Jan 04
If you’ve been following the conversation about xPad and MacZOT, you might have strong feelings one way or another.
I’ve already personally apologized to Garrett and those apologies have been accepted.
We both admit it was a lesson learned.
Thanks Laurie and all the folks who care enough to voice their opinion. That’s what’s great about the Internet; if it feels good, Digg it!
Sincerely,
Brian
January 4th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I just refreshed this page (last viewed a couple of hours ago) and the long angry defensive blog entry was changed to a much shorter apology! And several comments had been deleted. You’re changing your story as you go along.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Brian, thank you for removing the uncool last post and replacing it with this kinder, gentler statement on the situation. I know you’re taking some flack for removing it (because the comments went with it), but on your own site at least, you *can* take back things you regret saying, and imho it’s perfectly appropriate to do so.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
@confused even more
Do you get the point? The developer got the money Brian had paid him, and Brian ended up with nothing, except for angry rants from an angry young man, and additional emotional responses from people who really don’t want to look at the facts.
The developer got _some_ of the money that he was promised, Brian got to use the app for an initial sale, which benefited the site by showcasing a quality product. Maybe you didn’t read the blog post, but it didn’t come across as angry – unhappy, yes, but far from a rant. Assuming that you mean me when you talk about “emotional responses” I see more emotion in you post than I put into mine. I merely feel that I do not want to do business with macZOT based on this.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
mmm, jack…
You do know Brian is regulating this site, right?
So if he would have wanted to hide what he wrote, your comments would not have appeared here. So I can’t really get this “investigative” reporting your doing, writing the post Brian did, in a comment, in the site who you claim is trying to hide this information.
January 5th, 2007 at 12:35 am
As a website developer (and MacZot user btw) I have some experience in agreements that have to do with transfer of intellectual property, and payments over time. Of course there are also differences between these fields of work.
My analysis would be that the “loophole” that Garrett put in, was there as part of the agreement on how payment should be made, and what would happen when Brian couldn’t pay him any longer, for whatever reason. So, this would assure Garrett would not be left without payment while Brian had the software to sell.
The mistake Garrett made (in my opinion) was that by failing to pay, Brian could blow the entire thing. I believe Garrett intended to sell his software and should have put in the contract something like “if Brian can’t or won’t pay, he must immediately cease to offer the software to anyone, until he has paid everything he is owed. He may then continue selling the product”. That way, it would be clear that the sale was unconditional, but still Garrett would have the assurance of Brian not making money while he got nothing. And this situation would still have left room for them to blow the whole thing if they wanted to. For instance by Brian paying a one-time fee to break the contract and then return all rights to Garrett.
What’s done is done so this is all too late.. But it is my opinion that Brian knew it was Garretts intention to sell his product and that the “paying over time” was nothing more than that – a payment divided into smaller bits. And not some kind of “rental contract” that you can get out of if you don’t like it anymore.
Brian is totally in his right, and Garrett should look at his contract-writing skills.