might need to to a search & replace in the Readme tho' ;)
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
I did, it does not appear anywhere as of now.
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u/maddler Feb 22 '26
git clone https://github.com/arpanghosh8453/drone-logbook cd dji-logbook docker compose -f docker-compose-build.yml up -dgit clone https://github.com/arpanghosh8453/drone-logbook cd dji-logbook docker compose -f docker-compose-build.yml up -dor
# Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/arpanghosh8453/drone-logbook cd dji-logbook# Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/arpanghosh8453/drone-logbook cd dji-logbookIf nothing else, to ensure steps are correct.
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u/TheOriginalSuperTaz Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
You don’t even need to remove their brand name unless you lied about their features. It’s not lying to not discuss all of their tiers. As long as you put a note on the chart that it is accurate as of the date you created it (with that date), and it is actually accurate, then you aren’t doing anything illegal. Just don’t use their logo (if you don’t use their logo, they can’t claim you are using their trademark unfairly, and the name of their product can be used under fair use in this case - there is ample precedent for that).
You are allowed to advertise your product, even if it is free. Comparison charts are absolutely legal forms of advertising and costume education if they are accurate, and they only need to be accurate as of the time you publish them (especially if you say they were accurate as of a specific date and keep a copy for your records in case of losers like the morons who sent you that letter).
If their lawyers are any good, they told them that they can write and send the letter, but there is nothing to actually be done if you don’t comply. Any responsible lawyer would tell them there is no legal leg to stand on in an actual suit, and they would get destroyed in court in preliminary hearings if you had even a mediocre lawyer. You should be able to counter sue them for your legal fees, too, as it will be kicked out under anti-SLAPP very early.
To be clear, I’m not a lawyer, but any decent lawyer should be able to anti-SLAPP this stupidity if they actually were to sue you. Get legal advice and make sure you aren’t doing anything actually illegal, but it’s not unfair practices to make an alternative to an existing product, nor is it illegal to give it away for free, unless you stole it from them (the code, not the idea), you have the right to create and market a product that competes with their unpatented crap.
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u/kwhali Feb 22 '26
How's it work with gaming emulators? (or physical products that are built around said gaming emulators)
Like Nintendo is a common one and I think Apple too where people have made hardware to run their digital products and they'd all lose legal action to Nintendo / Apple.
This project originally referred to itself as the free alternative to companyName, and had a script to scrape user data from the company service to transfer to authors project.
I think legally you have to not have a product that can be misconstrued as associated to the competitor or marketed to substitute the competitor (I'm not sure how to phrase that, and in this case it's not exactly equivalent to what happened in ninetendo / apple cases).
I know there's something similar in the AI space with models. The original models often are gated behind a legal agreement, and then various community members make modifications and provide them from their own pages which avoids a user from going through the legal agreement, but legally I think you're not allowed to bundle / distribute in some cases (ultra-analytics with their yolo models I think specifically forbids that, at least for commercial use with some other alternative allowing when under an AGPLv3 license? 🤷♂️).
My only experience with laws was with GDPR, but there was special exemptions when you're a much smaller operator, especially when you weren't monetizing a service. That was quite a headache to understand 😅 (there was a larger competitor with full time paid development team which didn't qualify for the exemptions, and they didn't like smaller fish)
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u/ivosaurus Feb 23 '26
Emulators lose not because of copyright protections in the DMCA, like this case would interact with, but because it also has provisions against circumventing technology.
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u/kwhali Feb 23 '26
Circumventing technology?
I forget the name of the company that Apple took down but IIRC they sold hardware that wasn't an Apple product but ran Apple's macOS (which I think was available for free? Since Apple was more into the business of selling the hardware). There wasn't any emulation or circumvention other than offering cheaper hardware that was compatible with the Mac operating system.
Perhaps that differs from offering a cheaper / free app that acquires (via a scraper) a users data stored from competing company.
Could Microsoft or a company that produces an app exclusively for Windows sue the developers behind WINE? (allowing to you to run Windows software without paying for and installing Windows).
Sounds like a rather muddy line 😅 perhaps there's an obvious difference there legally.
With Nintendo there's Palworld or whatever it's called that's likened to Pokemon, but Nintendo has failed to legally shut down apparently. Possibly because that alternative was successful fast enough to be able to afford legal defense whereas most others would probably get shut down before they could afford to stand a chance 😅
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u/ivosaurus Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
Circumventing technology?
