Rekall not longer available from theKompany.com

[John Dean]

Many of our supporters have sent email asking for a reason why Rekall has
been taken away from theKompany.com (TKC). Basically, the answer is TKC is
bankrupt. TKC's team of developers have not been paid for over 5 months
(some even longer).

Sometime in June this year, we were are told to find alternative work until
TKC's financial situation improves. The development of Rekall is a full time
job so Mike and myself were unable to comply, since we were already
committed to releasing Rekall V2.1.0 in a timely manner. We decided that it
was unfair to our customers to expect them to wait for TKC's finanical
situation to improve, which could be anything from 12 months to 3 years.
Consequently, Mike and I decided that it would be in the best interest of
our customers if we took back Rekall and continued its development alone.

You may remember what happened with Black Adder, TKCs Python IDE. TKC
released for sale Black Adder beta over 3 years ago at a discounted price,
with a promise of a free upgrade once BA V1.0 stable was completed. BA V1.0
stable made its first appearance at the end of August this year, over 3
years late. This kind of thing is not going to happen with Rekall.

Rekall will always be available from http://www.totalrekall.co.uk and
http://www.rygannon.com. Furthemore, there may be the possibility that
sometime in the future we will release Rekall under the GPL and only charge
a nominal fee for email support on a subscription basis, so keep an eye on
either of the Total Rekall Portals

On behalf of Mike and myself I would like to apoloze for any inconvenience
or confusion our actions may caused.

 

[Shawn Gordon]

We had to let John go this last week, we tried to do it in an amicable
fashion, but John had and has been enganged in this type of activity
for a bit now. Everything in this email is a complete fabrication.
John cannot legally sell the Rekall software, nor does he own it.

I'm sorry for any confusion this might have caused anyone, but we're
still here and will be here for a long time to come.

Shawn Gordon
President
theKompany.com

 

[GrayGeek]

We had to let John go this last week, we tried to do it in an amicable
fashion, but John had and has been enganged in this type of activity
for a bit now. Everything in this email is a complete fabrication.
John cannot legally sell the Rekall software, nor does he own it.

I'm sorry for any confusion this might have caused anyone, but we're
still here and will be here for a long time to come.

Shawn Gordon
President
theKompany.com

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/15/1042520666517.html
"How profitable is thekompany.com?


Surely you jest . Last year was good for us, our best yet, we're hovering
at the break even point basically. Keep in mind this company was founded
and funded out of my own pocket, and I'm not, nor ever was, wealthy, there
are no outside investors. In 3.5 years we've built up almost 40
applications running on four platforms with a team of people I've never
physically met. It's a little frustrating to see companies getting funded
with millions of dollars for just ideas that never pan out when we have a
proven track record, but then again we've never actually tried to raise
money, we've built it all on the sweat of our collective brow and some
personal sacrifice, but we all believe in what we are doing, and enjoy the
process and our friends to the extent you can be friends with people you've
never met and have never talked to on the phone. "

 

[Lothar Scholz]

for a bit now. Everything in this email is a complete fabrication.

Hmmm, as far as i can remember his comment about the 3 years delay of
the beta phase of Black Adder is not a fabrication. And because the
difference made between beta and final is so small i think he is more
honest then you.

 

[Dmitry Poplavsky]

(e-mail address removed) (Shawn Gordon) wrote in message


Hmmm, as far as i can remember his comment about the 3 years delay of
the beta phase of Black Adder is not a fabrication. And because the
difference made between beta and final is so small i think he is more
honest then you.

The diference between beta and release not small,
the release is a totally new application.


Regards
Dmitry.

 

[Alex Martelli]

(e-mail address removed) (Shawn Gordon) wrote in message


Hmmm, as far as i can remember his comment about the 3 years delay of
the beta phase of Black Adder is not a fabrication. And because the
difference made between beta and final is so small i think he is more
honest then you.

Hmmm, speaking as a reasonably disinterested observer: yes, Blackadder _was_
in beta for a surprisingly long time. However, the final release seems to
have quite a different architecture than the earlier betas -- instead of
trying to re-do a fully integrated "variant subset of" Qt Designer, it
"shells out" to a bona fide Qt Designer. Personally, I like this choice,
but, like or dislike, I don't see how the difference can be ignored.


