Slashdot Mirror
Loki Aftermath Looks Bad
einer writes "Things look mighty bad for Loki employees. From this article it appears that some of them haven't seen a paycheck since late 2000. Perhaps the most telling part of the article is contained in a parenthetical near the bottom of the page: "A single employee is listed in creditor filings as being owed almost $350,000 in unpaid salary and in expenses the company incurred using the employee's credit card."" there's a lot of not-so-happy-stuff in this article.
Could this employee not file a dispute with his or her credit card issuer? Or is there a 'statute of limitations' of sorts in typical card-issuer fine print?
i am a soviet space shuttle
The stink about the credit card was mentioned before on slashdot. It was used to fund payroll, I'd link to the slashdot article but I think it was in comments to another Loki article.
They proboly won't ever see that money either.
http://www.nu-vision.org
do you STOP working there and demand some money? In my opinion, about 1 month of not being paid would be the end. Anyone who works longer than that without pay is a sucker, and i have no remorse if they get taken to the cleaners.
"i can never say no to anyone but you"
I think. Or maybe 30. Still. The company used his credit card? I think he might want to consider criminal theft charges against the principles. Or would it have been considered a loan?
Best Slashdot Co
Where I come from (Quebec), corporations can't claim bankrupcy protection for salaries: you can sue (personally) the board of directors of a company if you aren't paid your salary.
Don't these people have recourse ?
JP http://www.wearerite.com
Dang, and i thought dot bombs were bad. At least they died in early 2001, and not now.
Don't think that this is a mercurial or bad way to think. What would your employer have to say if you reneged on your half of the employment agreement, and then you had the nerve to demand six months of living expenses?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
During that period, however, the Draekers took almost $92,000 out of the company, according to court filings; in counter filings, Loki claimed that the funds went chiefly to pay employees, though it did note that Scott Draeker was paid $46,504 in salary during the period from January 15 to July 31, 2001, with Kayt Draeker receiving $18,643.52 during that time; the company paid medial insurance premiums for both during that period.
And it's this sort of thing, boys and girls, that causes me to never trust management. The real shame is that you've got employees who are going without their pay, ostensibly because of loyalty to the company, and then getting shafted in the end.
Moral of the story: When the company asks if they can stop paying you, don't agree to let them use your credit card.
Jesus fucking christ. As cool as the project is, don't these people have any common sense? You don't get paid for a year, you jump ship. I'd be gone after 2 bounced [or not received] paychecks. The market is shitty, but I'm sure that someone could hire them. Of course management got paid, this was a friggin sweatshop.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
They just can't catch a break. What happened is very unfortunate...but at least those employees got to work on one HELL of a project.
We dance to all the wrong songs.
--Refused.
If you work for a company who has not paid you in 6 months, what the hell are you doing letting them run up the balance on your personal credit cards? I hate to see these folks put in this position by their employer, but you have to use your fucking brain, too!
If you believe in something so much as to allow your employer to go 350,000 dollars in debt to *you*...maybe you should seriously consider opening your own company!
I had always wanted to consider Loki one of the "good guy underdogs". A company to root for. I mean, c'mon. They helped bring Quake3 to Linux, how could you NOT like them? But then I read this:
Instead of sending them W-2 income tax forms, they were sent 1099s, meaning that they are left to pay taxes on income for which the company was already supposed to have -- but hadn't -- paid federal withholding.
The question here is, did Loki without the taxes/FICA, etc. out of the paychecks? If they withheld, didn't deposit it, and then sent out a 1099, then the company should immediately be investigated for tax evasion and any other criminal charges that are relavent. This is fraud, and the victims are the employees. If the taxes were NOT withheld, then this is a non-issue. Yes, it sucks having a large tax amount due all at one, but thats life.
Who wants to take bets that this gets publicized as FUD that Linux does not a viable company make?
Toodles D. Clown
www.texasemployees.org
:-(
Of course, Loki is not in Texas so it doesn't help their employess much
That's not what I meant.
Even if you are a paid employee, be cautious about receiving any type of compensation by check from your employer. Even bonuses and advances.
Undoubtedly, you will receive a 1099 at the end of the year, this is standard accounting practice (and the law [in the States] for the company writing the check)
You are left holding the bag on taxes, so make sure you account for any mileage or other costs associated with making that extra money.
Bottom line: companies are keeping records, you should be too.
Maybe the Loki Employees should regroup and
bypass the management. Hopefully make some money
on thier own. Maybe they should go after Loki,
$350k.. that's criminal. I wonder if the employees
would win a cival case. I hate lawyers.
Here's a word to the wise, If an employer owes you a week's pay, cut your losses and move on!
Or sit there, do nothing but search for another job.
Wow, I never thought about this scenario, I've been lucky enough to never be there. A lot of companies issue corporate American Express cards to their employees so they can charge company expenses such as airline tickets, small equipment and software, etc. The employee is supposed to then file an expense report and be reimbursed for those expenses. Regardless, the employee is responsible for paying the card balance.
In this case it sounds like the employee was royally screwed by this arrangement. It's also possible that they never got around to filing an expense report. A few years ago I worked with one guy who hadn't filed expense report for eight months and was owed a few thousand dollars; the company sent him a letter saying he had to file by the end of the year or they wouldn't reimburse him.
1. Why is this person(s) still working without a paycheck?
2. How does this person survive? Programming is a demanding job and dosn't work well with 2 jobs+.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
From the article:
"Founded by California intellectual property lawyer..."
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
in the late 80s early 90s in the UK. the excuse was always that BACS (Bank Automated Clearing System) had "failed" - yeah, right. they would usually pay late - and usually a few days up to a couple weeks late, and often after some maintenance revenue came in, just coincidentally. one of our people took particular exception to this and checked her rights (this is late 80s UK remember) - apparently they could pay you up a month late and not get any flak for it legally. o'course it turned out that making waves about it got you put to the back of the queue next month, so no one ever did that twice. of course the irony of the thing was we were an accounting software company with BACS payroll modules - we knew exactly that BACS is like a rock, and so was the software...sympathies for those folks.
The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction, but they eat more steak.
Looks like a bunch of folks learned a very hard lesson in financial management.
What surprises me is that the corporations who invested in Loki didn't check things out more closely - they should have known better.
I think it would be a good idea if the folks who are owed salary sued the holders of the copyrights of the games they worked on for individual unlimited derivative work and distribution rights at very little or no cost in perpetuity - that way, they could get revenues from selling the games they worked on but didn't get paid for, and the folks that screwed them over would get very little or no money from it.
But that's just my view of fairness here.
Given enough hydrogen, just about anything is possible.
Suse / VA Linux should get the games, release them cheap / for free to get people to switch over to Linux.
Not sure what the agreements with id Software, Bungie, etc says. But I would be more than willing to pay the original came companies their $2 royalty for each game I could legally download.
"Loki to offer food settlement deal... Employes who have gone: 8 to 12 months without pay recieve 3 large 2-topper pizza's, 4 to 8 months with no pay recieve $25 in food voucher coupons from Safeway, and 1 to 4 months a free cup of coffee from... you guessed it, the COMPANY STAFF ROOM!!"
Life is a journey. . . enjoy it!
When a company switches to Linux (AOL, for example), the Linux bigots in the office broadcast the message to all in a loud voice.
When a Linux company goes out of business (Loki, for example), the Linux bigots remain completely silent.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
is he supposed to be important?
The key to not having your suppliers/employees leave at the first sign of trouble is having open accounting in your company. I'm run a small consulting firm - and had a cash crunch a few years ago, and *nobody* cared because all my books were open. Everything. Salary, expenses, capital items, AP, AR. Even contracts for all/upcoming jobs. Everything. If you looked at the books you could see that I just planned improperly - I ran out and got a personal loan, and all was well a month later.
The gratest thing about open books, is that you don't have to lie. And you can't fool yourself into thinking things are better than they are.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Anyone who still thinks you can create a viable business selling linux software, raise your hand...
There's one big problem with being paid via 1099 instead of W2: you have to pay your own half of the social security taxes, instead of having your employer pay it. Take a look at that FICA section of your paystub, and that's what you personally end up paying again.
So even if Loki did not take out Federal and state taxes, the employees still got shafted for almost 10% of their pay. This is why consultants charge more when they work under a 1099.
Not to mention that 1099 recipients usually have to file quarterly taxes, and the employees may well be in for some nasty penalties for missing filing for almost a year.