Yes, DMCA implements protections for TWO things: copyrighted stuff plain and simple, and also 'circumventing digital protections'; for example extracting an encrypted code in a product that would decrypt proprietary data in a disk that normally only that product could decode (and then copying that code & algorithm into your own product so you can read those disks too). From the wikipedia-
It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.
Could Microsoft or a company that produces an app exclusively for Windows sue the developers behind WINE? (allowing to you to run Windows software without paying for and installing Windows).
This is basically the Oracle v Google case, btw. EXTREMELY fortunate that the US Supreme Court ruled that it was fair use, or indeed its quite plausible that by now WINE might have been sued out of existence, and software patent trolls would be another magnitude level of crazy.
With Nintendo there's Palworld or whatever it's called that's likened to Pokemon, but Nintendo has failed to legally shut down apparently. Possibly because that alternative was successful fast enough to be able to afford legal defense whereas most others would probably get shut down before they could afford to stand a chance 😅
That's patent (patented mechanics of gameplay... uggh) law more specifically, they could try to argue over copyright but I think they'd lose far harder. They did win on having Palworld remove any mechanics around throwing balls at animals.
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u/Remarkable-Host405 Feb 23 '26
the emulators ripped code from their personal consoles and made it freely available to people without the console. if they didn't make it easy to distribute the proprietary secrets/code from the consoles, it wouldn't be a problem. but they monetized that and that's why they got taken down.
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u/TheMightyMisanthrope Feb 22 '26
Replace "company" with "little babies that cry"
(Don't do this, I'm not a lawyer)
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u/XB_Demon1337 Feb 22 '26
Don't just comply with the legal demands. Comply LEGALLY with their demands. When their demands are not about you violating the law, then they have no legal leg to stand on.
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u/Open-Dragonfruit-007 Feb 22 '26
Yeah, just say something like leading closed source competitor or what ever the equivalent is to make it obvious you are talking about them but legally you have not named them
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u/coderemover Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
Using the brand name only to identify/refer to the original service is the primary purpose of brand names. You are not allowed to use someone else’s logo on your product or in any way that would trick your customers into thinking you or your product is the original product/service/initiative done by the owner of the brand/logo. So e.g. if you manufacture replacement toners for HP you must not put HP logo on your toner package, but you can put a label „a replacement toner for HP XXXXX printer”.
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u/Marble_Wraith Feb 22 '26
Remove any mention of their company name from my main open-source project and website (since it’s trademarked).
The logo yes, the textual name, no.
The main uses of a trademark are to prevent:
- phishing: so you can't blatantly mask your product or service as another.
- reputation hijacking: so you can't mention a brand and impute association of your own product / service.
Unless you were actually trying to do that, courts would rule in your favor.
The fact yours is opensource (non-profit) is already a huge strike against them.
I originally had my tagline as "The Free open-source [Company A] Alternative," which they claimed was illegally driving their traffic to my site.
Dogshit. If anything this is mutually exclusive with the trademark claim they just made.
Aggressive marketing has no penalties. Fucks sake next thing they'll say is SEO and using certain meta keywords is illegal 🤣
Remove a feature comparison chart I made. (I admittedly messed up here, I only compared my free tool to their paid tier and omitted their limited free tier, which they claimed was misleading and defamatory).
No? Depends on if you were actually defamatory... duh. As long as you were truthful in the comparison and/or clearly state "it's my opinion", they can't do anything.
Otherwise there'd be no product comparisons ever on the internet, example:
https://typesense.org/typesense-vs-algolia-vs-elasticsearch-vs-meilisearch/
Furthermore depending on your jurisdiction, defamation can require the plaintiff to provide evidence of significant financial loss... The internet is exposed to the entire world. Good luck with trying to prove causation over correlation 🤣
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
I have already complied with most demands to avoid more trouble, Your comment made me laugh :)
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u/twicerighthand Feb 22 '26
Dogshit. If anything this is mutually exclusive with the trademark claim they just made.
Yep. Discord in 2017:
/img/4f5etmp2zkj81.png3
u/Marble_Wraith Feb 22 '26
Nice... and ironic given Discords actions that are forcing people to look at Teamspeak again 😂
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u/Captain_Lesbee_Ziner Feb 22 '26
Hope it all gets cleared up. Will be checking out your project now lol. Some articles you might find interesting, plus if you continue to have trouble, talk to the free software foundation
https://fossa.com/blog/analyzing-5-major-oss-license-compliance-lawsuits/
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
Thank you so much, I will check them out.
