[foundation-board] Iconomical Situation

[Rufus Pollock]

On 4 February 2011 12:57, Jo Walsh <metazool at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/02/2011 12:01, Rufus Pollock wrote:
>>
>> On 4 February 2011 10:55, Jo Walsh<metazool at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> the key issue was the maintainable state
>>> of the source code
>
>> That isn't the *key* issue. The key issue is, as I described:
>> a) does the code even build, does it have a readme
>> b) what about issues with the code.
>
> Right, that's what I meant by maintainable state of the code.
>
> Dave popped onto Skype briefly and said the following about what steps
> Iconomical will take to make sure other OKF contractors can work with their
> code:
>
> "we'll supply a detailed readme explaining the architecture, how things are
> structured, how to do things ... i'll also spend time reworking the build
> system so it uses the open source flex sdk, and not flex builder ... i'm
> looking at a day, maybe two....i can also do some internal cleanup... we're
> offering to spend even more time for nothing."

Would be nice if they would put this in writing to us. This is not
what I'm getting at the moment in emails from Liz :)

> So there does seem to be some goodwill remaining, if only a little.
> From their perspective there is a reluctance to make payment *conditional*
> on release of the code, especially when the prospect of non-payment has been
> raised with them.

The prospect of non-payment was only raised when they hadn't responded
to a 2-month old email and several questions about when code would be
released :)

>> a) The agreement was for code to be open-sourced going forward (from
>> July agreement) (I had constantly asked for this from Dave but was
>> told he was too busy and accepted this in good faith ...)
>
> Iconomical did an open source release at the end of stage 1.
> Not a final product but presumably a good faith gesture?

Not sure what you mean. That agreement at end of phase 1 was for
open-sourcing then *and* going forward. If that wasn't their
understanding why didn't they say this earlier e.g. when I asked in
Aug/Sept for dave to push to the the public repo (he didn't say: no
we're not doing this until paid but just that it was low priority item
...)

>> This is now wasting so much of everyone's time that it is probably
>> best to just pay them and move on but I'm *really* unimpressed by
>> their behaviour here.
>
> Don't worry about my time here. I should have pressed harder for both
> Iconomical and OKF to reconsider and develop a Plan B back in the summer.
>  But please do move to resolve this soon.

I think this is absorbing time and energy (even if you are generously
willing to give yours :) ) that could be better spent on other stuff.
We'll learn from this experience and never make the mistake again of
working with people w/o the opensource situation being clear. So I
propose:

a) Asking Iconomical to guarantee that they will make system builds for others.
b) Pay Iconomical the remaining money.
c) Move on :)

Rufus