Alex

 

[Alex Martelli]

Shawn Gordon wrote:
...

John cannot legally sell the Rekall software, nor does he own it.

*OUCH* -- with you claiming this against them, and they claiming the
same against you, we're exactly in the situation where any potential
customer will run away from Rekall and back into MS Access _fast_...
who needs to risk lawsuits?! Unlikely as it may be, given the current
appearance of enmity, I sure hope you and them can come to some kind
of agreement on this "detail" and make a joint announcement about it,
otherwise, this may just be the Knell of Death for Rekall in the
corporate market, and nobody ain't gonna make any money from it, no
matter who's right and who's wrong about the present controversy.

I do sometimes get asked for advice about "an Access-like product
that's cross-platform" and the like, but I couldn't in good faith
suggest Rekall if I thought that could potentially send the purchaser
into the midst of a legal controversy. Sigh.


Alex

 

[John J. Lee]

Hmmm, as far as i can remember his comment about the 3 years delay of
the beta phase of Black Adder is not a fabrication. And because the
difference made between beta and final is so small i think he is more
honest then you.

It's hard to see how somebody (apparently) falsely claiming the
bankruptcy of a company can be described as behaving honestly.


John

 

[Todd Stephens]

I do sometimes get asked for advice about "an Access-like product that's
cross-platform" and the like, but I couldn't in good faith suggest
Rekall if I thought that could potentially send the purchaser into the
midst of a legal controversy. Sigh.

I don't see much controversy here. If the work was done for theKompany,
then it is a work made for hire, no? In that case, theKompany owns the
rights to the software.

 

[John Hall]

I don't see much controversy here. If the work was done for theKompany,
then it is a work made for hire, no? In that case, theKompany owns the
rights to the software.

yes, in the usual case. But JD claims that the programmers have not
been paid for the past five months, and probably a significant part of
Rekall was done in that time. (Or maybe not - I might not be very
productive if not being paid as expected).

This things appears to be a nasty mess, and as Alex says, needs to be
clarified pronto.

 

[GrayGeek]

I don't see much controversy here. If the work was done for theKompany,
then it is a work made for hire, no? In that case, theKompany owns the
rights to the software.

That depends upon the contract, if any, which was signed. I ran my own
consulting business for 18 years and part of my contract boiler plates
handled situations about code ownership. The algorithms and knowledge I
possessed before a contract were not transfered to the client. They owned
the product I delivered to them, including the source, but they agreed they
wouldn't use it to compete against me, as an early client tried to do. Any
proprietary knowledge about their business I learned while writing their
software remained theirs. Any knowledge I acquired which was independent
of their area remained with me...etc.... If course, my working rules also
followed the 20 IRS rules for independent contractors.

If John Dean was an independent contractor, and the URL I cited in a
previous posting, which is a comment by Shawn Gordon himself, seemed to
imply such, ("a team of people I've never physically met." ... "to the
extent you can be friends with people you've never met and have never
talked to on the phone.") then I get the impression that Gordon was a
marketeer, a person selling code 'on consignment' and that he had a
'friendly' relationship, not a contractual one, with several coders around
the world. John Dean may have happened to be one who lives in the US.

I'm sure we'll find out more as the days pass by. Probably someone will
post pertinent sections of a contract, or examples of prior art, etc...
Meanwhile, ReKall appears to be in some sort of limbo for those putative
customers who don't want to be left stranded by legal wrangles. Gordon
legal power may be effective here, but not at other locations around the
globe where other contributors to theKompany code base live.
???

 

[Paul Rubin]

It's hard to see how somebody (apparently) falsely claiming the
bankruptcy of a company can be described as behaving honestly.

The claim that I see is that:

Basically, the answer is TKC is bankrupt. TKC's team of developers
have not been paid for over 5 months (some even longer).