Its not all free massages and BMWs.
Really it depends on how much you enjoy the job and how much you can afford to be without pay. If I really enjoyed my job, and could afford to do so, I could be convinced to stay a month or two if I thought the company was about to turn around.
:). If you enjoy the job enough, it's better than sitting at home.
Of course during that month or two some portion of my time at the office would probably be spent actively seeking another job. Somehow I don't think your boss can get to irritated if you take the afternoon off for an interview if you haven't been paid in a month
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
This is why you don't work for one if you have a mortgage to pay and three kids in college. Look at most start-ups and you see two types - the very young and the very rich.
Linux is the best OS ever.
I can't imagine doing anything without it.
Props go out to Tux, Linus and Alan.
If someone is planning on going into business, having a passion for Linux, wanting to make money on Linux software get some pros to deal with the money and marketing. Linux software is not an impossible market to conquer, but it's hard. It's like learning how to hack; don't jump right into the Linux kernel, leave that to Linus and Alan Cox the first few years. The ideal thing (for business ) would be to get Bill Gates - the evil of business himself - to run your company.
Look a monkey!
At the risk of being flamed, I have to say this:
What do you think of darling Loki now??
Linux gamers flocked to these forums pleading with people -- even non-gamers -- to buy something from Loki so they could stay afloat. Hopefully this will show that blind loyalty to a platform (Linux, Windows, who cares? They're all OSes, not religions) is sometimes misguided. If I would have temporarily dropped my who-cares-about-games-on-Linux stance and bought something from Loki, I'm guessing I would have only been supporting the allegedly crooked Draeker clan instead of supporting the company.
Sorry, but supporting a friggin' IP lawyer like Draeker isn't my idea of money well spent. The best we can hope for at this point is that the Draekers carry all of the guilt (if it's proven they're guilty) without dragging down Linux. I would think that's possible. The guy sounds like the s**t that s**t scrapes off its shoes. Folks who run companies and end up screwing the folks that made their business work deserve whatever hell that's dished out for them.
It's another scam all right. The scam is called Open Source.
Cunning linguists
Can you guys stop saying that Loki is an example of Open Source not doing well!
The only thing Open Source about Loki is the differen libs the developped to make porting 100x easier and that's all...here we are talking about games coming out sometimes more than 1 year after the Windows version and thats what killed Loki..and nothing else! If Companies like ID and others would just do the parallel dev. like they do on some Mac titles then Linux Gaming would be entirely different...and money could be made....the point of my post is that Loki didnt follow a Open Source Buiseness model..That's all!
Not only this, but they are going to have a hard time finding a job.
Why not go ahead and comment on the on all the IT industry. There have been massive layoffs in the IT industry, and they aren't the only ones feeling the salary woes.
Best thing you can say is to get a job to pay the rent, and wait for the recession to subside.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Having talked with several employees that worked for Loki, I feel I can honestly say that several of them were terribly idealistic and sold on the idea that Linux had a bright future on the desktop. Not only that, but that Loki was at the forefront of capitalizing on that bright future and that happy days were just around the corner. For someone that has even a modicum of idealism and a love for Linux and the future of free software, this wasn't hard to believe. Just look at the timeline and you can see that in the first year, things looked amazingly positive. Several games published. Quake 3 Arena in tin boxes. UT also being published (albeit not by Loki) just added more credence to the idea that Linux and the idea of Linux gaming were coming of age quickly.
As has been said before, Loki did several things correctly. That is, if a company has to appeal to the Linux community, then they should follow Loki's lead. Contacts in IRC and on newsgroups. Good tech support. The whole crazy LokiHack idea. They were all great ideas and pulled the community into the SDURF (Scott Draeker Un-Reality Field). If you have ever visited these forums where Lokiites could be found, you would have found out how enthusiastic everyone was about what was going on. These people believed and were willing to be poor but doing what they loved to make it happen.
Unfortunately, Loki seems to have been terribly mismanaged. It is unwise to go into details, but suffice to say that it could not sustain itself with the leadership that it had. Look at the timeline again, and you can see when people started to give up and leave for real paying employment. Look at the frequency of games after the beginning of 2000. Look at the SMAC debacle. Look at the crap that was released at the end (i.e. Postal Plus). Sadly, some gave up later than others, and suffered even more for that sacrifice.
Sometimes a dream means more than money or even family. In the case of Loki, it appears that those dreams were sold and exploited, hurting both the talented people that ported the games and provided the support and the people in the Linux community that bought the products. On a larger scale, the image of Linux has been tarnished as well, and it will make it even harder to move on from this fall.
I yearn for you tragically
AT Tappman,
Chaplain, US Army
The endgame, where questionable accounting practices and behaviour become clear, is perhaps a last, grim fascination, like watching a reckless driver plow into a schoolbus full of children, then rationalize it all away, and even go so far as to extend blame to the victims.
In our case, the VC's had been skimming millions off the top, each month, as they clamined the company was continuing to lose money and cut staff. Checks were kept in drawers until vendors refused to deliver freight in their care, until paid. Benefits vendors weren't paid, some were signed on with known problems meeting their own bills, because they were cheaper (no kidding.)
Watching round after round of layoffs and then ripple effect waves of departures of those who couldn't stand it any longer. And amazingly, the execs always seem to have a golden parachute contract and get away relatively unscathed.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Where is my paycheck?
You don't need to see a paycheck.
I don't need to see a paycheck.
You don't need to be reimbursed for your credit card purchases.
I don't need to be reimbursed for my credit card purchses.
You can go back to your cubicle.
I can go back to my cubicle.
Move along.
Employee shuffles off.
I work for a big, blue company, and you can bet that the checks had better be VERY regular. Of course, they're a bit more well-heeled than just about everyone, but this isn't my hobby. It's a JOB. I enjoy it, but I sell my time to my employer so I can buy what I need to live.
Showing up to work even one day after having your paycheck not be there is crazy.
I've told my employees that if I ever miss a paycheck, they should quit immediately, regardless of what I say at the time. I tell them not to believe me if I say it will get better. I've never seen things get better for a company once they stop being able to make payroll. I don't suppose that the visual effects business is any different than any other business in that respect. Once you start digging a hole it becomes increasingly impossible to ever get out of it.
The problem is, that once a company starts foundering, the founders often begin to lose touch with reality and start making promises that they can't keep -- whether or not they know that is not really an issue. The hole is not only financial (although that's a big enough hurdle on its own) but it's also bad will, that is, the accumulated acrimony festering within the company.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Corporation.
Criminally Liable.
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa...!
Mod the parent up: +1 Funny.
The programmers must have had bitchin' hydroponic weed to stay that long.
This happened to me at a company I worked for in Texas - it was a very, very small company I worked at right after college. At first they slipped a paycheck or two and then made it up... but after a while they slipped more and more and eventually they were four months behind on paychecks.
How do you survive? Credit cards, the debt from which it takes you years to get rid of.
Why do you stay? It's pretty easy to say (as many here have) "I'd be gone that month!" The reality is that sometimes you really like what you do and don't want to leave the situation. Sometimes you might not have very good options for leaving like if you just bought a house or were just finishing college there and would loose a bunch of credit by moving. Sometimes (especially starting out) your feelings are that you want to be a loyal employee and not abandon a company at the first sign of trouble (an easy feeling to have when your company is small enough that you know the owners well). Sometimes you are just young and inexperienced and don't really know when is a good time to leave.
When I left I moved out of state, and since I was leaving for good I demanded they give me full back pay - which they actually did cough up. My condolences to these employees that may not see anything from this at all. Good luck and I hope you have better luck with your future employers!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With all the support behind Linux and all the demand for Linux games the premier company producing these very games goes bust.
This companies problems making money selling Linux products will definately make other companies setup and take notice.
I don't understand why people would keep working for their employer when they aren't getting paid. You are better off working as a janitor and getting a paycheck (that doesn't bounce), than working for supercool company. The odds of it ever working out and getting a big payoff at the end, (or for that matter just getting paid) are so small, that it just isn't worth it.
My Weblog
You are risk-averse. Startups are inherently risk-prone. Act accordingly.
