That's sad to hear. I always respected the fact that you worked hard on this project with minimal financial support. Would someone be still able to use your code? From what I remember your repo was semi open source.
bautistabaiocchilora@gmail.com
Just wanted to thank you for what you have built. You never endorsed malicious use or anything close to it. You went out of your way to make this a tool for good.
Saludos from argentina
Mohammed ShahCreator
🙏🙏🙏
nrs1022
Hi Mohammed, you must not sorry! Your project is one of the best Github has and you do a great job doing not only a good support, also to stay updated to any change coming from WA. It's very difficult to fight against the AntiPrivacy's evil forces, but the time will come and the emperor will be defeated in their face, for us, for the sake of Internet and humanity.
We are in debt with you. As we say in Argentina "Thank you for everything, sorry for so little"
Best regards, and I wish to you the best!
Logan Ye
Hey Mohammed, thank you for sharing this message, best of luck and with the skill and determination you've already shown, the skies the limit on whatever you turn your attention to next.
Good luck!
Mohammed ShahCreator
Thank you so much for your kind words 🙏
MoonL 「つかり」
wow, this news sucks
me personally always respect how you able to create this project and distribute it with minimal financial support and contribution
but again, this project is so cool, it makes a really good starter project to early programming, infact its my third project (after discord.js and telegram bot, which has official api support), although its kinda hard to get used on the documentation, but its really is a good and cool project
I personally would also thank you for introducing me to this programming world, i really owe you something, ill be sure to keep that in mind when i probably get something from programming.
im sorry wrong sentence, "WE owe you something for making this project"
Mohammed ShahCreator
Thank you for your kind words. If Whatsapp released an API as accessible as discord/telegram then open-wa wouldn't even need to exist.
I am glad to be a part of your coding journey and look forward to what you build in the future
thanks 🙏
prog1
So is the problem the license server or the code itself? If the problem is the code then why has github not deleted the repo?
He wrote 'Meta is accusing me of "providing bulk messaging services", sending "viruses" over their network & "sending illegal messages".'. It seems to me they are connecting Mohammed to those things because it connects to his server. I don't know what the other repos were told or how they operate. If they all run license servers then probably this is the issue and if even one allowed access by just installing it from npm then I am clearly wrong.
BTW, we have pondered moving to the official api but it is simply too expensive. We send out daily messages in groups that our users want to receive. Honestly we could do it using the community feature but our bot allows it to be timed into the future and there were no communities when we started.
Mohammed ShahCreator
Hi,
They sent a C&D for the whole open-wa project/org, but more specifically wa-automate. If there was no license server it would be the same situation. I know this because other similar github projects got the same legal threat (at least 2 OSS competing projects/their maintainers). One of those maintainers is 15 years old. Those projects did not have any license element to them.
The reason the code is still on github is because I refuse to delete code. The reason Github has not deleted the project is because the project itself does not break any laws (specifically DMCA would trigger a GH project deletion).
They are libelously accusing me of these things, not because of the server, but because they think I am the one doing these things. I was just building the tool, what other people do with that tool is not my responsibility.
I build hammers, most people take the hammers for free. If they decide to go on a nail-hammering spree then that's got nothing to do with me.
They do not have evidence of me doing these things, this is a bullying tactic to force me to stop maintaining this code. It doesn't matter what they accuse me of because the point is for me to stop coding - because they know I do not have the resources to pay lawyers to defend me.
Same with the other OSS devs that received this threat.
There are some companies maintaining/developing on similar projects, they are fully funded and are of the position that they can pay for a legal defense.
There are VC-funded companies that do the same thing but for banks (reverse engineering banking APIs and exposing those APIs to their customers as a SaaS), they have successfully thwarted many C&Ds from major banks because they have expensive lawyers.
OSS devs do not have, or have access to, expensive lawyers, which is why we are being bullied into stopping.