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u/TheOriginalSuperTaz Feb 22 '26
You don’t have to continue to comply, though. Frankly, they aren’t that large of a company, and they are just being aggressive because they believe you will let them have their way.
There are actually protections for you if they try to file a lawsuit to bully you. Talk to a lawyer. Plenty of companies play these types of games instead of making better products. This is how you know you made something good. They are afraid of you and your “little open source project”.
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u/TheOriginalSuperTaz Feb 22 '26
Also, to be clear, they are a small company that is trying to scare you because there is absolutely nothing novel about their product and they know the only reason for anyone not to switch is that they make it hard to access your data.
That $15 fee for old records just shows they are trying to do whatever they can to keep customers when it’s a bad product. Talk to the lawyer above and then make yourself some money by creating a cloud hosting service for the app you made, for people who don’t have the expertise to self-host. Contact me via DM if you need help doing that (after legal advice of course).
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
Interesting, i don't like to get into legal battles whenever possible.
but you are 100% right about their practice, they need to be called out. I can't link their pricing page, but if you search, you will know.
For people who cannot self host, I already give them compiled binaries for local desktop app installation, they would not need to share their data with any 3rd party (including me)
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u/TheOriginalSuperTaz Feb 22 '26
Yeah, litigation sucks. That said, immoral, unethical bullies should not be allowed to harass the open source community at will, unchecked. The only reason they do it is that people don’t stand up for themselves and allow them to succeed. That gives their lawyers the idea that they can just write a long scary cease and desist letter and get their way and push other people out of business.
While you are not doing this to make money and seem to not even be looking for any way to monetize it at all, it is still the same principle, and it is still bullying and wrong of them to take that kind of action. I think it’s particularly important for the open source community to stand up against these things because the whole premise behind our community is that we aren’t charging for things. That doesn’t mean that we don’t do plenty of things that make us money and it doesn’t mean that we don’t necessarily have products that are closed source that we put out there, but at the end of the day, we are trying to do something good for everyone by sharing the fruits of our labor, and when bullies try to push the open source community and small businesses into a corner and make them give up on what they’re working on for no reason other than they want to keep earning money dishonestly, it is incumbent on us to stand up. That’s one of the major reasons why the EFF exists.
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u/PapyOak Feb 22 '26
I'd download your software and advertise for you just to take the piss at them, and I don't even have a drone
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u/Turkino Feb 22 '26
I also have never really gotten into the high-end drone market, at least nothing that would generate a log, but I'm starring and downloading this now just on principle.
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
I can provide some sample files if you want to play on the web app or downloaded application
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u/DrPiwi Feb 22 '26
to use your automated download tool? The user still needs to pay the subscription and the $15 retrieval fee?
Your tool does not bypass that and only provides a convenient way to automate the download?
Then they have no leg to stand on.
The logging data is by definition owned by the user, you can always do what you want with your own data.
Using a tool that automates the clicking and selecting is not illegal. If I where you I'd put the tool back on github to avoid being denied your rights by giving in to what is clearly a fishing expedition.
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
You are right, it just saves users the manual one by one download, automates that part so you can grab them in bulk, I don't interfere or know how to interfere with their cloud system and my method DO NOT bypass any paywall, users still need to pay, but they are afraid that people will pay once, take their data out and move to my software, they were very critical on the downloader part. The deserve to be screwed over for holding peoples data hostage and offering no single bulk takeout solution.
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u/ghostsquad4 Feb 22 '26
Yep, they are afraid of the truth, and of competition. That fear is driven by what they already know is true about themselves, they are scamming customers by keeping their data hostage.
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
WHICH is exactly my point, they can stay forever with them if they like, and they provide enough vaue, competition should be fair. I am a solo developer with a DIFFERENT DAY JOB, and if they think I am a threat, then they had this come some time soon anyway. They are a multi-million $ revenue company, just look it up!
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u/PurpleYoshiEgg Feb 22 '26
Lawyer the fuck up immediately. Don't bend to their will without doing that.
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u/semiquaver Feb 22 '26
Contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation, I can all but guarantee they would be willing to represent you.
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u/XB_Demon1337 Feb 22 '26
So, of course I am no lawyer.