Loki continually cut corners in how they did business. Withen four months of putting out a game port, they would become sluggish in putting out ports of patches which several times effected interoptablity of network game play. They even went as far as to never include the required written notification that LGPL works (such as glibc) where included in statically linked binaries. It wasn't that Loki didn't know about the LGPL (they put out works themselves under the LGPL) but full compliance with the LGPL was just yet another thing they didn't have time for. So... they screwed their employees too. Why am I not surprised? They screwed their customers (tried to play that $50 Loki Tribes2 against a true up to date Windows Tribes2 player lately?), they screwed Free Software advocates by blowing off LGPL requirements, and they also screwed their employees. Sounds like Scott Draeker was an unbias all around screw-you-over type of guy. And we are supposed to take his word for it as to if TransGaming is good or bad for Linux?! With "friends" like Scott Draeker to screw you over, who needs enemies?
Loyalty.
Company.
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa...!
Man that's funny.
Um, except that Loki's main products were closed-source conventionally-licensed games. Yes, they did release some libraries (e.g. SDL, OpenAL) under GPL. But those were just a building blocks for their main business: selling conventional, commercial software in exchange for money.
If OSS somehow does get tainted by the Loki story, then it really is dishonest FUD. Loki never had (or claimed to have, that I know of) an Open Source revenue model.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I have a feeling that when salaries weren't paid, it wasn't because people paying salaries were evil, it was because they didn't have anywhere to get that money from.
You have to sell products in order to get income - It looks to me that Loki was based on trust on community to buy the games if they make them. I've bought their products, and I am happy about them, even if they are not free. They are good products for platform that is free and kind I like.
People should rethink before they apply the "all software should be free"-card on recreational products, they might be the ones draining the well.
I hope none of you did pirate those fine products.
and this is different form when the Windows bigots come around toting XP as the best thing since sliced productivity? and then dont say a damn thing when the UPNP remote root exploit is discovered?
or how mac users come around and show off hot new hardware and OSX and such...and then fail to realize they have 10% market share?
i use and love (well i dont love windows, but its necessary) all three operating systems in their own right. each has a place, and each has its triumphs as well as mistakes. companies are good, companies are bad (and some are downright evil). you cant go around saying things like that without a small reality check.
judge not lest ye be judged.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
The first words of Heretic II seem prophetic.
...but programmers sure don't.
I'll bet all the guys cheated were under 25.
By the time you hit 30, you realize its just a job and *you want to get paid*.
Chris Beckenbach
Pay everyone fairly. MY coworker makes more than i do, thats fine hes better than i am. If hes not, i discuss it with the boas, and ask to be paid more or equal to him, and if the answer is no, i get the reasons why. If i agree, than i keep my current pay scale, if i disagree, then i start looking for another job somewhere else.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
By being nothing but open and honest about why employees are paid the amount they are paid. Start with clearly defined roles and responsibilities then add clearly defined performance metrics. It's almost self managing because everyone has an idea of what everyone else is supposed to be doing to earn what they are earning.
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
Loki's investors probably think that they will be able to grab whatever IP is left over once the company vanishes for good, maybe they will add it to thier VC vaults... But, since the employees weren't paid, I don't think you could actually call them employees at all. So all of the NDA's and employment contracts are null and void, it's all bad faith. If they hope to touch the leftover IP, they had better pay the employees pretty quick.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Balmer is the sort of man that you expect to spontanously touch you and maybe give people backrubs when he walks by. Balmer should by all means be confined to a hippy programer commune for the duration of his methaphetimine days.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
If anyone cares, Scott Draeker's wife (Kayt Draeker, aka Kathryn Rosa Sorhaindo Draeker) has a web page.
She's the one that was "listed in corporate papers as the company's secretary".
damn those people for working on Linux projects without getting paid for it! What were they THINKING??? Giving away their work hours like they were free beer!
Some people just don't understand capitalism, I swear.
</sarcasm>
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
That's how the market works. Those Loki employee's didn't have to work for Loki in the first place. It was a startup and venture a small business if you will. They also didn't have to hang around after things got rocky. This is how the strongest economy in the world works and should continue to work. If the governments going to bail out every failing business and their employees then we may as well stop working!
"Buy piracy doesn't hurt anyone. IT's not like they'll miss one copy..."
Right.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
This kills me, first, it seems more like they were investors than employeeds, 350k isnt exactly a months salary even for me :)
Ive taken cuts and once a pay period delay, why, I belived in the company, knew the books, and knew 2 weeks from then Id be paid plus a bonus for my inconvinence.
Continuing on a path with no end in sight seems more like an investment and is probably aruably not covered by the employment laws. Not that they cant recover it just may be a wee bit tougher.
I saw a documentary on the Russian Nayv, a western news crew walks onboard a battleship in dock, they can only find ONE , that it ONE crew member and his family living in the ship, they ask the guy why he stays for 7 months with no pay, he answers with a confused look. "What happens if one day I dont show and we get paid ?" he was absolutley confused by the reporters question, we are after all talkking about a fellow that not too long before and his whole life had to stand 8 hours in line for toilet paper.
But why show up ? Were these Loki guys afraid one day they wouldnt show and everyone would get paid but them ?
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
The employee used his or her personal credit card.
Smart move. No, really, that's very, very smart.
Call it zealotry, call it stupidity, call it what you want, but never rake your own arse over the coals over a 'Linux' company.
Honestly, after the slashdot article on the "interview with Scott Draeker", I commented on Draeker's statement that his plans were to "recharge" for a while before looking for work again, wondering how it was that he had enough money to "goof off" for a while when many of the employees weren't getting paid (and one of them had to pay salary with his own credit card while Draeker was, evidently, sitting on plenty of his own money...)
I was kind of hoping that the answer was "Mr. Draeker was a millionaire before he started Loki", or at least confirmation of my suspicions. I got one "he was probably just being careful with his savings" (a reasonable answer), and a bunch of "-1 flamebait" moderations...
Reading this article, it looks like things are even worse than I thought. Yuck. Any chance that the employees (who actually did the WORK of making these games I bought from Loki available for me) have any legal recourse to get at least SOME of their money from Draeker?
If nothing else, it'd be nice if someone like "linuxgamepublishing.com" (who appears at the moment, if nothing else, to need a web programmer :-) [currently getting a PHP error on their main page as I write this]) could pick up a few of the employees.
The most tragic part of the Loki affair, in my opinion, is the fact that in effect, a bunch of talented people are being "punished" for working with a Linux game company...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
haha.. it's broken
As usual it seems a lot of people want to assign "blame" to someone for this - be it a managment (who I admit might be evil - I do not know enough about the situation to say), government (ie. "canada protects its citizens), etc.
However as with EVERYTHING IN LIFE - you should learn to rely on one person - yourself! "Until men become angels" it is very foolish to rely on good company management, good governement, good laws or anything else to protect you from harm.
You should rely on yourself. If a person/company/etc. chooses to be corrupt then they will find a way. Do you think government officials can't be bribed (even in the wonderful land of Canada!)? New laws are very seldom the way to handle any problem. You need to rely on yourself to decide how much risk you want to take, move forward and then not complain if the risk does not end up good for you!
Let me see - employer is not paying me, so I'll loan it my credit cards to rack up huge amounts of debt? Someone's an idiot here - anyone working for free since 2000 should know better than to hand off the credit card.
Here's a rule to live by - you're not getting a pay check? Time to find another job.
Like most other Linux software, Linux games should probably be released for love, not profit.
There are important requirements if you're going to do this:
1. It had probably better be a 2D game. Sorry, but 3D drivers on Linux simply can't keep up with the breakneck development pace of 3D driver development on Windows. Requiring 3D gives you a tiny slice of a market that's already a niche.
2. Release the source code. If you're afraid to do this, don't make the Linux port. You do not have to release the levels, models, textures, animations, sounds, sprites, or any other artistic source or even components. A giant "wad" file is just fine.
3. You should release the Linux port simultaneously with the Windows product. Just developing it simultaneously is a huge boon to bug isolation, and when you release the source, you'll get passionate Linux hackers extending, optimizing and debugging your code for free. Remember: you're selling the data, not the code.
Whatever Loki did wrong, I want to thank them for essentially sponsoring Sam Lantinga in his development of SDL.
I'm out there talking to publishers regularly, and just so you know, Linux games aren't the only games that are suffering. Publishers are shying away terribly from Windows game development now. They're throwing every penny they have at consoles.
=-ddt->
How the hell did THIS get modded up? And how does anyone find it funny? This is drivel. There's no content to it.
