CCleaner asks BleachBit to Remove Winapp2.ini Importer

[I am Baas]

http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/news/c ... i-importer

A few more links:

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/02/05/pirifo ... rt-option/
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/02/05/ ... i-importer

[guinness]

I didn't realise the License extended to winapp2.ini.

[joby_toss]

As this is against our terms of use, we kindly request that you remove
this feature.

I wonder, exactly which terms of use are they talking about?

[guinness]

Discussion on the Piriform site: http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?sho ... ntry229516

[webfork]

My understanding is that there are security tools out there using various blocklists and whitelists generated by a community of users to help handle security threats. If a very standard config file that the company asked people to contribute to got used by other security tools, I think that's a good thing. However, if the company that asked for contributions from the community gets mad when other members of the community use it? That's absurd.

I know one way to kill a community project is to pretend you own it so whether BleachBit drops the winapp2.ini import capability, I don't think they'll see much more activity there.

[SYSTEM]

Incredibly stupid.

Disclaimer: IANAL.

First of all, unless the file format is subject to patents, implementing support for it in a computer program is always legal. (Otherwise e.g. Microsoft could sue LibreOffice and every other office suite that supports the DOC format.) I highly doubt Piriform has any patents for the winapp2.ini format.

Second, Piriform doesn't own the copyright of winapp2.ini and can't prohibit redistributing it.

Third, Andrew (the author of BleachBit) doesn't even redistribute winapp2.ini. BleachBit simply downloads winapp2.ini from the official site.

----

Piriform just gave a huge publicity boost to BleachBit and simultaneously made itself look completely foolish...

[guinness]

Piriform just gave a huge publicity boost to BleachBit and simultaneously made itself look completely foolish...

True, but it's still has the upper-hand in terms of functionality and programs it cleans, well it does now.

Andrew could create a script to convert winapp2.ini to the custom CleanerML format.

[Midas]

A few more links:

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/02/05/pirifo ... rt-option/
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/02/05/ ... i-importer

Slashdoted!?! O, my...

[abc]

Piriform just gave a huge publicity boost to BleachBit and simultaneously made itself look completely foolish...

Spot on!

http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/news/c ... i-importer

From: Louise Kinane <XXXXXXXX@piriform.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:06:55 +0000
Subject: bleachbit.sourceforge.net

Hi Andrew,

It has come to our attention that your software BleachBit includes a
feature which enables users to import CCleaner data into your program:
http://www.ghacks.net/2012/03/18/how-to ... napp2-ini-...

As this is against our terms of use, we kindly request that you remove
this feature.

Please confirm receipt of this email.

--
Regards
Louise Kinane

Customer Experience Manager | Head of UK Operations | Piriform
T: +44.203.574.XXXX | W: http://www.piriform.com

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/02/05/pirifo ... rt-option/

What’s clear though is that Piriform is using an article published here on Ghacks as reference. I admit that the article was not very clear in some points and I have edited it to make it clearer. While it is possible that Piriform based the email solely on the article, I’d assume that the company ran tests of their own before contacting the BleachBit project owner as it would be foolish to rely on a single article without double-checking whether what is being said in the article is true or not.

http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/news/w ... dium=tweet

From: Louise Kinane <XXXXXXXX@piriform.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:58:22 +0000

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your response. We have investigated this further, and found that we were misinformed about the way that Bleachbit gathers its data. Our apologies, as long as the information is taken from winapp2.com and not our application or site, then you are not in breach of our EULA.

We do apologize for the misunderstanding.

Regards,
Louise

Did their lawyers read the updated article?

[guinness]

Ah, that's fair, they thought Andrew was using winapp.ini which is internal but can be extracted.

[joby_toss]

Well, that's nice!

But...did we start all this?



And do you know what this whole thing did for me? Made me take a closer look to BleachBit! And I found out that I really like this application!

[SYSTEM]

But...did we start all this?

I see.

I have changed the link text to winapp2.ini.

[guinness]

I don't think it did, well I hope not. Looking at the logs I wouldn't pinpoint it to one user.

[joby_toss]

I'm sure we didn't, but it's somewhat funny...

[bzl333]

the developers of CCleanr should be more concerned with why BleachBit has the importer already when afaik the portable edition of CCleaner doesn't.