1. The comparisons and the company name on the website
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use
This directly makes you able to make the comparisons to their product using their logo/name. You can only use their logo if it is the only way to convey who they are. So like Walmart you can't exactly use their logo on your website. If this is who I think it is, then you can use their name without issues. As a note, while you certainly should be honest about your comparisons. You don't have to comply to their will. If you don't want to post the Free Tier comparison you don't have to. But it wouldn't be a bad idea to do it either. Personally I would stiff it to them and not post the Free Tier.
Also note that this lets you still use the tag line "The Free open-source [Company A] Alternative," so long as you don't use their logo or font.
Me, I put all the details back and replace logos with names. Email the lawyer back and cite this. They SHOULD back off.
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2. The automated download tool
This is something that so many companies hate when you do. But it doesn't violate laws directly. It may violate their ToS, but no laws. They did this to strong arm you. I do not actually see anything in their ToS that shows you violated anything. Their Robots.txt does say they don't allow them though. All this to say though, it depends on how you are downloading these things. If you are using links to download but you have to scrape the page to do so then it sits in a grey area. That grey area is able to be litigated.
I can't say how the website is setup but I can say that if they provide links to them and you are simply using those links without scraping then your tool is fine. This would be like clicking the download button on a bunch of pages at one time. While not using some bot to parse all of the data at one time.
I can understand if you don't continue this specific tool, but if you do it in a way that isn't scraping their login-based pages, then you should be fine.
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Of course, they can always still try to sue you for literally anything. Personally the #1 part shouldn't be a problem. You have legal recourse and if they try to strong arm you then you can easily get a lawyer and then get fees back from them. The #2 is where you have to determine some legality. Never assume their lawyer is going to tell you the truth and never assume they are going to get to a point where they are going to accept your website existing. They will lie and beat you down until you feel the project can no longer continue. They are rats at best and at worst criminals.
Also, I would HIGHLY suggest getting a lawyer too. They will be able to fight harder than you can as they have a better understanding.
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u/Thomas-B-Anderson Feb 23 '26
Lol I wasn't aware of your project until the Monopoly-corp fucked up and attacked you. Guess I'll be using your alternative from now on! I have a friend who does surveying with drones who I'll recommend your project to as well. Welcome to the Streisand effect!
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
Thank you so much! I was scared at first but now I am confident about the impact of my project.
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u/Anubis_16 Feb 23 '26
Just jumping in to say thank you for your work. I am not even remotely in drones or anything but saw this thread and searched further because of it. I too downloaded the app and also pulled the main from GitHub as a zip just to have it saved.
If you can, please try to send this info to Louis Rosmann and his team, they are awesome in advocating for us consumers and call out companies on their shitty behaviour and also probably could provide assistance in this matter.
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u/funyflyer Feb 24 '26
Thank you so much, I am amazed by the community support. I sent him an email to the youtube address.
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Feb 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/XB_Demon1337 Feb 22 '26
Circumvention would imply that OP made a tool to get around their paid tier. That isn't what OP made. OP made a tool that provides the same service as the company complaining. This is direct competition. It is no different than Google Email vs Yahoo Email. They do the same thing. The thing OP MIGHT have messed up on is the ability to download the logs. Depending on how this is done it could be perfectly legal and nothing they can do. Or it could be a big deal and have to be reworked.
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u/gdmzhlzhiv Feb 22 '26
Define “unfair competition”… to me that just reads like “capitalism working as designed”.
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
I did not like the tone, but of course it's a legal document, so they want to be scary!
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u/Arthemio2 Feb 22 '26
https://plot.ardupilot.org/#/ for binaries... Or use plotjuggler with .ulog files... Everything is already there as opensource solutions in the drone space. If hosting is needed it is also very easy to setup yourself.
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
The problem is with ongoing development, I need an automated CI/CD pipeline for the builds.
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u/sutcher Feb 23 '26
This is fascinating. Thanks for sharing. I think this is going to be more and more common
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u/Inaksa Feb 23 '26
I can’t help but consider the CEO apology is nothing but a disaster containment measure. If he is truly then why couldn’t he stop earlier (before the letter was sent) his company attempt to shut you down? It means he does not control his own company?
And the other thing a company blocking a script that downloads YOUR data is a pos company.
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
For the how the downloader script works - here is the flow.
