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by gslepak 43 days ago
You're not running a charity. You're probably violating their TOS and abusing the good will they're putting out towards open source projects.

I can't believe it but your little project has for the first time in my life put me in the position of defending Microsoft. I hope they shut it down ASAP.

3 comments

For Microsoft, free isn’t free… It puts them in a position of advantage. However, I still agree this is abusing goodwill and is rather disgraceful.
You can criticize the project. You do not get to invent abuse from dislike.

Ghostbox uses the your own GitHub account and Actions minutes for your own dev workflows.

Maybe you wanted something to attack or defend? Because this is mistaken.

Although, releasing free software like this is kinda like running a charity, right?

Charity can also mean goodwill and kindness - so that's the idea. But the name I picked because it made me laugh, it was so surprising and joyful - a charity of ephemeral ghost machines for your software work. Which is basically what GH actions is, this just makes it even more useful and faster to work with.

What abuse and TOS violation were you thinking this was?

You are in direct violation of their Acceptable Use Policy: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/acceptable-use-polici...

> You will not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service without our express written permission.

Supposing they didn't have this clause, it would still be the wrong thing to do. You are clearly lacking a moral center or have killed your inner voice that normally speaks to people and tells them right from wrong.

These are not your computers to resell or reoffer as you please, even for free. They belong to Microsoft who pays for them and owns them, and therefore only Microsoft can decide how they are used and for what lawful purposes and under what conditions. You need their permission to do what you are doing, and I'm fairly certain you do not have that.

By abusing their services in this manner you are also directly attacking open source projects who make use of these services in a way that is compatible with their AUP.

No. You can critique the project, but you don't get to falsely accuse me, nor define me, lol.

"the wrong thing to do", "You are clearly lacking a moral center or have killed your inner voice that normally speaks to people and tells them right from wrong.", "abusing their services", "you are also directly attacking open source project"

You really have a need to falsely accuse. It seems like projective guilt. What have you done that you feel so guilty about that you need to try to abuse random strangers?

So, no, my inner voice is not dead, I never killed it, nor would ever kill it, my inner voice is thriving - I nurture it, unlike you, and I have a clear and strong moral center, again unlike you. It seems more and more you are merely talking about yourself here but projecting onto someone else. I reject your your attempt to get me to participate in your need to project. I reject your framing completely. it is you who is clearly lacking a "moral center" and it is you have killed your own voice that ought tell you right from wrong. You killed it here again - when you could have spent a minute to understand, instead launched into self-righteous abuse which has nothing to do with me, and everything about you. I reject your weak attempt to drag me into your personal drama.

You did all this - based on a lie, without understanding me or the project. In that ambiguity - you felt it was okay to talk to me like that, and about my work. You have no idea about me, and you don't get to talk to me like that.

In fact, ghost doesn't advertise itself falsely - you merely misunderstood, or joined the crowd and think that excuses your actions. It does not. You're responsible for your words here.

You can probably do better: you can argue the ToS point without turning it into a character attack, or not?

"I think this violates GitHub’s AUP" is a kind of point. "You lack a moral center” sounds like your own compensatory projection of your guilt onto others to feel better, and is not a point - too many years on the inside? That is just a personal accusation, and I do not accept it. I bundle it up, and pass it back to you, reflected. You don't know me, and you're totally wrong in everything you tried to say about me. Which of course you wouldn't know anything at all about. All your information is bad, dude, and always has been. You don't check it? Sounds like you don't.

Ghostbox is not reselling or reoffering GitHub’s service. It is a CLI that helps a person create and connect to workflows in their own GitHub account, using their own Actions minutes, for software development work. The underlying pieces are already possible with `gh`, workflow files, tmate, SSH, and normal Actions usage.

It is founded on the idea of the Global Free Tier - that GitHub led the way in providing. Odd for you to criticize it given your work on UBI. But I suppose you prefer compliant dependents rather than empowered independent creators, right?

If GitHub says a specific part violates the terms, I’ll take that seriously. But your dislike of the workflow is 0% proof of any ToS violation, and it is 0% permission to try attack my character.

> You are clearly lacking a moral center or have killed your inner voice that normally speaks to people and tells them right from wrong.

That is a crazy thing to say, do you know that? I want you to go stand in front of a mirror and say that to yourself. Then imagine the kind of perosn you are, saying that to someone else. You are clearly just talking about yourself in that crazed statement. I do not accept that, in any way, that is all yours. But wow, you really do talk like an abusive person - but you don't loook like one. I guess you can't always tell.