Thanks
prog1
We had left your project after the docs website was down and your quite disappointing message even though you were just speaking the truth. More than a year later and I see the project is still live and well. You even released some new versions. What has changed? Did you decide to fight Meta?
11 comments
That's sad to hear. I always respected the fact that you worked hard on this project with minimal financial support. Would someone be still able to use your code? From what I remember your repo was semi open source.
Just wanted to thank you for what you have built. You never endorsed malicious use or anything close to it. You went out of your way to make this a tool for good. Saludos from argentina
🙏🙏🙏
Hi Mohammed, you must not sorry! Your project is one of the best Github has and you do a great job doing not only a good support, also to stay updated to any change coming from WA. It's very difficult to fight against the AntiPrivacy's evil forces, but the time will come and the emperor will be defeated in their face, for us, for the sake of Internet and humanity. We are in debt with you. As we say in Argentina "Thank you for everything, sorry for so little" Best regards, and I wish to you the best!
Hey Mohammed, thank you for sharing this message, best of luck and with the skill and determination you've already shown, the skies the limit on whatever you turn your attention to next. Good luck!
Thank you so much for your kind words 🙏
wow, this news sucks me personally always respect how you able to create this project and distribute it with minimal financial support and contribution but again, this project is so cool, it makes a really good starter project to early programming, infact its my third project (after discord.js and telegram bot, which has official api support), although its kinda hard to get used on the documentation, but its really is a good and cool project I personally would also thank you for introducing me to this programming world, i really owe you something, ill be sure to keep that in mind when i probably get something from programming. im sorry wrong sentence, "WE owe you something for making this project"
Thank you for your kind words. If Whatsapp released an API as accessible as discord/telegram then open-wa wouldn't even need to exist. I am glad to be a part of your coding journey and look forward to what you build in the future thanks 🙏
So is the problem the license server or the code itself? If the problem is the code then why has github not deleted the repo? He wrote 'Meta is accusing me of "providing bulk messaging services", sending "viruses" over their network & "sending illegal messages".'. It seems to me they are connecting Mohammed to those things because it connects to his server. I don't know what the other repos were told or how they operate. If they all run license servers then probably this is the issue and if even one allowed access by just installing it from npm then I am clearly wrong. BTW, we have pondered moving to the official api but it is simply too expensive. We send out daily messages in groups that our users want to receive. Honestly we could do it using the community feature but our bot allows it to be timed into the future and there were no communities when we started.
Hi, They sent a C&D for the whole open-wa project/org, but more specifically wa-automate. If there was no license server it would be the same situation. I know this because other similar github projects got the same legal threat (at least 2 OSS competing projects/their maintainers). One of those maintainers is 15 years old. Those projects did not have any license element to them. The reason the code is still on github is because I refuse to delete code. The reason Github has not deleted the project is because the project itself does not break any laws (specifically DMCA would trigger a GH project deletion). They are libelously accusing me of these things, not because of the server, but because they think I am the one doing these things. I was just building the tool, what other people do with that tool is not my responsibility. I build hammers, most people take the hammers for free. If they decide to go on a nail-hammering spree then that's got nothing to do with me. They do not have evidence of me doing these things, this is a bullying tactic to force me to stop maintaining this code. It doesn't matter what they accuse me of because the point is for me to stop coding - because they know I do not have the resources to pay lawyers to defend me. Same with the other OSS devs that received this threat. There are some companies maintaining/developing on similar projects, they are fully funded and are of the position that they can pay for a legal defense. There are VC-funded companies that do the same thing but for banks (reverse engineering banking APIs and exposing those APIs to their customers as a SaaS), they have successfully thwarted many C&Ds from major banks because they have expensive lawyers. OSS devs do not have, or have access to, expensive lawyers, which is why we are being bullied into stopping. Thanks
We had left your project after the docs website was down and your quite disappointing message even though you were just speaking the truth. More than a year later and I see the project is still live and well. You even released some new versions. What has changed? Did you decide to fight Meta?