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Not sure I get it. Are the individuals/firms sending these letters to the repo maintainer actually connected to WhatsApp in any way?
by Cacti 11y ago
Not sure I get it. Are the individuals/firms sending these letters to the repo maintainer actually connected to WhatsApp in any way?
- jjcm 11y agoYes. WhatsApp has been pretty aggressive with hunting down and stopping any third party implementations out there. They're also issuing temporary bans for anyone caught using third party clients: http://mashable.com/2015/01/22/whatsapp-third-party-apps/ http://mashable.com/2015/01/22/whatsapp-third-party-apps/
- _delirium 11y agoReminds me a bit of the old dispute between AOL and GAIM, which was later renamed to Pidgin in part to appease AOL. WhatsApp seem to be acting in an even more aggressive way than AOL was, though. AOL limited themselves mainly to: 1) complaining about the name; and 2) playing occasional games with the protocol to break third-party clients. Afaik they didn't sue anyone claiming that simply distributing a third-party client was illegal.
- kuschku 11y agoThere was recently an article from a person working at Microsoft who implemented AIM support in MSN Messenger back in the day who had similar experiences.
- tacticus 11y agoWhich was a really entertaining article when microsoft were also doing it to block trillian and other third party clients.
- guelo 11y agoThe letter says "any legal proceeding that WhatsApp may choose to pursue against you". Definetly sounds like a legal threat from WhatsApp.