"Future Tech" vs KDE Developer

Once in awhile a story comes along that warrants mention just so that people know to be careful. Mosfet is a KDE coder (who has had tension with KDE in the past and left some ill will over there). He was hired by Future Technology to continue work on his Liquid KDE style and theme (my personal favorite). But they never paid him, so he removed their name and mentioned it in the Changelog. Now FT is threatening legal action to get the Changelog off the net. But it's more bizarre because MandrakeSoft is the host, and the site remains up. Keep reading if you're interested in a few more bits.

I've been a huge fan of Liquid for some time. I've been compiling releases and using on my laptop. The project isn't nearly as ambitious as Enlightenment, but it has some interesting UI ideas and it looks good. I was really pleased when I found out that Mosfet was going to have a shot at continuing the development of the program for FT under the KDE License. At this point, FT ("The Total Linux Company," according to their website) mentioned a few of the features in Liquid as being part of the benefits of FT's distribution. This was to set them apart from "Other" distributions, although even at the time I found it funny, as The final decision in selecting one RPM based distribution over another would rarely be tipped in favor of the one with translucent menus ;)

Anyway the Changelog contains the following line:

* Future Technologies' name has been removed. They hired me to do KDE development, but failed to pay me after promising to do so three times over the span of several months :( I still haven't seen any of the paychecks they said they would send me, and they even went as far as sending me a fake FedEx number. Now they are saying they can't afford to pay their employees.

And soon after Mosfet's website announced that he was leaving Linux and Liquid was dead. Unable to afford to develop Liquid for free, he was seeking work in the windows world.

According to the site, on 10/28, Dr. Giovanni asked Mandrakesoft, the host of Mosfet.org to take down the site, under threat of legal action. But since I see the site still there, it looks like they are standing their ground which is a good thing.

Anyway, I don't know what the moral of the story is, beyond a warning to keep both eyes open. There is a lot of questionable stuff that goes on in this world. Be careful.

(I've emailed Giovanni from FT but have yet to hear back from him.)

Comments

Sad Story

[digital_freedom]

This is a sad case of an open source software developer getting burned by companies promising large and delivering little. It just shows how important it is to keep control of your intellectual property until the checks roll in.

Re:Sad Story

[AndroidCat]

It's not all bad. Sure, the guy got screwed. The company got screwed and now they're threatening Mandrakesoft.

How did the company get screwed? It can hardly be "work for hire" if they never paid him. And since it's open source, they can still use the code.

It's been my experience that as soon as a company gets shifty with paycheques: bouncing, not paying on time with no notification or explaination, "the cheque is in the mail" and it isn't, etc, then it's time to prep-to-bail ASAP.(One trick for cheque-bouncers: Take it to their bank and try to get it certified. If it fails, wait until payday for the remaining employees and try again.)

Mechanic's lein

[Russ Nelson]

Seems to me that, if the facts are as stated, Mosfet has a clear mechanic's lein on the software. If it was done as a work for hire, and he was not paid, then he owns the copyright free and clear.
-russ

oh, come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mosfet is maybe a good programmer - but he surely doesn't know either to do person to person work (meaning - to keep business relationships straight and know how to work with people "above" him)...

Go ahead - ask any KDE developer about Mosfet behavior, how he cannot accept responsibility with deadlines (no mosfet, you cannot add big features after freeze and after everyone submitted everything!), how he leaves projects dead in the cold after he started them (remember Pixie? his daily desktop screenshot maybe? etc..) and how he's kicked out of every job (Mandrake, thekompany, and others who simply didn't want to hire him because his 5 years old behavior)

So no, I don't know the story exactly about his relations with Future Technologies - but if I might guess - he managed once again to piss off few people there...

MOSFET - GROW UP!

YoGy

Re:paycheck

[aePrime]

I used to be a full-time employee for an animation studio. I quit, and later came back and worked freelance for them for a week. They didn't pay me. I bugged them for three months, and finally threatened them saying that I was in contact with the Department of Labor, which I was. They finally paid up. I suggest the same to this guy.

Re:Other UI Styles?

[Samawi I]

QNiX is a new style that's been getting alot of attention lately:
http://apps.kde.com/nfinfo.php?vid=4234

For more themes and styles for KDE there is a new website as well:
http://www.kde-look.org/

Samawi I

Re:Liquid theme

[MouseR]

You can't copyright colours. Apple cannot stop me from using a total rip off of the OSX interface, so long as I don't use their logo,

Actually, that's not quite correct.

While you can't copyright colors, you must also remember that AQUA is not a color. But an overall design and functionality spec.

Now that you can protect, and it's called a trade dress.

A trade dress is a visual representation of an object that identifies a product to it's manufacturer.

Basically, this is what Apple used to defend it's iMac from cheap knock-offs, like what eMachine had with it's eOne.

Future Tech Products

[christooley]

It's no wonder that they "can't pay their employees", they're charging $49.95 for a beta version of the FTOSX. Not only are they not going to sell enough of these to pay for a developer to build anything, they aren't going to come close to paying a legal team to fight the OSX name usage battle.

Take them to a collection agency

[goingware]

The Commercial Lawyers Network - "the internet collection agency" - has an easy to use form you can fill out to begin the collection process.

They also have attorneys on staff, and will work with law firms in other cities if it comes to a lawsuit and you need local representation.

They take 20%, which is quite a bit, but note that they specialize in large business collections.

Re:Beware

[badzilla]

And of course there's always Free SSL for free one-year signed server certs. (That's http://www.freessl.com for all you non-clickers.)

Re:Is Mosfet In Breach of Contract??

[sinster]

When both parties to a contract are equally at breach, then judges usually rule that the contract is void, unless either or both parties can show real damages. In that case, the judges usually subtract the smaller real damages from the larger real damages, and awards the difference without allowing any punitive damages.

In this case, since Liquid was a "product" that existed before the contract with FT, I don't really see how a judge would award IP rights to FT.

Once again, I haven't seen the contract, blah blah blah. etc etc etc.