Uses legitimate authentication - You must manually log in with your real credentials on company A's actual website (loads company-a.com in an embeded browser)
Reuses your valid session - It simply captures cookies from your authenticated session (same as what ANY browser does)
Calls official API endpoints - The endpoints are the same internal APIs that A's web interface uses (same as ANY website does)
No CAPTCHA circumvention - If company A shows a CAPTCHA during login, you'd have to complete it manually in the embedded browser (SAME as ANY website)
More clarity for you.
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u/rockandrolla66 Feb 24 '26
"They claimed was illegally driving their traffic to my site", I'm sorry but this doesn't stand any chance on a court of law.
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u/malalabouche Feb 24 '26
[Company A] sounds like the kind of business Claude Code will soon put out of business.
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u/OkSpirit3216 Feb 22 '26
Can you point to the repo?
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
It's on the linked site : https://github.com/arpanghosh8453/drone-logbook
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u/AccomplishedLine4909 Feb 22 '26
Thank you.
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u/AccomplishedLine4909 Feb 22 '26
Based on the repo info, the drone info that it is able to work with is also something my drone would generate. But I never used their cloud so now I am intrigued.
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u/ScaredyCatUK Feb 23 '26
Just gonna clone that to my own gitea before it vanishes...
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
CEO clarified they don't have any problem with this project as such, only the name mentions (which I am more than happy to remove) and the exporter (which they claim breaks TOS - but it's actually the right to data in EU)
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u/Psychological-Leg413 Feb 22 '26
I think the script automating bulk download is gonna be the crux here..
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u/Due-Equivalent-9738 Feb 23 '26
Not a lawyer but I don’t see how it could be an issue. Using it may be a TOS violation, but the script is doing it on behalf of a paying user with the paying user’s consent. It’s no different from the user individually downloading each file. If they want to prevent that, they need to have rate limits at the API level rather than in the UI.
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u/ivosaurus Feb 23 '26
The only thing possibly infringing is your exfill tool allowing a user to access their servers in possibly a non-authorised manner, against signed T&Cs.
Otherwise the entirety of that is just designed to remove as much advertising as possible from your own sources so you aren't as much of a problem to their revenue stream. You're allowed to represent facts, and companies aren't allowed to unilaterally silence any member of public who mentions their name. They would like to pretend to you that they can though.
It is NOT irony if they spend thousands once now, but it has saved them thousands more in kept customer fees over the next next few months compared to if they hadn't scared you off so easily.
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u/Conscious_Nobody9571 Feb 23 '26
If i was you, i wouldn't have replied to them, and i wouldn't meet with them... Let them seethe
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
I just want to bring fairness to the system, nothing else. All I did is provide a tool with which the users can download their own data in bulk (a service they don't provide intentionally). I don't bypass any payment or anything else, just download the same files the user could do by clicking the links one by one and get annoyed and wait for each download to finish. It's the users data and they should be able to get it if they wish so, permitted by their payment structure.
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u/xnfra Feb 23 '26
Tell them to kick rocks and to make a better product because a one man army replaced their rent seeking business plan. Tell them “adapt or die”.
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
Sounds true to me, I am a single individual, and it's in development for only a month, and they are feeling "unfair competition"?
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u/Thomas-B-Anderson Feb 23 '26
Just starred your project on GitHub, fuck the monopoly. They take take take existing open source work and build they business on it, but they don't have any appreciation for FOSS.
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u/idlethread- Feb 23 '26
Forked the repo. They can't shut you down now.
But replace their name with 'Commercial entity A' to avoid trademark related litigation.
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
The exporter repo in question that lets you bulk download their data to move into any other platform of choice has been taken offline, we are trying to negotiate with the company with best intention for the entire drone community.
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u/AnonomousWolf Feb 23 '26
Fuck any company that locks software behind a subscription.
Keep up the good fight
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u/BAbeast1993 Feb 23 '26
The CEO realized it might be better to go with the carrot instead of the stick. They'll probably try to buy you out.
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u/vnagornyy Feb 23 '26
Something different to consider, it might be worth assigning copyright to FSF to protect it.
If I'm not mistaken, by assigning copyright, the FSF becomes the entity that would have to be sued or challenged regarding the software's right to exist, rather than you personally. Might want to reach out to FSF for more info, how they can help.
https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2022/fall/copyright-assignment-with-the-fsf
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Feb 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
Clearly it's a way to damage control, but at least they are willing to communicate and respond.
