This morning one of my developers shot me a message on Facebook and asked me if I heard whats happening at Elementary OS. He gave me a brief rundown and I went and saw what Bryan had to say about it. As everyone knows, if you want a full rundown of anything, go to Lunduke. I will say this is sad. It is sad because I went through the same thing in 2009.
I started PC/OpenSystems LLC with a friend. Someone whom I trusted and someone who I knew would always have my back or so I thought. Warren was an intricate part of the process. I saw the change halfway through 2008 and we finally came to a head in 2009 and it was an ugly "breakup" to the point he was trying to lure our developers, at the time we only had 3 other people, and was trying to lure them away to work with him on his new project he was starting which was making a Darwin distribution. They ended up being more loyal to me than they were to him so instead of leaving they told me what was going on. So I started working on separating him from PC/OpenSystems. For me it wasnt hard. Everything was in my name because I have the better credit. Loans, properties and other business related stuff. We sat down and talked and decided the best thing to do for him was walk away. He said to me "This thing is a failure, you are wasting your time. Im not going down on this sinking ship with you." BUT he wanted to maintain ownership and royalty rights. I said no. I felt like he was trying to bank on the future of what he considered a "failing company" So I told him, "Go fuck yourself. NO!!" He told me "Go fuck yourself and die" But overall through mediation from other people we agreed to part on a gentleman's handshake and a large sum of cash, my mistake, and never spoke to him after that until 2015. In 2013 we turned a profit. In 2015 profits went up and he turns around and sues me for royalty rights. We go to court and he lost. In 2021 he died from COVID. When I heard about the death, because his wife was still friends with my wife, I felt sad. Because I always thought we would have time to make up and mend that friendship.
I know where Danielle is coming from. I had the same feelings when I perceived someone as a friend was trying to screw me over. That's a natural response when you have love and passion for something and someone tries to take it or try to enter you into an agreement that seems lopsided. From my experiences with Warren I can see where Cassidy is coming from, believe it or not, and Cassidy reminds me a lot of Warren. Cassidy, it seems, is looking at this through a practical lens and fear. Fear that what he spent a good amount of time on, is in jeopardy and that boulder is coming down the hill and everything may be going away. BUT he wants to remain a presence just in case Danielle manages to avoid the boulder or minimizes the fallout somehow. Danielle is looking at this as I did through the lens of passion and love. It is what she does, it is what she is good at and she is willing to call the house bet. When fear and passion collide; a middle ground is extremely HARD to come by. I may be wrong. It may just be greed but Im calling it from my knowledge and what I know.
COVID was extremely hard on everyone. We almost lost the company. PC/OpenSystems is nowhere near 100% of what we were before the pandemic. We are still struggling. So I get where Danielle is coming from. Sales are down EVERYWHERE. It does suck big time.
I do hope they work it out. elementaryOS is a great distro and the world is a better place with it.