The word "bankrupt" is qualified by the word "basically" which I take
to mean that TKC is out of money but there has not yet necessarily
been a legal filing of bankruptcy. On the other hand, the claim that
the dev team hasn't been paid for >= 5 months is specific and either
true or false.

Are you saying that the claim is false and that the developers have
actually been paid within the past 5 months?

 

[John J. Lee]

The claim that I see is that:

Basically, the answer is TKC is bankrupt. TKC's team of developers
have not been paid for over 5 months (some even longer).

The word "bankrupt" is qualified by the word "basically" which I take
to mean that TKC is out of money but there has not yet necessarily
been a legal filing of bankruptcy. On the other hand, the claim that

[...]

OK. It certainly didn't read that way to me. But I guess I should
assume it was just unclear rather than dishonest. Apologies!

Are you saying that the claim is false and that the developers have
actually been paid within the past 5 months?

No idea!


John

 

[Todd Stephens]

The claim that I see is that:

Basically, the answer is TKC is bankrupt. TKC's team of developers
have not been paid for over 5 months (some even longer).

The word "bankrupt" is qualified by the word "basically" which I take to
mean that TKC is out of money but there has not yet necessarily been a

Regardless of the OP's intentions, I think the word "bankrupt" is not
qualified by "basically" so much as it is qualified by "is".

 

[Paul Rubin]

Regardless of the OP's intentions, I think the word "bankrupt" is not
qualified by "basically" so much as it is qualified by "is".

I read the OP as saying TKC is basically bankrupt. I don't know what
the actual facts surrounding TKC are. I didn't see any indication
that it had legally filed bankruptcy and I don't really care since I'm
not a creditor. What I want to know is whether it's paying its
programmers and shipping product. There are conflicting claims about
whether it's paying its programmers. Which claims are correct?

 

[Todd Stephens]

What I want to know is whether it's paying its programmers and shipping
product. There are conflicting claims about whether it's paying its
programmers. Which claims are correct?

True enough. I would say they are shipping product, though I don't know
the status of Rekall specifically. The libertarian side of me wants to
side with the programmer (the 'little-guy' individual trying to make a
living), but the consumer side of me (who is a satisfied owner of several
of tKc's embedded products) wants to side with the company.

BTW, is Kapital written in Python? I don't see why this thread is even
here save for tKc's involvement with BlackAdder.

 

[Paul Rubin]

True enough. I would say they are shipping product, though I don't know
the status of Rekall specifically. The libertarian side of me wants to
side with the programmer (the 'little-guy' individual trying to make a
living), but the consumer side of me (who is a satisfied owner of several
of tKc's embedded products) wants to side with the company.

Why side with the company if it's not paying its programmers? The
business model was charge for the software and use some of the cash to
pay the programmers. If the programmers aren't getting paid, the
correct pro-consumer sentiment is to call for the software to be
released for free.

 

[Lothar Scholz]

It's hard to see how somebody (apparently) falsely claiming the
bankruptcy of a company can be described as behaving honestly.

Maybe i'm wrong with the difference between the Beta and Final of
Black Adder.
I just looked at the Feature List and that didn't change very much.

But i don't see any statement about the financial state of
"TheKompany", and
not commenting John's statement is also a comment. If it is true that
the programmer are not paid for 5 month i think the consequence is
absolutely
clear.

 

[John Hall]

BTW, is Kapital written in Python? I don't see why this thread is even
here save for tKc's involvement with BlackAdder.

The OP was about Rekall, not Kapital or BlackAdder.
Rekall _IS_ in Python.

 

[Ian Bicking]

True enough. I would say they are shipping product, though I don't
know
the status of Rekall specifically. The libertarian side of me wants to
side with the programmer (the 'little-guy' individual trying to make a
living), but the consumer side of me (who is a satisfied owner of
several
of tKc's embedded products) wants to side with the company.

BTW, is Kapital written in Python? I don't see why this thread is even
here save for tKc's involvement with BlackAdder.

Rekall is the topic of discussion, and it's Python. Looks pretty cool
too -- a niche that badly needs filling by something Open Source.
Well, it still does need filling since Rekall is commercial...