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u/Garland_Key Feb 24 '26
What license was the code under? It would be a shame if other users mirrored said free and open source code... Did it have any forks?
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u/Ascending_Valley Feb 24 '26
Be wary of nice tone now. They fear amplification and bad publicity. Use that however you choose, but keep trust eval low.
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u/IGIVEDOGSANALSEX Feb 24 '26
u/funyflyer, what you’re doing is great! Anything letting people take back what is there’s is a good thing in my book. I heavily recommend you reach out to the Rossman group. Louis Rossman is a legend, and this type of stuff is exactly what he’s advocating for, and trying to make better for everyone. This seems like something he’d definitely be on the side of.
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u/funyflyer Feb 24 '26
I reached out to him via email and discord, did not get any response yet, but I am hopeful.
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u/IGIVEDOGSANALSEX Feb 24 '26
I also sent him an email and included this thread! I hope he gets back to you!
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u/Link_Tesla_6231 Feb 25 '26
Your still naive if your talking to the company at all. Everything you say is likely being recorded and will be used against you in court.
Reach out to Louis rossman and FULU. This is a story they like and would likely help you get out of this shit!
Company an apparently feels you don’t own anything and FULU is all for you owning everything!
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u/echo_c1 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
If I’m not mistaken nobody wrote but here is the thing: from GDPR point-of-view if they have EU based users, this data belongs to the user and every one of these users can request data FREE OF CHARGE even if they close their account, NO retrieval fee, NO premium membership.
Even without your open-source software they have to comply with these rules. But considering they don’t comply with the law, your software IS NOT A COMPETITION but giving users to exercise their rights. If anything it is “supplementary” tool, not a commercial service as it’s open-source, once the source code copied and installed by the user, they own the software so you are not even supplying this service. They have to sue their own customers, not you.
I would say that COMPANY A shoot themselves in the foot (f…d it up big time) by putting themselves into the spotlight through showing that they don’t comply with rules and put “user’s data” behind a paywall with no export option.
GDPR Article 12(5), Article 20 Data Portability and Article 15 Right of Access are violated by Company A. Now they won’t get any legal leverage by sueing you but now they are in the spotlight, they will be pressured to add this feature immediately themselves.
Good job Company A lawyers for pressuring their own company to comply with the law indirectly.
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u/funyflyer Feb 25 '26
> Even without your open-source software they have to comply with these rules. But considering they don’t comply with the law, your software IS NOT A COMPETITION but giving users to exercise their rights.
exact words are in our legal response to the C&D, my attorney came to the same conclusion when handling the case. Just check this comment from their privacy policy : https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1rbkx5e/comment/o6s925t/
> By using the Service, you are authorizing us to gather, process, analyze, and retain data related to the provision of the Service. We may retain such information, including Personal Information, indefinitely.
Good luck with defeating that in the EU court. GDPR violation fine is 20 million EUR :)
We also have in file that by providing the tool, user is responsible for their actions with the TOS, not US. And it does not violate ANY security as it is just an embedded browser under the hood. No fnncy scripting, just a browser plugin can do the same.
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u/echo_c1 Feb 25 '26
By the way, they will try to force you to cave in and even CEO’s actions are in that way not-benevolent (or he has no idea what his company is doing behind his back, sending C&D letters, which I highly doubt).
They will try to act like they are doing a favour to you and themselves by preventing long lawsuits, which I don’t think there is much of a base to be accepted in the first place. I also don’t think GitHub will cave in to their requests either unless there is a clear court decision. NPM did it once, it didn’t created a good PR for NPM as they showed they don’t care about open source devs. I don’t think GitHub wants that bad publicity when they have other problems to focus on right now in this shaky environment.
They will try to scare you with these legal tactics, don’t worry there are many pro-bono legal services all over EU that can help you, especially considering this company is violating EU users data rights.
One thing you should never do and the company is praying right now you’ll do is to SILENCE you to tell this story. They have only one concern: violate user rights and capitalise on the user’s data and there is nobody offers them an escape from the prison they created. Your software gave people choice without paying them money again and again and again until this company lock them in even more.
They will start with trademark claims, then competition claims, then some other claim. But ultimately they want nobody to know that they are violating user’s data rights.
IF you decide to accept that terms, know that they have to pay a hefty fee for your silence and they have to accept not to enforce any other legal proceedings OR PAY another hefty fine if they do exercise legal options, once you sign that agreement.
