Mark S. and Blitz Basic

LJ · Post by LJ » Mon Aug 11, 2003 1:03 am

Mark posted this to the BlitzBasic community and I'm sure he doesn't mind me posting it in its entirety here:
"Dear Blitz Community,

As many of you are no doubt aware, there has been an ongoing dispute between myself and Idigicon for some time now.

I had hoped to resolve this quietly through legal means, but recent comments on the Blitz forums made by George Bray, an Idigicon employee, have made it necessary to publicly clarify some issues:

I have terminated all agreements and contracts with Guildhall/Idigicon, on the grounds of breach of good faith, non-performance and negligence.

Blitz Research Ltd, which is owned by myself, is the only company with the right to sell Blitz products. Copies of Blitz bought elsewhere are effectively pirate copies.

Idigicon do not have the right to sell Blitz products or provide Blitz product updates, and are currently selling stock that they happened to have before the relationship ended. I am receiving NO money from any sales of Blitz through Idigicon.

Blitz Research lawyers are currently in correspondence with Idigicon in an effort to prevent them selling Blitz products.

Blitz is currently only available as a digital download. We realise that this is unsatisfactory for some people, and are working towards producing a CD version.

I have no intention of legally pursuing any Blitz customers regardless of how or where they may have purchased Blitz.

Similarly, I have no intention of pursuing any Blitz related websites, as long as they are not selling Blitz products without the authorization of Blitz Research Ltd.

As for George's comments, suffice to say that I do not consider Idigicon has any right - morally, ethically, legally or otherwise - to the Blitz updates. I have spent thousands of hours on Blitz updates of my own volition, and under no contractual obligation whatsoever to do so, and to have someone come along and claim the rights to this work is...indescribable.

In conclusion, please remember that any sale that Idigicon gets is one that I miss out on. This is obviously not good for the long term future of Blitz, so if you like Blitz and want to see it grow, please buy from this site!

If you would like more information please feel free to contact info@blitzbasic.com.

Sincerely,
Mark Sibly,
Blitz Research Ltd"

This is pretty sad guys. I know some of us have fun with the competition thing with PureBasic and Blitz, but when it comes down to it, many of us started out in Blitz Basic and have moved over to PureBasic and so we have come to love Mark Sibly and HIS product BlitzBasic over the years.

I think it would show some real class for those of us in the PureBasic community who came from Blitz, putting aside our competitive jousting and fun, to send our warm regards and words of encouragement and support to Mark through this hard time he's going through.

As programmers, we all understand the amount of time, of years, it takes to produce a computer program capable of selling and making good $$. To have someone else, after years of coding, claim the rights to your work.... dude, that's messed up and I'm sure we can each, in our own way, relate to how horrible a feeling this must be.

Peace
Lj

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Mon Aug 11, 2003 2:11 am

It sure is a damn shame. I play in Blitz for games and find it very nice and easy to work with.. I have a lot of respect for Mark and Fred both for creating two great compilers!

Personally I will never ever do business with Indigicon as Ive heard some of the "inside" information.. It's nothing but pure theft as I understand it!

Good luck Mark!

Inner · Post by **Inner** » Mon Aug 11, 2003 5:53 am

I wasn't going to post, but I thought what the heck.

I've heard nothing but *bad* storys lately about Idigicon, I mean seriously it's all in the name, (I Dig, I Con) on the blitz IRC chat rooms we mock them with that now and then

Without mentioning names, there are some they've messed with so badly they can't even legally say anything about what trouble they've had.

I seam to remember, Mark.S getting done over like this before in history I don't remember when thou, it's sad very sad. and he will get something from me this Christmas.

I am shocked and aporaled by one of the (employees at idigicons)comments on the forum a once well respected person by not just myself, but others as well, stooping to that kind of skullduggery is an absolute shame.

Idigicon's days are numbered, 1....2...3. bankrupt, because that's what happens in the end with bad buseness chooises, make enough of them you end up like Enron.

TronDoc · Post by **TronDoc** » Mon Aug 11, 2003 8:44 am

maybe an email here would help.
Idigicon proudly displays a link to there site:
http://www.doncaster-chamber.co.uk/contact.php

--jb

griz · Post by **griz** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:01 am

What exactly is going on? I had a look over and from what I can tell, Idigicon may be profiting from Mark's products without permission and not compensating him for it. Is this accurate? Have Idigicon responded publicly to this?

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:25 am

Basically Idigicon is still selling copies of Blitz and Blitz updates without Mark's permission. They claim they have some right, Mark disagrees.. I don't know if Idigicon has made any public announcements regarding this.. Some of their employees have spoken out on the Blitz forums which is what prompted the forums to be taken down and that letter to the blitz community to be written...

It's a damn shame!

Inner · Post by **Inner** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 7:49 am

Those same people have been banned from the forum

Post by **Fred** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 12:15 pm

We have discussed this topic on #PureBasic IRC chan with Inner and the others Blitzers out of there and I'm very unpleased with this kind of attitudes. Idigicon are the ones which makes big bucks of Mark's hard work and they think they have all the rights. I wish Mark will resolve this issue and stop to spend time on legal action instead of producing high quality code to compete with PB

.

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:53 pm

hahahaha!

Good one Fred!

Inner · Post by **Inner** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 2:13 am

LOL, Fred!...

But how will PB Improve if it has nothing to go up agist.

LarsG · Post by **LarsG** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 7:19 am

It will continue to develop as long us we (us, the users), keep doing bug reports and making feature requests...

-Lars

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 2:37 pm

I formally request all bugs be fixed. NOW!

heh.. Juuuust kidding. Leave a few to make life interesting!

fsw · Post by **fsw** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:34 pm

If you look @
http://www.pyxia.com/community/viewtopi ... 3976#23976
you will see that IDIGICON also is the distributor of IBasic.

IBasic Professional will be released in three different flavors. Tenetively named IBasic2D, IBasic3D and IBasic Professional. The first two are aimed as a replacement for the various BlitzBasic lines and will have varying degrees of functionaility. All will be based on IBasic Pro's compiler.

We will see how long it will take till the IBasic developer will be in pain too...

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 10:39 pm

I hope Mark sues the sh*t out of Idigicon.

Inner · Post by **Inner** » Thu Aug 14, 2003 4:36 am

if he sued the sh*t as you put it out of them, then you'd be left with a respectable company again, no... you want so sue the sh*t into them