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"Future Tech" vs KDE Developer

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the employee-beware dept.

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.)

10 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting... by edashofy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the story is true, isn't it interesting that they can't afford to pay this guy for his work but they can afford the legal costs to sue him? Or maybe they got a lawyer to take it on contingency. If they won the lawsuit, would they have to pay him out of their winnings?

    1. Re:Interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      isn't it interesting that they can't afford to pay this guy for his work but they can afford the legal costs to sue him?

      Well I don't know if they are actually suing the guy. Anybody (including you!) can "threaten" to sue anybody else for the low, low price of $0.

  2. Re:I'd be interested to see the contract by sinster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IANYL

    Assuming that everything in the story is true, and that the contract included terms to pay Mosfet for his work, then FT is in breach of contract, and any consideration that Mosfet assigned to FT through the contract (including assignment of IP rights) is void. So all such considerations remain with Mosfet, and FT has no rights at all. In fact, Mosfet has the right to sue for breach of contract, which allows you to up the damages way beyond the real damages.

    Of course, this has a lot of assumptions in it. I certainly haven't read the contract, and I have no way to know that what Mosfet and FT are saying about the situation is even remotely true.

    --
    -- Nolite audere delere orbiculum rigidum meum.
  3. it's the name, stupid by Kiro · · Score: 5, Funny

    maybe they call themselves Future Tech because whenever you ask about the salary, they talk in the future tense

    .

  4. Best to withhold judgment. We've only seen 1 side by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've seen a few of these disputes with ex-employees. In many cases, the ex-employee posts material that is inaccurate (or even downright lies). Even so, the company can only hurt itself by getting into a public debate, and usually is advised to avoid this.

    Of course, it is also possible the facts are exactly as he stated. Without more information, you just can't tell.

  5. Why is this in censorship rather than humor? by Nailer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Come on, who didn't burst out laughing when they saw Future Tech's website?

  6. Evil thought... by sterno · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This may be slightly offtopic, but my thought came about because of how one problem with a developer can cascade into problems for other people, organizations, and companies.

    What if somebody began contributing code to the Linux Kernel? It might take a while for them to develop a good reputation, but perhaps over a year or two make a number of important contributions to the system. Then after they've thoroughly integrated their code into the kernel it turns out that their code violates somebody's intelletcual property. Be that copyright, patent law, etc. How would that effect the Kernel?

    What I was considering is that this might be a back door tactic that somebody like Microsoft could use. If they could get people to infest the kernel with copyrighted and patented code it could really hose up the works it seems.

    I don't know the feasibility of such an attack, but I figured I'd throw it out there and see what people think. Please feel free to gun down my post :)

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    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
    1. Re:Evil thought... by Corydon76 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      While it didn't happen exactly the way you put it, something along these lines did in fact happen to a very prominent open source operating system about 10 years ago.

      A large software company decided to sue these developers, because they believed the developers illegally used their source code. While there was some code which was borrowed (and it was subsequently rewritten to exclude that code), during the discovery phase of that trial, it was discovered that the commercial company had borrowed a great deal of code from the open source developers.

      The case was eventually settled and the code is still available.

      Guess which codebase? This was 4.4BSD vs the commercial System V Unix. The open source developers won this one, thanks to the fact that the commercial software developers couldn't keep their hands off the open source (obviously being of better quality).

    2. Re:Evil thought... by blakestah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What I was considering is that this might be a back door tactic that somebody like Microsoft could use. If they could get people to infest the kernel with copyrighted and patented code it could really hose up the works it seems.

      No, the world is moving in an altogether direction. Support. Microsoft is now selling subscriptions. They will sell this as comparable, but value added, compared to linux.

      To whit: if you get linux, you have to maintain it, and periodically upgrade it. This costs money. To get MSFT Windows, you need to purchase it, and pay subscription costs.

      Microsoft will be VERY convincing to CTOs that their model will end up saving the corporations money because of "hidden" support costs. This is Microsoft's big counter for linux being free. They pose as providing the thing that does cost money in linux - expertise and updating. This is a very intelligent business counter to Free Software. After all - this is M$ - and they do not bank a BILLION dollars in profit per month because they make dumb business decisions.

  7. Re:Liquid theme by MouseR · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.