Most Federal and State employees in the USA are paid according to 'scale' - essentially, everyone at the same level has the same salary, although I think there is some variability within each level.
So, it's not always about keeping salary information confidential.
That said, I once left a job because my supervisor made 5x what I did, worked at home, and I was in the office each morning at 7:30AM to answer at least 5 helpdesks before any of the other IS staff arrived. Got a 4% raise for it, too!
Don't pick up the pho*(@)$*@&@!@ NO CARRIER
....but where does one get $350,000 in credit card limits?
If the guy who gave Loki his credit card commits suicide, he deserves a Darwin award.
Too bad they didn't IPO during the dot com boom. With lots of capital maybe they could have hung in there long enough for the market to grow and eventually become a viable company.
I was happily employed by a local, family-owned tech company, call it company 'X'. Because of a non-payment of a large sum for goods and services, provided by company X, to a company in another state, the company fell into deep debt.
Upon this fiasco, company X notified all employees that the owners of the company, a few employees (the management is mostly related to each other) decided that they will take a cut in salary to keep key employees. I was one of them. Some employees left voluntarily to pursue new business opportunities. However, I was starting a family and was looking for an upgrade in pay. It was obvious that I was not going the get it.
However, I stayed until September of 2001, about 9 months after the fiasco started. Right before I left though, I check the quarterly financials. What the management of company X actually DID what they said they were going to do. The president of company X did not draw a salary for 2001. The vice president drew around $10000. Some of the upper management worked part-time. They all made sacrifices just to keep a team on the payroll. They are still in business today, trying to survive in a tight market. I would respect company X forever.
The point is that Loki had a decent business model, and they had a niche market where they could be revolutionary. They got greedy, and cheated their hard-working employees, and ran their company into the ground. I have no respect for that.
Coderz 4 Life
Well, I'm pretty sure Visa and MasterCard are both 90 days. (I used to work as a credit card customer service representative a few years ago.) However, I don't think a dispute procedure would help here.
This would be a complicated case. If the credit card was in the company's name, then the credit card company should charge it off as a bankruptcy.
If a person used their own personal card to charge things for the company, and the company did not reimburse him, then tough luck. That's like saying, "I bought some stuff for my roommate, and he never paid me back. Can I get those charges taken off my bill?" The card issuer is going to laugh in your face. It won't care if your business or your roommate made the charges. Of course, the second that the word "bankruptcy" is mentioned, the account will likely be frozen, either way.
Best of luck, guys. Sorry to hear the awful news...
-- Yekrats
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
You may feel safer, but you are exposing yourself to a lot of risk. If the company goes belly-up, and they know you have the equipment, you can expect a polite call from the bankrupcy court to return their property. Refuse, and the sheriff stops by to recover the stolen property, and/or haul off your sorry ass.
Meanwhile, you can get in line with all the rest of the creditors to get back a few pennies on the dollar.
Moral: do NOT loan your employer money. Ever.
If VA Software has been sending you guys 1099s and "advances" in lieu of wages, this might be a good time to bail!!
I had always wanted to consider Loki one of the "good guy underdogs". A company to root for.
The company's business model was based 0.24% of the desktop market. Among that 0.24% are 0.24% that would pay for software. Definitely NOT a company to root for.
Not if its employment compensation and you are an employee,
in which case you go fill out one of these
and then watch the irs do a little shafting on your employer.
Anonymous posts are filtered.
Norway Refuses to Liberate Penguins
OSLO, Norway (AP) - In a rare display of bureaucratic joviality, the justice ministry on Friday formally rejected independence for one of the world's most remote islands and the liberation of penguins.
The demands came from a group calling itself the Norwegian Support Group for the Liberation of Bouvet Island, inhabited largely by seals and penguins but no humans. Norway claimed the Antarctic island in 1927.
The group _ possibly just one person _ also demanded the release of penguins in zoos and decent burial for a stuffed one in a museum.
Justice Ministry senior official Morten Ruud conceded that he didn't know anything about the group's background.
''Obviously it's a joke,'' he said. ''But if someone takes the trouble to write a funny letter, I must be allowed to write a funny one back.''
In his two-page letter, Ruud said he could not grant independence partly because the group claimed to represent only the penguins, the island's minority population when compared with seals.
''There is also a strong form of local democracy,'' he wrote, since the majority seals routinely chase the minority penguins to less desirable real estate.
Ruud also said penguins held in Norway did not come from Bouvet Island and were not represented by the group.
The 22.4-square-mile island is mostly covered with glaciers. It's about 1,000 miles north of the Antarctic mainland.
"THE most unpredictable and certainly the most dangerous god in the Northern pantheon was Loki. His activities ran from the merely mischievous to the blatantly malicious. Supremely clever, Loki ensnared everyone in complicated problems."
I have to wonder if Scott Draeker sees himself as some kind of trickster and had some idea of all this beforehand. I don't know him, but the company name seems a little too apropos.
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
Step One: Port Games to Linux ..
Step Two:
Step Three: Profit!
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
...they would have had a better chance.
Back in 1986, I worked for a company called Xanaro Technologies. I joined the company to be part of building an integrated word processing, spreadsheet, graphics and flat database program. What made the product unique at the time was the ability to link data such that when data was updated in the spreadsheet, it would update the graphics. OLE before OLE.
I joined in the spring all gung-ho and happy to work on a pontential Lotus killer. We believed in the product more so than the reality. The reality was in August we stopped getting paid. We continued to work for the next 3 months with no pay, subsiding on promises of next week we would be paid and that an investor was lined up.
I left to go back to Toronto in late November, poorer and some what wiser. Belief in a product or company is great. When that paycheque is missed, the company has failed in it's obligations to it's employees. There may extenuating circumstances, but those circumstances never can justify the failure of management to meet a payroll.
In my case the owner of the company lied to us. We believed his lies, because we were so caught up into doing something great! I still don't regret being conned, since I was so willing to be conned.
What I was left with was an appreciation that unless I have written stake in a company, then all the verbal promises are worth nothing. As it turns out we the employees were not the only ones left holding the bag. PC-World sent out a massive Ability demo, the designer of the Ability box was not paid, and millions of dollars was wasted on ??? All totalled the development cost about $500,000 dollars Cdn.
Research is what I doing when I don't know what I am doing - Werner von Braun
I have a brand new, unopened copy of Loki Quake III Arena in the metal box, still wrapped in the shrinkwrap plastic. I wonder if it will someday have any collectors value. I bought it for $9 on the "discontinued items" bargain table at the local Best Buy store. The metal box looks pretty cool.... I've never bought any piece of software before that came in a metal box!
The linked article states that Loki is now filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy. IANAL, but shouldn't that be Chapter 7 (liquidation)?
For the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."
Founded by California intellectual property lawyer Scott Draeker
I think that says it all.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Seven spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors in twenty-five words.
That's not a record for Slashdot, of course. In fact, it's not much worse than the average around here. That sad truth of the matter is that the average Slashbot has an IQ in the low nineties and an eighth-grade education. That eighth-grade education is worth about what a third-grade education ought to be. They can't read, they can't spell, they can't form a complete sentence, they can't express any but the simplest of thoughts: "Me haet bil Gaits!" That's about the best they can do.
If you're wondering what led to the catastrophic technical and financial failure of Loki and of the Open Source movement in general, you've just found the answer: Read The Bell Curve . The answers are all right there. We all know that people of inferior intelligence can't write usable or even stable software, and we've all noticed that "Free Software" is rarely usable and never stable. What we learn from studies in the field of human intelligence is that these people can't afford to pay for software, either. People in the Slashdot "IQ bracket" work in convenience stores and the like. Who bought Loki's games? Nobody. Their target demographic can't even afford to pay for an operating system, much less video games to run on it. No revenue, no business. It's that simple.
Loki hired semi-literate burger-flippers -- oh, excuse me, "free software evangelists" -- to create their products. No viable products resulted.
What led the founders of Loki to believe that this was a viable business model? Nothing. Like the well-known penny stock VA Linux, they were cashing in on a craze. Their sole intent was to defraud investors. If you think Larry Augustin at LNUX has any goal but to grab the money and run, have a look at these numbers. He's been cashing out since day one. While he tirelessly flogs the stock to investors, he's selling every share he can sell.
This is why the Securities and Exchange Commission recently (July 1, 2001) updated their regulations to state the following (and this is a direct quote, kids):
"Geeks" are a permanent underclass, condemned to economic irrelevance by low intelligence and lack of marketable skills. It's sad, but that's the way a free country works: The parasites don't get the goodies. So sorry.
