Slashdot Mirror
'My Heroic and Lazy Stand Against IFTTT' (pinboard.in)
Like many of you, I use IFTTT. It's one of the handiest tools on the internet to get your work done. Want a text alert for weather? Want a notification on your Android smartphone whenever someone you follow publishes a blog post? IFTTT can do all sorts of such things. It is able to do so because it works with different companies and utilizes APIs of their services. Many of these companies are happy to have IFTTT trying to enhance the experience of their customers. Many don't necessarily want -- or can allow -- IFTTT to do that. Pinboard, a social bookmarking website, falls in the latter category. Maciej Ceglowski, CEO of Pinboard in a blog post explained why that is the case: Imagine if your sewer pipe started demanding that you make major changes in your diet. Now imagine that it got a lawyer and started asking you to sign things. You would feel surprised. This is the position I find myself in today with IFTTT, a form of Internet plumbing that has been connecting peaceably to my backend for the past five years, but which has recently started sending scary emails. [...] Because many of you rely on IFTTT, and because [their request] makes it sound like I'm the asshole, I feel I should explain myself. In a nutshell: 1. IFTTT wants me to do their job for them for free. 2. They have really squirrely terms of service. In the blog post, Ceglowski further explains his concerns with IFTTT. He says IFTTT wants ownership of all right, title, and interest. "Pinboard is in some ways already a direct competitor to IFTTT. The site offers built-in Twitter integration, analogous to IFTTT's twitter-Pinboard recipe. I don't know what rights I would be assigning here, but this is not the way I want to find out." You should read the blog post, it's very insightful and sheds light on things that many of us might not have considered otherwise. Jason Snell has offered his take on this as well, he writes: If IFTTT sticks with this philosophy, it will rapidly become a lot less useful and interesting as a service.
For the curious, "IFTTT" is an Android app ("If This, Then That") which allows one to make scripts for chaining other app functions together. Of course, it's mostly for noobs because real men use BusyBox to make cron scripts with Android's API.
> Many don't necessarily want -- or can allow -- IFTTT to do that. . Pinboard, a social bookmarking website, falls in the latter category.
No, Pinboard already has perfectly working IFTTT support. IFTTT want to break this unless Pinboard develop to their custom API and sign a large legal document.
For those of you geeks who see an abrevation they've never heard of and that is presented as some super high-tech thing that you should know (I know, I've had the same problem):
IFTTT (if this then that) is a commercial web service (free as in beer, but they want all your data, like Google or Facebook) that hooks together a slew of popular other services using API calls and probably a little scraping aswell to automate tasks and data migration using a neat and shiny web-based click-ui. Think Apples Automator on OS X, but for all those shiny Web SaaS thingies hippsters get a hard-on about these days.
The wannabees like to throw around "IFTTT" because it sounds really nerdy, geeky and high-tech and they get all giddy when their Linux admin looks really confused having never heard the word. But don't worry, they just use it to send smilies on facebook whenever they've taken a picture in instagram and stuff like that. Your Perl & Python scripts are just as indespensible as always - so no trouble here.
Glad I could help.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Firehose. Use it.
I very much doubt Pinboard pays IFTTT a damned thing, or has any contract with them. In fact, IFTTT is consuming Pinboard's product.
Pinboard isn't using a damned thing ... IFTTT is pulling content from Pinboard, and now is demanding that Pinboard write new code for a new API and sign a license detailing what can be done with that code. As I understand this, IFTTT wrote this, it exists independent of anything Pinboard has every done ... and now IFTTT is asserting that Pinboard needs to write new code and sign a license giving rights to IFTTT.
This is someone with whom Pinboard has no actual relationship, suddenly claiming Pinboard needs to do things for them and sign a contract.
I don't think Pinboard expects a damned thing, because Pinboard has no skin in the game for what IFTTT does.
To extend this metaphor ... this is the troll who lives in the sewer demanding you change the shape of your toilet to match his mouth, and that you stop eating cabbage because it's upsetting his stomach. The troll is in no damned position to make demands.
Pinboard did not write, does not own, and currently does not maintain any "client code", nor do they have an active relationship with IFTTT. IFTTT wrote client code for Pinboard, and is now demanding Pinboard write new code and sign a license about how that new code is used.
As I said, this is a complete shakedown by a 3rd party who claims the value provided by Pinboard only exists because of IFTTT.
Pinboard is rightly saying "fuck you, we have no relationship with you, and we're not doing any of this stuff"
Lost at C:>. Found at C.