Hacker News Reader

Comment by tumult | Hacker News Reader

Author of Ripcord. You’re wrong, and creating and using software compatible with services is fair.

i do agree it's fair, but it's also true that the service provider could argue that they are supposed to be in total control of the service, including the front-end.

It's by societal consensus that this can be made fair, and to convince people that it is fair, there needs to be a logical, indisputable argument that it's fair. Otherwise, the service providers can always just hide behind the counter-argument of being in control and TOS etc.

In the case of Discord, for example, the terms of service doesn't even mention third-party clients. Also, these services are accessible from web browsers, which are made by third parties. There are more reasons, like users being able to run whatever they want on their own computers, but just the ones above are enough.

"You may not copy, modify, create derivative works based upon, distribute, sell, lease, or sublicense any of our software or services"

This seems to make it pretty clear they don't want you to create 3rd-party clients for their service.

Ripcord isn't a derivative work, both practically and in the legal sense. It's implemented from scratch. Ripcord isn't a resell of their service or a sublicense of their service.

If I rephrase it like this, does it make it clear?

"You may not create derivative works based upon any of our services"

In the imaginary world where that's what the terms of service says, that's still fine for Ripcord -- Ripcord isn't a derivative work.

If the terms of service allow it, then it doesn't matter what it's fair or not: you're allowed to make a client for it. The discussion is moot.

I don't agree that fairness requires service providers to provide open APIs. Open APIs are better, ceteris paribus, but that's as far as it goes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com