What is going to happen to OpenAL?
I have to ask this question; why the hell would anyone work for TWO YEARS without a paycheck?
Who the hell works for free for that long? Didn't they have bills? Sounds like a bunch of stupid people for sticking around that long after not being paid. I'd refuse to show up if my employer stopped paying me. Its common sense. Apparently these moron's don't have common sense. I have no pity for their own stupidity.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Gods reading all of this I'm getting flashbacks about all the crap I just got out of, being unemployed for 6 months until just recently, and with all kinds of shenanigans happening with my last paychecks and the severence, and I was laid off from a far more stable company (in theory).
I know that everyone that's was left at the end is kicking themselves for not getting the hell out of there when paychecks started coming. All the people here going at them about it apparently don't realize that you are your own worst critic. The people who were working at Loki are certainly going through nine kinds of hell over what they did to themselves, and they're gonna be paying for it for a long time. Lets have the decency not to kick them in the head when they're down.
My best wishes to all of them. You're gonna need all the luck you can get. May the gods take pity on you 'cause doesn't seem like anyone here does.
I got a free flight to Hawaii by using my CC and having the company reimburse me.
The moral is, don't expected to get paid by a company that doesn't make any money.
There are lots of PROFITABLE Mac OS game companies.
In fact millions fo game-purchasing consumers own macs.
I think its hilarious that a company tried to focus on Linux gaming.
ha!
I knew they would only lose money.
They might not have had the talent to program macs but they should have spent half hter resources on mac and half on linux and the mac game-porting income could have kept them afloat.
I hate lawyers but man the former employess of Loki have a case! If they were employees and not
self employed then Loki could have been witholding taxes and this a a quick manuver on thier part to pocket some $$$. Were the programmers at Loki employees ? And why should they pay taxes on money they didn't recieve? It sounds like to me perhaps the employees should put down the loss on
thier income tax. This is terrible.
All I have to say is what goes around, comes around.
...racks up company charges on his or her personal card. That's just plain stupid...I hope they learned their lesson.
It has already been said by many so far, but does anyone really think a bankrupt company can support its employees? Is there anyone that is really that naive? Did anyone think that the employees were all going to be happy that the company went belly up?
When you first miss a paycheck, the writing has started to appear on the wall. you are either being told something personally, or the company is not financially viable. The second paycheck you miss is the same as a pink slip, or there is imminent bankruptcy.
Anyone that stayed for a third missed paycheck without actively looking for another job is either they guy with the stapler from "Office Space", or a very generous person.
Even if you are dedicated to the company, it should have been relegated to volunteer status. come in and work on your projects in the evening, or weekends, or whenever you can spare the time. If a boss didn't respect this, he wasn't worth the effort to consider coming back for the second missed paycheck.
Man.. don't forget that most of the programmers at Loki were kids just starting out. And they believed in what they were doing and honestly thought they'd get paid. I worked for an ISP as
engineer and some employees got paid with shares of stock. when times were tough (I refused, they needed me so I got paid). Well as time went on a friend was asked to sell his share back, he held out and didn't sell right away and demanded more money. This wasn't publicly traded stock, this was
actual shares of a provate company... anyway
He got it what he wanted. So.. sometimes we don't know the whole story. Perhaps the loki employess were promised part ownership in the company.
I hope some former employees sppek out here on
slashdot. I'd like to know.
2. This is what happens when you mix a tiny, pathologically cheap market with ethically challenged businessman wannabes: A failed company and lots of innocents getting hurt.
But it doesn't surprise me. Some companies are slimy like that. Heck, it happened a couple of years ago to my wife.
Fortunately for us, the IRS has pretty stringent rules on who is and is not a contractor. If it's called into question, there's 20 Guidelines which the IRS uses to determine if a person is self-employed or an employee.
If you think you're an employee, but your employer dodges their own taxes by handing you a 1099, you can petition the IRS to look into it. Check out Form SS-8.
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
How fscking stupid can some people be? You dont get paid, you withdraw your labour and find someone who will renumerate you in a timely manner.
You are kidding yourself if you have under the illusion that you are indispensible, letting the side down/whatever. I've news for you, you are NOT. Taken a look at state of the IT market lately ?
The laws of economics dont change just because its linux you are working on.
Those 60+hour 7 day weeks you spent burning the candle at both ends and in the middle count for NOTHING if you are not being paid.
Once you are surplus to requirements or just unlucky enough to be there when a company implodes. The hard work you put in is MEANINGLESS in that case.
Curmudgeon
*groan* I do not care how idealistic you are... you have to eat. You have to pay the bills. You have to keep a roof over your head. These 'idealists' got screwed because they let themselves get screwed. If an employer said "sorry, we are out of capital and reserve monies... we cannot pay you this week." I would be immediately out the door, with some of the companies property underarm in the value of my paycheck, and woe onto the management weenie that thinks they can stop me or tries to pick up the phone to use it against me. Hell, if they shorted me one day's pay I would be the same way. See, this is what scares me most about Linux. Loki, for all of it's 'good' intent in spurring on the Linux dev cycle and getting it into the hands of the average joe user (games/entertainment being one of the key points Linux just can't do right now for average joe at home) was a failure. You can point to the positives in their business model, but it was a failure. Now you have the biggest and brightest hope for Linux on the desktop dead. Without some viable, and quite public (not that Loki was that well known) push by Linux to actualy become as or more user friendly than MS desktop OS's (and even Mac OSs), you have just seen the digging of the linux hole that much deeper. People in the know will sneer and laugh, discounting Linux for home use for years to come, while those in the know miss out even more thanks to the failing sof Loki and how it let down a small, geeky community that is ardently committed to their hobbiest OS. This breeds hopelessness, which brings further fanatasicm and obscurity. You have a bunch of broke employees who have little future in the IT industry. These are people who failed to make software work on their platform... their careers and training are centered on Linux and games, and this combo does not work thanks to the grand demonstration that was Loki. Now they are broke, meaning they can't get decent retraining. Now they are broke, demonstrating a lack of certain intelligence and smarts. Now they are broke and show the world in some cases that they are dedicated, but most will regard them as fanatical hobbiest who stupidly supported a failed experiment. Now they are broke and hungry and no better for their time at Loki. You have numerous companies who are no-doubtedly out of large sums of monies thanks to Loki. This in itself is criminal, IMHO, and reflects bad on the Linux 'community'. No coming back easily from that if you are a future Linux related start up... it will effect your potential investors, suppliers, etc. Just another nail in the coffin of Linux and any other *nix at home. Sure, you hobbiests will use it at home, with it's limited and difficult interface/functionality... you are fanatics, what can be said. But, Linux at home as a movement and market force is dead today, and maybe forever given the hole Loki has dug you. *nix may survive and prosper even (as maybe it should) in the behind the scenes server market, all the little hobbiest server gnomes scurrying about in the darkened server rooms speaking their little geeky haxor k3rn4l language to each other (then again this image surely dooms them to obscurity and ignomanity that will certainly ensure the demise of the OS...). But, it will not step beyond the darkness of server havens and into the consumers' home PC... Loki saw to that.
Life Sucks... Have a Beer and a Smoke then Smile Damnit!!!
ahh. The kind words of the Slashdot readership. Now I remember why I can't stand this place.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
at least at home.
Thank god...
Now all we have to do is get rid of the 40 million drug using Mac users and this will be a more perfect world.
All thanks to 600 million MS PC users.
...I find myself once again having my hunch confirmed that you should never work for someone who sounds like they should be a minor celebrity. It's uncanny, but "Scott Draeker" - like "John Romero" - begs to be prepended with "Guest starring" or "Our special correspondant", while "Kayt Draeker" is a perfect name for a trashy fantasy novellist catering to the market that likes a lot of apostophes and random weird letters in their chara'kters.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The Canadian tax code clearly states that fags working on Linux games -- especially those from Quebec -- are not required to pay taxes. The United States has no such exemption.
If you can't do 3D don't do it??? What are you nuts? If you can't do 3D, don't bother making any game. Less than 5% of all games are 2D anymore it seems, at leas the ones that make money.
I see Draeker was an IP lawyer. My prejudice against the breed is only comfirmed.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Yeah, like bancrupt fisherman. EWWWWWW!!!