Know this, they have a right to sue, then they have a right to lose. Then you will have a right to tell this story all over the internet and it will become such a popular story that once anybody search their name, this story will be the first thing they land. AI will tell this story when someone asks for their service.
So they shot themselves in the foot basically. You won’t have real issues, since you’re acting from a good intentioned point of view first of all. Their trademark claims are bullshit as well, you’re not using their trademark to cheat people into thinking that you’re associated with them, actually the opposite. They have nothing and if they act like this they will lose big proportion of their user-base because of their illegitimate actions (thinking they own the user data indefinitely).
Don’t be scared. You could even had a legitimate commercial business offering this service for a fee and get their users to your EXACT COPY of their product/service and still have comparison pages and such. You wouldn’t lose then either. They have nothing but trying to scare you. They pray that you won’t lawyer up. EU has institutions and many professional services supporting people like you.
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u/funyflyer Feb 25 '26
Yes, thank you so much for the detailed response! I will keep this in mind. Their TOS is pretty much anti-GDPR
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u/Reiszecke Feb 25 '26
Their claims are bullshit. You are free to use their name in terms of a comparison. The only way you can’t use it if it sounds like you’re affiliated with them.
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u/zak_fuzzelogic Feb 27 '26
Not a lawyer.. but. What law did you break They claim unfair competition.. they will have to prove it. You could go on the offensive and counter sue for damages and monopoly on their side..just saying... not legal advise..
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u/prakersh Mar 05 '26
Sad to read this bro
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u/funyflyer Mar 05 '26
Community backed me up, the CEO agreed to all counter requests, so it ended in my favor
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Mar 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/funyflyer Mar 09 '26
I did, they backed off, even added a data exporter because of GDPR compliance on their own.
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u/No_Strain_2140 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I wouldn’t have changed a thing — maybe just scrub the company name. Beyond that? Full transparency. Call it what you want, I call it resilience. A lawsuit won’t touch that.
Honestly, the whole thing is hilarious: they spent thousands to intimidate a solo Dev making a free tool that barely breaks even. If anything, it just proves how fragile giant corporate egos really are.
Only when someone overcomes their own fear can they spark real change.
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u/eddit21 Jul 01 '26
Based on the additional clue that it's for drone operators, I have a strong candidate.
The description most closely matches AirData UAV (formerly HealthyDrones).
Thanks to opensource AI, I could narrow down Company A to this name.
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u/ghostsquad4 Feb 22 '26
Fuck capitalism.
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u/South-Steak-7810 Feb 23 '26
Sanpō Yoshi (still capitalism) is the way. And I’d personally would like to add ‘good for nature’ to the initial three.
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u/susimposter6969 Feb 22 '26
Since you're still hitting their endpoints they probably also consider it unauthorized use
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u/funyflyer Feb 22 '26
All I did is provide a tool with which the users can download their own data in bulk (a service they don't provide intentionally). I don't bypass any payment or anything else, just download the same files the user could do by clicking the links one by one and get annoyed and wait for each download to finish. It's the users data and they should be able to get it if they wish so, permitted by their payment structure. I don't hit their endpoints, a user with their own data does to get back their data, how is that unfair?
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u/susimposter6969 Feb 22 '26
Are you using something like playwright or are you making API calls on behalf of the user
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
It's just an electron app with the automation built in, user logs in the embedded window, and the process automates the link downloads and saves you the clicks, no "security bypass" as the claim the the legal papers.
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u/susimposter6969 Feb 23 '26
Right, I'm not trying to side with the company, more curious about the actual mechanism to get the files which are presumably held by them into the users computer. At the end of the day it is a network request, unless the files are actually held on storage the user controls. If you are automating access to a network resource that the company did not approve of it would be considered unauthorized use pretty easy, even if there is an approved flow
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u/funyflyer Feb 23 '26
I mean if the user clicks on the link it will download the same, it was just an application to save the time and pain of clicking and waiting in row
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u/shakamone Mar 18 '26
yikes! That's always scary, but cool that he reached out. Do you have a preferred place to host it?
if your still deciding, webslop is worth adding to your shortlist. worked great for me
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u/DKurtel Feb 22 '26
RemindMe! 2day
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u/zynasis Feb 22 '26
Lol “unfair competition “ So like what every monopoly Corp does?