I’ve long harboured a dislike for mac software developer David Watanabe. He’s one of those greedy parasites who tries to make money by repackaging open source software as proprietary, paid products – his first effort, Acquisition, was nothing but a pretty mac wrapper for open source gnutella clients for mac, and Xtorrent is little more than a wrapper for free, open source Transmission.
Now, he may well have been within his strict legal rights to do that, I’ve never bothered to find out what the actual licenses for the software he integrated were. But ethically I’ve always thought it was highly questionable – especially when the primary use of such software is to download other’s intellectual property. Not that I have any problem with that – in fact I loathe the prevailing copyright regimes, believing copyright should have no more than a ~5-year limit – but to actually try and make money from its circumvention is pretty scummy, IMO. And the fact he built strong anti-piracy protections into his software, when a primary use of that software was to download pirated versions of other’s software – is just the icing on the asshole cake.
Which is why his reaction to people’s complaints about his adware Inquisitor is so precious. For those who don’t know, Inquisitor is a nasty InputManager plugin which hacks the ability to choose from a menu of search engines in Safari, similar to FireFox’s search box, and autocompletes certain words and results like Spotlight. It’s an unstable piece of crap, and I uninstalled it after a brief trial a couple of years ago when it caused Safari to repeatedly crash.
Anyway, there’s recently been some complaints in the “blogosphere” about Inquisitor’s sneaky adware functions, which silently insert ads into its search results, pointing to paid affiliate links to Amazon, the Apple Store, and so on – very nasty.
David’s reaction is hilarious. Lengthy section follows, where I paste much of his blog entry, interspersed with will-deserved rebuttals.
So, imagine my surprise when I wake up to a mailbox containing words unfit for publication, blogs declaring me as the biggest asshole in the world, and demands that people sabotage and steal my work.
Well David, you’re not *the* biggest asshole in the world, but I suspect that’s mainly a matter of opportunity. You’re merely a minor asshole for now. But since your entire software business is built upon stealing the work of others, I certainly support anyone who “steals” your own. What goes around, comes around.
I’ve always been very proud of Inquisitor. It’s small, lightweight, and entirely unique at what it does.
It certainly is small – smaller than many FireFox plugins. But what it does – hack in a few other search engines to Safari’s search box – is hardly unique.
Best of all, the revenue model means that Inquisitor 3 is totally free for users.
You know you’re a greedy son of a bitch when you need to have a “revenue model” for a fucking browser plugin.
Now, I guess people have forgotten that Inquisitor 2 was a shareware product.
Actually, no – I haven’t forgotten how you actually tried to charge users for a crashy, poorly made browser plugin which did nothing but offer a menu of search engines. I remember quite well thinking you were a prick – a belief which continues to this day!
The release of Inquisitor 3 as ad-supported freeware was a massive risk. I doubt many shareware authors would take a successful revenue-generating product and make it freeware on a whim. However, at the time I was feeling idealistic.
Oh my fucking god. Yeah, David Watanabe, you’re the fucking Prince of Giving. Half Ghandi, half Linus Torvalds. Your selfless generosity is fucking inspirational. I’ve got a fucking tear in my eye just thinking about how you just threw it all away for the good of the little guys. For the people. For a better world.
I genuinely felt that Inquisitor was a great experience that everyone ought to be able to enjoy, and that it made the world (a small bit) better.
Maybe this would be true if Inquisitor wasn’t a nasty little browser-crashing hack, and if you weren’t sneakily inserting unmarked links to your affiliate accounts in people’s fucking search results.
So, with good intentions I made the switch to freeware. The inclusion of very limited advertising was a necessary evil, to dampen the financial disaster of the switch.
It’s not “freeware” if it’s got ads, you fuckhead.
Ultimately, designing great software isn’t easy, especially when it’s being done as a hobby.
You’re right – it’s not easy! Impossible, even. For you. And if it’s a hobby, why do you try and rip people off? I think you need a new dictionary, David – these words don’t mean what you think they mean.
I have few resources and since expectations are unbounded, it’s a certainty that I will always fall short. That’s not evil, malice, or incompetence
You certainly have few resources in the areas of ethics, honesty, programming skill and the English language, and you’re right in that you fall pretty fucking short on all counts. But you’re wrong in the second sentence – I actually do think it’s pretty much all due to your evil, malice and incompetence.
- it’s just meathook reality.
Another word that you seem to have a pretty non-standard definition for. Or do meathooks form a pretty large part of your daily life, David? You mentioned your software business is a “hobby” – you’re not a pig farmer by day, are you? In Canada, maybe?
But increasingly my good intentions and sacrifice are being met with cynicism and deliberate mean-spiritedness.
Oh my god. Back to Ghandi. O, David’s sacrifice and good intentions! Curse the mean-spirited, cynical world who just takes and takes from his font of giving.
Fundamentally I’m a nice person, quiet spoken and non-confrontational. Sacrificing six years of my life to enhance the lives of people whom I will never meet is not a self-serving action.
O, the humanity! Six years of selfless, unrewarded, unappreciated service – ignored and ridiculed by a cynical world. David you should apply for the fucking Nobel Peace Prize, you should be a shoo-in with your six years of selfless giving of nasty stolen-code adware.
But when I get threatened with harm and called an asshole by someone I have never met, when my ‘transgression’ was creating something unique and giving it away for free to everyone… well, my idealism about the Mac dies a little. If this is you, then I welcome you to leave. Your burden is not one I wish to bear.
I’m not threatening you with harm my softly spoken friend, I’m just calling you a deluded, greedy little shit. The mac community is worse off for the presence of nasty little bottom feeders like you, and people like you. Idealism? Don’t make me laugh, you weasel – you’ve been in it for nothing but your own profit since day 1. You talk as if you’ve bequeathed a great treasure to the future of humanity. What you’ve actually done is tried to sell a bunch of shitty apps which, if you had any fucking decency, would be freeware.
Your burden? Don’t talk to me about your “burden” you little prick. Your burden is the guilt you should be feeling for being such a sneaky, greedy little parasite. I bet you’ve never given a dime of your illicit profits to the open source projects you steal the majority of your source code from. You’re the one killing idealism. But you don’t have to tell me to leave – I wouldn’t touch your crapware with a 10-ft pole.
Too bad you got called an asshole. But David, that’s because you are one – a first-class, grade-A asshole – so fuck you.
UPDATE: David-さん has deleted his original post, thus proving he’s a pussy as well as an asshole – quite an achievement. Thanks to the leet skillz of a kindly reader, a copy of the article from google cache is attached below.