But she's right about Boston... what a shit hole.
http://deathstar.stanford.edu/~kayt/boston.html
I used to work for a technology consulting firm that worked solely with movie industry and law, with the board of directors made up of his lawyer frat brothers firm. Every year employees would go to Cannes in France or Sundance to work and help their clients from L.A. Well come mid-2000 something was obviously wrong with the company, the owner was quietly laying off people and reimbursement and pay checks would slowly come up late or show up the next pay period. Also, the owner who was once a happy, ambitious kind of guy, was getting bitter and quiet.
Regardless, some choose not to see the facts and kept on hoping things would get better and didnt want to loose their seniority they had built with the 3-5 years with this firm. Well Cannes was rolling around and some other festival thing in Italy as well. One my colleagues was asked to go and excitedly agreed. The owner, who always went, said he would meet him in Italy and then head off to France. Once there a per diem was renegged on, with owner citing that reimbursements would be made for any monies spent, since co-worker didnt believe it they decided to go cheap as possible. Checkout day and owner left a voicemail stating they had already started up to France and to meet there, not to worry about the hotel it was taken care of. As co-worker started to leave hotel security stopped them citing they needed to check out, co-worker thinking that just giving them room keys was not a big deal agreed. After getting to the counter the co-worker was told they needed to pay $7500.00 in hotel bills for 5 rooms, room service, and other amenities that the owner claimed was taken care of. Needless to say this co-worker did not have that kind of cash or credit limit on cards and ended up in an Italian jail. Luckily he had some family visiting in Sweden at the time and was able to get them to aid him in his time of need.
Upon returning he was able to get reimbursed after 30 days and immediately quit. And over 2000-2001 many lawsuits were brought against the owner and his company from employees, vendors, and IRS while he hid behind his corporate veil. Employees that were eventually never paid brought up lawsuits and went to the labor board. Problem is if someone is awarded a judgement it is the responsibility of the plaintiff to collect and of course this owner would not pay. So one has to go to court again and the cycle continues. Some could not handle legal costs and lawyers and dropped their cases, while others would have judges change their award from $2000.00 backpay to $17,000.00 for punishment. But again a futile effort if the business wouldnt pay $2000.00 why would they pay $17,000.00.
Ultimately the company folded, the company paid out some of the smaller judgements and settlements ignored the rest and folded. The owner losing his company and money decided to sue his clients! Some bigger studios and firms typically cost analyze a settlement and legal costs and he was able to make out with nice $50k checks here and there from larger multi million dollar firms/studios not wanting to be bothered, and with others that wanted to fight he would walk away.
Rumor has it that this scum has now started some 3 non-profit organizations and is starting to do well financially again, learning that non-profits have protection against the IRS.
Seems only the bad guy won on this one.
Welcome to the games industry, where every sucker is paid in full with fucking hope.
YES, even more so than dot-coms.
There are a number of reasons to try to hang on at a job that isn't paying. The foremost, for me, was the people I was working with and the company atmosphere. As long as my co-workers were coming in and we were getting something done, then everyone could comiserate, share tips and job leads, play UT for awhile to get everyone's mind off what amounts to a life-altering circumstance.
Another is the job market. It sucks. I started looking for work in September when they first told us that the next major funding deal had fallen through. I finally found something reasonable in February.
The third reason for us was that they were still paying our health benefits. When it comes down to numbers, health benefits cost more than you can collect on unemployment.
Eventually, yes, those things aren't enough to stay for, and you'll find work elsewhere. In my case, most of the staff left, and certain members of the non-development staff were getting increasingly hostile. At that point, no matter how compelled I felt to do a good job, to not burn bridges, to finish my projects, I just couldn't handle being browbeaten by other members of staff and not get paid for it.
So yeah, there are some throw-away jobs out there, but on the off chance you get into a situation you want to stay in, it can be more difficult to leave than to borrow some money and stay.
--mandi
The second time the compnay stiffed me on a paycheck i would have walked, thats just how it is.
Ra7
-
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
com on people, i admit it, id didn't read the entire article(long dull black on white text *ieuw*), but isn't this the adience that in the old days used to say, 'loki is cool', 'linux games have a future'.. we kind of conviced them we would love to see linux games, and know they are out of bussiness, we can break them... leave them some dignity! ok, so the didn't be able to pay their developers, but those developere where not smart enought to leave them too. Anyway, +They should have wined before loki went out down (the msmart rats always leave the sinking ship before it goes under, the stupid rats drown with the ship, but every rat does what he thinks is best, sometimes the fast rats are the ones whe have to swim a long way, whille the slow rats still float, but it's a choice you make and stay with). You first make them into a god, and now they have nothing more to offer and they are on the ground, lets kick em deeper (hehe, i do that to :) ). I don't think the stupid credit card is what broke the ship you build, youare the faulty ones, you make a ship, and put it in the see the wrong way, and don't have a look at it. IMHO of course
In capitalism a company can grow or fall, just that, there are no stable companys, they are always growing or falling, and once it falls it will touch ground... So if the ship has a hole jump before it sunks, no matter if it was going to Venecia.
It's nice to know that those who are the most derogatorily vociferous are those who don't even use User IDs.
I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
...without getting paid?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Actually, the recession is over, but we have yet to find employment. A few of us wash windows under LA overpasses, one grows weed in Ontario, and several are freeloading in college again smoking Ontario's finest.
As you know, there is a non-existent market for Linux games, and there are no companies of worth making them, as well as the fact that we are all really not very good employee's to have since we have a limited skill set and are 'rebels'.
Something I learned the hard way: companies that ask for sacrifices like delayed paychecks almost invariably fail before any "reward" appears.
The cake is a pie
But if you don't want to quit, then it's time to renegotiate with the boss. The boss knows that the company is hanging by a thread, and if all the talent leaves, the company will go under. So what do you negotiate for?
Well, the experience from Loki has shown a couple things. You need to open up the books for all employees to see. And you need to make sure that the boss is making at least as much sacrifice as everyone else. And given that the employees are doing their job (if they aren't then you really should all quit), and the boss isn't doing his job, that suggests that he should get a pay cut and everyone else should get a raise and part ownership in the company (for when the company gets back on its feet).
And you should get a collective, written contract for all the employees. If you think the company can be saved, you can only do it if the talent stays and has a reason to stay.
If you don't have any faith in the company, or he refuses (showing he doesn't have any faith in the company), then talk to your coworkers, all quit at once, and stay in touch to help each other find jobs.
Someone who hasn't screwed you over, yet.
It could get worse...much worse. The trustee for Loki can go back and ask for any payments made within 90 days of filing bancruptcy. Those individuals who received any money, and those 1099's may find the Loki trustee asking for the money back.
This claim of "preferential payments" will not be made for another 9 months or so. The jurisdiction will be in the federal court in the state that the company was incorporated in. So, if you choose to fight it (there are defenses against it), it will cost you about $20,000 to hire a lawyer in the state where the federal court is.
This has become a big business for bancruptcy lawyers as they get a cut of the amount that they are able to recover. Clinton's administration introduced this change into the bancruptcy laws. This is a two-sided sword. It may capture some of the money the Draekers paid themselves, but it also snares innocent people who won't see it coming.
How do you protect yourself from this? You can't. It is outside of your control. But, you can minimize the damage. Incorporate in the state you are live. Accept 1099 and consulting income through the corporation only. Rememeber to keep your books and hold a stock holders meeting at least once a year. Do NOT mix your finances with that of the corporation. You can pay yourself from the corporation, but don't use the corporate bank account as your personal account.
Check with a lawyer as IANAL.
Also, I'm not certain, and I have yet to check into this. I think you could send a 1099 back to Loki for debt relief for any amounts Loki owes. This might have the effect of offsetting some of the 1099 income you received from Loki. (Just thinking out loud.)
One such software house (don't remember which one) had more revenues from Amiga than from Linux, Amiga having a much smaller user-base
So, AFAIC, I think we need more fundamentalism in this area
The Raven.
The Raven
Scott Draeker is a schister and the employees let him stick it to them. Seems a shame, I have enjoyed Loki games greatly and still do today.
However, I am amazed at the audasity of Draeker and the yet even greater clueless behavior of the employess. What? Like they didn't realize that they had to pay taxes. And letting the company rack up $350K on ones personal credit card - COME ON!
