JBidwatcher: eBay auction sniping software
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JBidWatcher: The SnipeIt Issue


On December 20, I put (roughly) this message into the JBidwatcher auto-update message display.
Greetings,

If you have purchased a program calling itself 'SnipeIt' on

eBay, by a seller 'dustsniper', you have paid someone who is

stealing my work and reselling it for his own profit.



I've spent more than six years on JBidwatcher, and this has

happened a few times, but I usually find out sooner, and they

agree to stop. This person has been doing it since at least

May, and has made over $2,000 at my expense.



I can't really express how deeply used this makes me feel. I have

no desire to continue fighting with eBay, figuring out their

ever-more complex changes, for this persons profit. I know

a great many people use and trust JBidwatcher because of its

open source nature, but open source is also subject to just

this kind of predation.



It's not about money; it never has been with JBidwatcher, which

is why I make it available free. It's about the sense of

violation, and the feeling that I've worked hard on my own

project for what ends up being someone else's profit. I haven't

made a decision on what to do, but end-of-life-ing

JBidwatcher is high on the list. Six years was a good run.



I'll have more info on this web site as this situation evolves.

-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX
Greetings,
Several people have asked if I do step away from JBidwatcher, what'll happen to the source code.

Once licensed as open source, it remains open source, so the last released version would remain open source. As the original author, I can take any future versions I produce private, however.

On that note, one overwhelming suggestion from a lot of people is to stop open sourcing with the next version. I'm proud of my code, and it seems counter intuitive that the selfsame pride needs me to keep it wrapped up, or see it used like this, to make a quick buck. However, since the next version that I've been working on is a pretty major departure from the old architecture that it's been up until now, it's a real possibility. (Adding things like scripting, disk-based storage, and other nice stuff.)

It'd still be possible to steal it, just like someone can take Photoshop and call it 'Jamesshop' and resell it if they want to, but then I'd have more legal 'oomph' behind me to put a stop to that. The courts are not comfortable with open source, and right now I'd have to make the argument that it is ethically wrong, despite the law being not necessarily clear. That is a recipe for an expensive and uncertain court battle.

Open source relies on a community set of values, and that same community ostracizing those who act unethically, as this person has done. This is why open source succeeds more in the technical arena, where the technical community is more cohesive.

In any case, the short answer is that the code that is out there would remain out there, and a dedicated developer would probably be able to adjust it to keep up with eBay.

-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!
Our eBay 'message' conversation so far: 
Question from cyberfox
-------------------------------------------------------
Greetings,
Please stop selling my software.  I think it's a reasonable request,
since I spent more than six years on it.

--  Morgan Schweers, creator of JBidwatcher
-------------------------------------------------------
Hello Morgan, I respect you for your hard work on Jbidwatcher and for
distributing it free. But since my tuition fees were always on the
rise, I knew that I had to find an efficient way to keep myself in
college. As soon as I found Jbidwatcher, I couldn't resist. It took me
a month to lose my last bit of moral, but I swore that as soon as I
graduate in 2009 I'd stop selling your work. I was even thinking that
I'd secretly send you the proceeds when I have enough money in the
future (though this sounds extremely fishy). I know there's never a
good excuse to steal, but I'm just hoping that you could understand
the reason I'm taking advantage of you is because I had to, for the
sake of my own life. Please give me three more years. Thank you.
-------------------------------------------------------
Greetings,
I know this sounds harsh, but I have no sympathy for your argument. I
also had to leave college after two years because my family and I
could not afford it.

The answer to not having enough money to go to school is to get out
and make money on your own skills, not to sell other peoples hard work
as your own.

This is not about money for me. If it were about money, Jbidwatcher
would not be free. It is about the project I poured time, sweat, real
tears, and even the occasional blood into. It is about my wife, who
understands the work I do on it, the time it takes away from us,
because she knows I love working on it, I love the interaction with my
users, and she even grew to understand that I kept it open source and
free because I am proud of my coding on it. It is about how having you
rename it, and sell it as your own turns that time, effort, and love
into just some free stuff for you to profit off of.

There are just no words for that. None at all.

-- Morgan
-------------------------------------------------------
ok I'll stop selling it then.
That's a relief. The frustration still sits with me, and I need to do something to prevent this in the future, as I'm not happy fighting this battle every so often.

Still, I'm glad for now.

-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!
It turns out, after all that, there were two more people who were making money off of JBidwatcher. It represents three ranges of ways to make money like that.
  • The first was the person above, taking my work, renaming it, calling it their own, and selling it straight up. That infuriated me beyond the pale, and resulting it my original message, and the sick feeling that I shouldn't be doing this.
  • The second took JBidwatcher and sold it as it was, not renaming it, but still profiting off of it. They are a professional eBay seller, and pointed out that they believe they have the right, under the LGPL, to do this. Despite that, I asked that they respect my wishes with regards to that, and they agreed to. We're still talking, as they want to be able to include it as a bonus in other sales they make, and I want to make sure it's not the primary value being offered. This left me with the distinct feeling that open source is not well suited to providing transparency at the same time as providing protection. I'm immensely relieved and grateful that they were willing to respect my preferences about JBidwatcher's sale.
  • The third sells 'information' about 'free eBay tools' including a free sniping program, and includes a screenshot of that program (JBidwatcher, of course), humorously blurring out the name, so that people don't just Google for it. (When, of course, googling for 'free ebay sniping software' goes right to my page.) There's nothing I can do about this. It's a bit scammy, but it's a VERY popular method of selling things on eBay, with lots of gradations from people who really do have valuable information that's hard to find to people who are effectively just selling the results of a Google query to people who don't know how to Google. In general, find something that other people don't know how to find, fill a few keywords into the auction listing, and make it clear you're *just* offering the information on how to find it.
It's been a long week, but the upshot is that I've been reminded, over and over, that the actions of a few shouldn't make me stop working on something that makes many happy, and that I've enjoyed working on for so long.

I'll be trying to get to people's emails after Christmas, I want to respond to as many as I can.

There will be some changes due to this in future versions, but for now everything has mostly worked out. And there definitely will be future versions.

Have a very happy christmas, whatever your end-of-year celebration is. You, the users of JBidwatcher, have made mine a reminder that the few bad things are overwhelmed by the many, many good. Thank you.

-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!