I’m asking people to evaluate what the project actually does, not the moral story you are projecting onto it that you need to be true for your weird little twisted perosnal reasons that have 0% to do with me. I'm not actually sure you can do better - I'd like to think you could, any MD-based ex-NSA TAO spook could see that a regular perosn could. Obviously, you are 0% qualified to judge anything about moral character at all, yet you were so desperate to try that in your little comment above. Sorry, this is not your opprotunity to have moral feelgood moment compensation for all your years of bad by trying to abuse someone else. Rejected. Go figure out your issues yourself.

You really picked the wrong person to try to say that to, bud.

> Ghostbox is not reselling or reoffering GitHub’s service. It is a CLI that helps a person create and connect to workflows in their own GitHub account, using their own Actions minutes, for software development work.

You are not advertising it that way. I'm not the only person to call you out in these comments. Dozens of people have told you the same thing, and you've summarily dismissed all of their comments.

Clearly either you are doing something wrong (violating the ToS), or you are advertising a service that appears to be violating the ToS. If it's the latter, maybe you might want to change your website to be a little clearer, like stating that it requires a Github account and it will use that account and any ToS violations are on the user.

I'm amazed at your ability to tell others that they need to self-reflect while appearing to lack any capacity for self-reflection yourself. You solicited feedback and dozens of intelligent people are telling you the exact same thing, and you dismissed them and/or called them crazy.

> Odd for you to criticize it given your work on UBI.

It's not odd at all if you understood my work or understood that your service advertises itself as abusing another company's resources. FYI, I work in VBI, not UBI (and the distinction is precisely about abusing other people's resources without permission), but this isn't a conversation about my work, it's about your work.

> I'd like to think you could, any MD-based ex-NSA TAO spook could see that a regular perosn could.

No idea what you're saying here. Are you now making up false accusations about me? Speaking of abusive behavior.

> Happy to know what you think and talk about it.

Seems you aren't actually happy to hear what others think. Maybe don't solicit feedback on a high-traffic website if you don't want to hear it?

Fair point on calirty: if the site made Ghost/ghostbox sound like hosted computed services/reselling rather than the local CLI using your GH account and action's minutes that it in fact is, I might tigthen that wording.

Which obviously does not make it abuse or ToS violation simply because of that. As to whatever else you were going on with: all meer personal attack/insinuation, not argument. Critique Ghostbox's actual activity, not whatever you are projecting onto me.

"call you out", "lack any capacity for self-reflection", "advertises itself as abusing", "abusing people's resources without permission", "speaking of abusive behavior".

Maybe see someone about this - this is unhinged, and fixated on projective accusation (the symptom of an inability to self-reflect or process uncomfortable internals), and it's also out and out lies. Sir, there's nothing to 'call out', there's no abuse, only your lies, mistaken beliefs and invented narratives, which I corrected within an hour of the post going up, by replying directly across the thread and relating what ghost actually was.

Yet you and others persisted with the falsehood, despite the truth being repeated. This is your wilfull misrepresentation, nothing to do with me.

Yet you want me to defend what you are projecting? I completely reject that frame.

What's more - the advertising is good, it doesn't sell itself as "abusing another company's resources". If the website lacks some clarity which it might - you don't get to fill the gap with malice, then abuse from your chosen misframing. That is bad behavior. And all those who did that are all wrong. And not "intelligent"

None of it justified the level of misunderstanding in this thread - which can only be a kind of crowd madness, or deliberate lies, and then abuse of the repo flag/report button to get the repo auto disabled.

Maybe some of these sockpuppet accounts don't want you to know you can run your isolated agentic ephemeral workflows directly on your own Actions minutes, rather than paying their Tilde.run/Fly.io type startup.

Of course I'm happy to discuss my beloved and beautiful projects and to hear opinions on opportunities for enhancements - but abuse and personal attacks are simply not acceptable nor appropriate behavior to level at anyone unprovoked and with 0 justification. What I say to you, I say in response to your abuse and badness. Soliciting feedback is never an invitation to abusers and doesn't justify their bad acts.

Refusing to agree with or refusing to take someone's abuse is and lies in silence is not lack of self-reflection, but an expression of boundaries and self love. Something I hope you come to know clearly. You're not qualified to judge self-reflection. Self-reflection is not the same thing as surrendering to a crowd narrative. I can enhance any messaging copy without accepting the accusations. What you have said here is simply not true.

You have no right to talk to me like that, and I hope for you and others around you, you can do better at offering "intelligent critique" by grounding it in listening, empathy and facts before launching such an ignorant and shameful tirade as the one you misguidedly made up here.