Dilbert does, and this is why. You might get jabbed with a spork, but accounting will pay your expenses if you are pleasant but persistant. Visit Heck now, or live in Hell later. Also, when you are owed more money than the company's quarterly revenue it's a bad sign.
In Massachusetts, it's illegal for a company to fail to pay payroll.
Apparently there's no such law where Loki were headquartered.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This is a very good point.
The risk of a house burning down is low. The risk of a house currently on fire burning down is higher.
Where I live you can't even afford to eat on $50k.
The cost of living varies tremendously from place to place, country to country, etc.
Careful how you toss those numbers around....
I fail to understand why any sane, self-aware employee would continue working for a company which was failing to pay them. After the first paycheck doesn't show, it's a stern warning; after the second, it's off to the want-ads.
i got modded down hella low when i said loki was a shitty company that deserved to go out of business - now i shall laugh at those who disagreed with me :)
Don't ever work for a company that takes its name from an evil trickster-god of Chaos.
I think the point is to protect people that take risks and run businesses without incurring personal debt.
Which makes sense if you're running a 2-person dry cleaners or something. It doesn't make sense that the sheild of the corporation can be used to rip off millions.
The parent to this isn't flamebait. It's obvious.
If you want to run a business you hire someone who knows how to run a business? Where's the flame bait?
I don't normally have any truck with trolls like your self, sir, but I'm a generous man, and I thought I'd give you a chance. You see, if you respond as you're wont to do, then you will actually be flaming a _real live homosexual_. Call me a fag, and you'll be right. I'm doing this because, as I said, I'm generous, and I like to give even a jackass like you the chance to be right once in his life.
Cheerio!
hyacinthus.
Yes, but if you charge the tickets on your credit card you can get mileage for the cost of the ticket (typically 1 frequent flyer mile per $) as well as the miles flown.
My employer paid for graduate classes. I could fill out a form at school and have work pay directly at the end of the course. I could also pay with my credit card, submit a form, and get a check from work. I used a credit card that earned frequent flyer miles. I averaged a new free flight every 1.5 years with a large portion of the earned miles being from $2500 charges for class.
Of course, the few extra miles may not be worth the risk of not getting reimbursed. That is a separate topic.
One thing I've wondered: When a company cannot make payroll, and does not do so for some time, but refuses to lay you off, is there a way you can claim that you are unemployed?
In a reasonable company, you'd imagine the management would realize that they need to lay people off, enabling those unemployed employees to collect unemployment insurance, at least. But it seems to me that there's a danger of sleazy mangament refusing to lay people off, and refusing to pa them (or simply hand out IOU's). You'd be faced with a dilemma: continue to work for them, hoping they will be able to make good at some point in the near future, or stop working for them, get fired, and be unable to collect unemployment.
I suppose someone leaving because you haven't paid them is probably considered insufficient reason for firing them or something, but resolving that would take time and lawyers. I wonder if people at Loki got caught in a catch-22 like this. If you are living from paycheck to paycheck already, it seems to me you'd have to make a few hard decisions on when to cut your losses.
When the first .com I worked for was augering in, Ever payday I called the bank to make sure direct deposit had cleared before I even went in. If it hadn't cleared, there was NOTHING that could have gotten me to go to the office, unless it was to clean out my desk.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
My second employer ever ended up being really good to me, but I almost took a pass on the job, based on the initial offer they approached me with. At first, they said my salary would be far below what I was asking, but I'd get a boatload of options; this is in 1999, mind you, nearing the apex of the bubble. Even back then, I knew that I couldn't pay my credit cards, school loans or rent on promises alone, so I didn't call them back and kept looking. A few days later, and much to my surprise, they followed up with a phone call, asking me why I hadn't called back. I told them that they hadn't met my expectations, and hence I was still looking. At which point, they called me back in, met my figure and tossed in a relocation bonus (with zero stock, though).
Skip forward to today -- I've since moved on, but the company still hasn't gone public, and has been hemmoraging employees as of late. In a few select cases, I've heard of people kicking themselves for not jumping in on some phat options plans with very successful companies. But I'd rather miss an golden opportunity than stake my financial viability on possibilities and pipe dreams.
I can just hear the credit card company now:
So, you loaned large sums of money to an insolvent company that was named Loki, after the Norse God of Evil and Mischief? And they haven't paid you back? Who would have guessed?
How much more warning do people need?
If I rephrase, is it still flame bait?
The sad demise of Loki is a blow to the entire Linux to the Desktop movement. However, Loki has demonstrated quite positively that there is little profit in the industry yet for a company of their vision and innovation; the 'free software' community has failed itself and a major company by either not purchasing the games Loki made and they demanded and/or pirating the software and using it illegally since they disagree with paying for Linux based code.
Additionally, Linux has taken a serious blow today due to the disclosure on major websites, such as CNet, that there is a major flaw in the ZLib library that can allow network base buffer overflow style attacks to compromise these systems. A link of this issue can be found here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-857008.html
As the person you are responding to said, you should always be planning for retirement. At some point, whether thats 10 years from now or 50, you will be unable to work and therefore wholly dependent on what you've saved. The longer you wait the less you'll have...
Now, that does NOT mean find a company to work for for 30 years that will plan your retirement for you. Nobody is looking out for you except YOU, and any trust you place in someone else footing the bill for your retirement is naive. Even blue chips can go under and take their employee pension funds with them.
Hell I don't even have much faith that I'll ever be able to collect on Social Security. By the time I'm ready to retire I expect the baby boomers to have eaten that up and then some.
You should be taking care of your own business. Think IRAs and 401ks.
No.
That would mean the workers gaining some kind of collective bargining power--the IT people and other tech grunts organizing against Management for their rights. And that would mean forming a (ewwwww!) Union. And as we all know, unions am bad.
That's what you get for working for the Norse trickster god...
Why would someone work for 2 years without getting paid?! :)
I have no signature
If my employer bounced a single paycheck, or if they were a single day late in getting my paycheck to me, I would be out of there before you could blink. A company's most valuable assets are its employees and the output of their employees work. If a company gets to a point where it can't pay its employees, stick a fork in them, they are done.
Companies get lines of credit from a bank which they can use to fund their costs. If a company doesn't use their line of credit to pay you, then they have little regard for you as an employee and you should leave. And if they can't get a line of credit from a bank, then obviously the company is screwed if the bank doesn't consider them credit worthy. Either way, you should bail.
I work for a paycheck - to pay my mortgage and feed my kids. And as someone puts into jeapardy my ability to have a house and feed my kids, them I am out of there. This isn't 'greedy-evil-capitalistic' behavior, it is a matter of living.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Oh, come on, it was at least a little bit funny, wasn't it? I couldn't call you a "fag" too, could I?
When you send your resume to a company named after a Norse god that was condemed to sit chained to a rock while a serpent dripped it's acidic venom on him, and you're hired... don't expect the best for the future.
Learn your mythology. It'll help you in the long run.
Anonymous Coward: (n.) 1. nerd at school or library. 2. karmawhore in training. 3. embarrased prep.
When I met him at the computer game developer's conference, my impression was that he was an arrogant dick. He gave me this "get away kid, I'm busy" bullshit. I'm glad he won't be showing his sorry face at this year's game developer's conference. He won't be missed.
I've worked for 3! companies that went titsup ! The basic rule you has to remember is that management WILL NOT tell you that there is a problem financially with the company, even if you think they are your 'friends'. It doesn't work that way. After three times you begin to know the signs(!). 1) Can't pay you this month, minor cash flow hiccup - leave immediately ! 2) Your customers phone to express sorrow that the head developer was involved in a major RTA - Leave immediately. Put it this way, BIG mortgage, 3+ kids, wife not working, what would you do ? 3) Your R&D boss is replaced with a U.S. bullshit merchant who quotes 'allegators in the swamp' stories - Leave immediately. Basically if you think your about to get butt-plugged by your firm. Your right ! Leave immediatley.
And you will sue them for... Staplers? Office chairs?
Sort of sad to see how slashdot story after slashdot story last year was about products being produced by nothing but vapor.
You're high on crack if you're still worshipping Loki, the Microsoft of the Linux game industry.
One of Loki's problems is that no one bought Quake iii once everyone figured out that you could just get the demo and upgrade it with the CD from any other platform.
"Loki didn't to anything for Quake 3, other than make it late to market. Quake 3 was coded from the ground on Mac, Linux and Windows."
