Re: When open source goes bad...

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Author: Jared Anderson
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: When open source goes bad...
JD Austin wrote:

> I have a client that wants to build a large database application on a
> shoestring budget so I thought I could give Rekall a try
> since I heard about it from the teacher in the access class I took
> last year. Last month I thought I'd give back to the open source
> community by buying one of the commercially available products.
> Sounds good right?
> In this case it went horribly wrong.
>
> I purchased the full version and the runtime from 'theKompany' and
> things seemed ok until I got into the thick of it and couldn't get
> things to work.
> It just didn't seem 'finished'.. so I went on the internet looking for
> an answer.
>
> That is when I realized that the version that theKompany is selling is
> from 2003! There were no warnings/disclaimers on their site, no clue
> whatsoever that I was buying an ancient version anywhere prior to
> purchase.
> I sent several emails to the company before I purchased, they replied
> but never disclosed that important information.
>
> After a little searching on Google I found the open source site that
> you can download the current version from ( http://rekallrevealed.org )
> and downloaded the source for linux, compiled it, and ran that instead
> and my problems went away.
> Thats when it got interesting. I sent an email to theKompany asking
> for the current version. They said that it wasn't a high selling
> product and wasn't a high priority but they'd get around to it.
>
> After much searching around I found out that their rights to the
> product ended with version 2.2 in 2003, the current version is 2.4.
> They don't according to the author in the UK have the right to
> distribute the current version.
> To get the new version I have to buy it from http://totalrekall.co.uk.
> The new version works fairly well but the project is a no-go without
> windows runtimes to run it on their windows machines.
>
> theKompany/Shawn Gordon won't refund the purchase - they're taking the
> stance 'you downloaded it, you bought it'.
> I've never dealt with such an unethical company in my life!
> Anyone else had an experience like this?
>
> JD
>

I paid for a Mandrake Membership a few year back when they were*
desperately searching for capital. Beside a bottomless can of spam, I
have no idea what this membership provided that was not already
available elsewhere for free (not that spam is scarce or expensive). ;-)
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