On Wed, 8 May 2002, Conrad A. Rockenhaus wrote:
Lets take it to another level. Xecunet hires someone, and that person has this great idea on how to make some webhosting solution better than everyone elses. Xecunet develops it, provides it as a "free upgrade" but then realizes that they need to cover some costs, so you start charging a little extra. Fine and good, right?
Well, your employee leaves and goes to some big webhosting company, and implements the idea. You paid him to develop the idea, and assisted with the research, how do you feel about that? Is he entitled to do that, to take something he developed for your company and implement it somewhere else? I wouldn't think so, then someone would of taken Windows from Microsoft a while back, and sold it as "Blinds" or something like that.
We would have prevented this contractually. As would any company. According to Nick Nicholas, who hired him, such contractual obligations were deliberately left out of the employment contract. Now, I'm perfectly willing to submit to the fact that I don't know Nick Nicholas' agenda or involvement peripheral to the events discussed. However, he claims to be the man who hired Gordon, so this would seem to be reliable to some degree. Please comment on this...I don't claim to have a deeper understanding than exists from reading the filing and various responses. Maybe you do. I agree with you, though, if you say that because he didn't get the contract put in place initially, he had no leg to stand on. He doesn't really have a claim, and thus he backed down, and gave up. It just bugs me on some deep level that a company that builds itself on the efforts of many volunteers, who asks for donations for a legal fund, who acts like a non-profit organization for so long, goes out and spends money executing a lawsuit in another country against a man who had already publicly certified his compliance with MAPS' demands, a man who had helped build MAPS. There had to be a better solution. That's why all the "rabid frothing" as somebody else put it. Andy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access