In this same thread, Loki fan-boys praise Loki as heros, saying Loki rules because of their work with Linux Quake. How tragically wrong and misguided they are:
"A company to root for. I mean, c'mon. They helped bring Quake3 to Linux, how could you NOT like them?"
It would be nice, now that Loki has nothing to lose, if some figures were released, regarding:
- Sales (units) of each game
- Porting license fee for each game
- how much labor (hours) went into each port.
I guess I can see an ex-Lokier saying, "Sorry, the license with Activision stipulated that we can't disclose the fee." But c'mon, what are they gonna do.. sue ya?Give us the numbers, ex-Loki folks. I think it would be fascinating.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What were they buying for $350K??? Sounds like a lot of Aeron chairs and BMWs to me.
When I worked at Loki, I sat in a $89 chair and drove a Dodge Neon. People don't seem to realize that $350K is not an unreasonable amount of money to spend in running a publishing business. Have you ever seen what rent is like for office space in southern California? How about telephone bills for the company? Electric bills (air conditioning)? Payroll? Printing and design expenses for the software packaging? Trade show booth space/travelling expenses? Bandwidth costs for the FTP, web servers, and CVS server? How about the bandwidth for the Bugzilla bug tracking database? Or the Loki newsgroups?
The one frivilous thing I can think of that Loki purchased was a Terminator 2 pinball machine that Scott Draeker, Andy Mecham (the head of QA), and myself found at an arcade machine auction for about $2000 or so.
People seem to think that because they could get a dozen people together in someone's basement and form a company that every company should have the same minimal overhead if they are "efficient". That's hardly the way business works. Unless you've seen the actual numbers of the budget of a real publishing company, please don't assume that expenses of $350K is so outrageous.
Try taking the budget of Interplay or Electronic Arts and scaling it down to the size of Loki. I think you'll find that $350K is pretty darn cheap.
Andrew
Scott Draeker: Undercover Scientologist. That would explain EVERYTHING!
It wasn't that hard to bust...
Some of it, of course was Open Source (Who's hosting that now, BTW?)
SDL (as well as several SDL utility libraries) can be found over at libSDL.org. A number of the open source software libraries and tools that Loki employees and community members developed can be found at icculus.org. I believe some projects are hosted at neither of those sites. Those can most likely be found at seul.org.
Loki purchased the rights to publish a Linux version of Win32 software titles. Loki essentially was selling software and paying a small royalty to the original owner of the software rights. So, when Loki folded, most of the Linux titles simply went back to the companies that the Win32 versions of the software came from. Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns went back to Timegate Studios. SMAC went back to Firaxis. And so on. If you want those titles supported now, talk to the company that originally created the game title.
Some of the publishing deals were a little more. Unreal Tournament, for instance, was just a contract with Epic to provide support for the Linux version of the game. In those deals, Loki was only providing a service.
So, for the idiots that keep saying that Loki should release all of it's game code to the community as a gesture of goodwill... wake up. That's like licensing the Quake III engine from iD and then releasing it open source to whomever wants it. It's a naive and mistaken path of thought to take.
As for the IP rights of the trademarks that Loki owns (such as the OpenAL trademark, web domain, etc.), those will be auctioned off in order to pay Loki's debts.
Andrew
Heh, just to add to the thread, one of the programmers said it would be in stores on Dec 27th (1999) -- that turned to complete bullshit, with probably a few exceptions. It didn't get into most stores until late January, thanks to thier problems with packaging.
They basically waited on thier order with the 'tin box' manufacturer, instead of getting them out the door ASAP in good, old fashioned cardboard.
I mean, of course, having fancy packaging is more important than having it in stores. Everyone knows that.
But, yeah, the crappy sales for Q3A can easily be attributed to the fact that it really wasn't in stores until a month after the windows version -- 90% or so of the Linux People probably picked up the windows version so they could, you know, play it.
To be fair, they did take over maintenance of the code for a little while. Once id hired a full-time Linux guy, it was brought back to id (I have a feeling some money owed to id on behalf of Loki might have also played a role in severing thier relationship -- you'd have to wait to see if Carmack decides to chime in with confirmation or denial of all this
Counterpoint. I was CEO, later CTO, of a startup. I missed my paycheck from time to time, though my employees never did for more than a few days.
The result? We were eventually bought by Red Hat ( Pgh Post Gazzette article ) and the employees with stock benefitted.
The moral? Every situation is different. Duh.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I was one of the geeks in LokiHack and I'll be honest and completely upfront. It left me with an awesome feeling about Linux and opensource. The 3 days created and captured an espirit de corp, we were doing it. I considered trying to go work for Loki at one point, Scott and I talked about it. I didn't. I did put my money where my mouth was and start working in a business that used opensource and I'm still making my living from Linux today, at a different company though. I've contributed code to projects and I'd be lying if I said that Loki didn't push me some to get started.
It really changed the perspective a lot, it's easy to be an opensource spectator and it takes initiative to get involved and see that you can just start doing it, if you want to.
I think there are a lot of geeks, especially at the Lokihack that had medium self esteem in the regard and it took an event like that to get some people jump started and hold their hand in to it. I don't know how many LUG meetings I've gone to that have tons of people with the technical prowess that are just spectators in it all, and not because they don't want to be. It was kind of a special thing.
I also could see how people who went there could believe in something. A number of them were at the Lokihack. I have no idea how they could live for a year without pay, in California, even if they were all living together. That's not to say it couldn't happen, I just don't think I could do it. I have money in the bank and my buffer is like 6 months, if I'm cutting back some, with unemployment maybe I could make it a year.. I also have no idea how you rack up a $350,000 debt to an employee. That just blows my mind as someone who is supposedly well paid and has bought a house and tried to raise a sum substantially smaller than $350,000 for the house and is on the hook for 30 years. We're talking about someone possibly being financially ruined for the rest of their life, or hopefully they have family money or something.
I hope Scott makes a statement about this and that it's not as bad as it sounds, there is stuff that I can't think of a way to justify though. Him taking a wage doesn't offend me nearly as much as the debt to employees; he did front the company and took the initial risk.
I'm still thankful for some of the stuff they did for me and the community and I really hope this doesn't jade all the other people that might be on the brink of getting involved with it. That would be the true crime and the true loss, more than any video games and even more than a few people owed a lot of money.
Unfortunatly this makes Loki look to me like just another f@ckedcompany Net bubble scam; don't worry about cash flow, income or product but just keep the ball rolling until IPO, clear your debts, make off with a fortune and leave it up to the suckers who bought in to find what a crock of shit they've got.
:-(
All comes adrift when the tech market goes south and no-one will touch an IPO with a bargepole as they've been burnt before.
I was always a bit suspicious about whether Loki had a sustainable business model, their odd choice of games to port and the time it took to get them out. Why didn't they do a Linux port of Half-Life or The Sims, fer fsck's sake?!
One thing you can say about recessions; they help sort out those who can really run companies in hard times from short-term crooks and shysters. Pity about the poor suckers working at Loki who actually thought they were setting up a Linux games company for the long haul...
Hope the Draekers enjoy their money
What do you mean by "the concept of Loki based games is still cool"? There's nothing cool about that concept. Loki is dead. Scott Draeker ripped off his employees and creditors. What's so cool about that?
This wasn't a "Linux company". It was a company that wrote propietary software for Linux. Big difference. I'm sure 1 or 2 companies that make Windows software have gone down in ugly manners as well.
1) Instability of jobs.
2) Insufficient frugality of employees.
If someone is paying $1200/mo rent, they are living *lavishly*. Same goes for a $300+
Why is it that all the southeast asian immigrants have no problem scrimping and saving, while all my US-american friends burn through money like there's no tomorrow?
Wait.. maybe they have a point.
When you got the card, you were probably asked to sign some paper. That paper was a contract. Did you read the contract? Did you keep a copy of it?
Always read what you sign. Also be willing to NOT sign it. You'd be impressed with what people ask you to sign. If they say things like "It's really meaningless" when you question something, then ask them to take out the 'meaningless' clause, and see what their reaction is.
If the contract you signed with Amex said that you were jointly (or singly) liable for your credit card, then you are the one on the hook. If it says that you are only responsible for misuse, then that's a diffferent issue.
It's also possible that the contract didn't hold you responsible, but Amex simply went after the easiest target -- but generally large companies like that tend to cover their ass with your hide.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
From her page:
"I was once the most fingered person at Stanford."
Oh my God! Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!