Wow, what a thread. Not only is it one of the longest thread on ann this far (perhaps it’s *the* longest), but it’s entire existence is amazing.
This hostile situation between Genesi and Christian Kemp is hardly anything new, and I really wonder where you people who think so have been between January and present date? Why are you so surprised?
In the beginning, the relations seem to have been quite good. BBRV sponsored and supported ANN in various ways, not least financially, as they did with lots of other community people, sites, developers, dealers and users. Many people were winners. Money flowed, shows were visited, the Pegasos1 motherboard was finalized, then the April1, then the April2, lots of pre-april boards were exchanged, for free, and the Pegasos2 was developed. And OS’s and applications. All this was very expensive. BBRV paid for it all; they spent lots of money (*lots*) on many things and people, including ANN, but then came this Pretory crisis that has been discussed to death already, and suddenly all good things Genesi ever did has been forgotten. Amazing.
Genesi woke up and found itself in a cash flow problem. They had counted on their resources from Thendic France, but that didn’t come through. ANN didn’t get the banner money in time (it was paid later though (but much too late to make a difference, since Genesi already got the irrevocable badwill in public for that thing)), contract developers and other employees, including Christian Kemp, suddenly found themselves in a situation where they got small and/or slow payments, or even nothing at all. This was not because of bad or “evil” intentions from Genesi, it was simply because of a unforeseen problem that hit them like a cannon ball in solar plexus. Does anyone here really think that they *did not want* to pay Christian or the others (well, *now* it’s a different matter, but back then)? Don’t you think they realized what kind of problems a choked salary flow would bring?
There are several ways that one can react on sudden lack of- or slow payments. After a while, most people would most certainly feel cheated and quit, and then be bitter about the whole thing for quite some time. I probably would do this myself. But there are different ways of quitting as well. You could do it the “Wayne Hunt” way; simply leave, perhaps make a few minor grunt remarks about it on some forum somewhere, go back to do whatever you did before and never look back, and take any disagreements in private. You can also do it the “Christian Kemp” way, which is mostly the same thing, except that the “private” is exchanged to “public”. In both situations the result is pretty much the same, the employer looses valuable and skilled employees, and some sources for disputes about money are generated, as well as some bitter feelings about the whole thing. One *huge* difference remain though; if you make it “private” there is at least a small possibility of a settlement in the end, even if it takes a lot of time. But if you make it “public” you are causing a lot of damage to your former employer (and also (because of the “public” nature) to everyone associated, like partners, developers, dealers and users), and you are burning all the bridges that could have led to a settlement in the future.
At the end of January Christian removed the Genesi banner, which is a pretty understandable thing to do. After all, he had not been paid for it and I would have done exactly the same thing myself. But the comment he replaced it with was less necessary IMHO. During the time that followed, in the beginning of February, more things were going public from Christian Kemp, often spiced up with some personal comments and opinions. The http://www.ann.lu/comments2.cgi?view=1075721778&category=forum&start=1&56 and http://www.ann.lu/comments2.cgi?view=1075724359&category=motd&start=1&118 threads were starters. This set the coming agenda (that we are experiencing still today). A few more things followed in other threads, both on ann.lu and on moo-bunny. It escalated to a point where BBRV obviously had enough: “Christian Kemp is another matter. He has been contacted by our lawyers in Luxembourg. It is a terrible way to have to work with people. We do not enjoy it and it is expensive.” http://flyingmice.com/cgi-bin/squidcgi/mbmessage.pl/amiga/98421.shtml.
So one more time; this is *nothing new*. But I can only imagine how the relations between Christian Kemp and Genesi have evolved since then. Certainly not to the better it seems. And even a blind person can see how the threads here on ann.lu has changed from that time; the content of the posts, the posters (they creep out from their other world when they smell blood), and the moderation. If one goes back in the forum history, you can see a clear “before and after” line in the character of the threads and posts around the point in time where Christian choose to put his side of the story in public. The fact that Christian made his story public through lots of bad comments about Genesi (*which probably are all TRUE*, I’m *NOT* disputing that, but that’s not the point here) was the foundation for this development, and *not* Genesi’s financial problems and lack of payments due to the Pretory/Thendic thing. There were problems, and Christian had a choice; to reveal or not to reveal those.
But “don’t the people have the right to know”? No. A corporation can not be compared to a country, a democracy, where people pay taxes, vote, and everything should be open to the public. “Didn’t Christian have the right to speak out in public about Genesi’s affairs, after all, Genesi treated him bad”? No, of course not, no matter how angry he was. If you as an employee are unhappy with something, like lack of payment, there are in every western country some well established judicial systems where you should turn to. It’s a private matter between you and your employer. A corporation is a *private investment*, of both money and hard work. It’s someone’s property. And in this case, *lots* of other, external people are also involved, like dealers, third party developers, users and potential partners. All problems could perhaps have been worked out in private and solved with limited damage, in time. Now a lot of *additional* damage has been caused to a lot of hard working people.
It may sound like I am blaming Christian Kemp for all bad things that had happened to the community people that are involved in Genesi’s business, and that he alone would be the reason, but that is of course not true, nor is it my intention to make it look that way. The very root of the problem IMHO comes from external things like the Pretory/Thendic thing, but also from bad management in Genesi (lack of focus, lacking “Human Resource Management” skills during the crisis, and their own PR skills during hard times (or rather lack thereof)). So no, I am not blaming Christian for Genesi’s entire (temporary/eternal?) misfortune. But Christian is certainly responsible for his own doings, and as a publisher of ANN he is also responsible for his site. I doubt that any legal “threats” (or was it rather a warning, or a plea for a change?) from Genesi came dropping out of thin air from nowhere all the sudden, no, this is more likely a result of all the things that has happened during the last few months. Am I *the only one* here that thinks that there might be a hunch of a tiny chance that there might be some *real* reason behind this, some *justified* reasons, and not “pure evil” or such?
And did I get this right: no real action have been taken from Genes’s side yet, except this threat/warning/plea? Heck, then why are we having this 800+ comment debate? Oh wait, it’s because *it was made public* instead of listened to! And now people like Polyhead are running around all over the Internet and trying to stop developers from supporting MorphOS and trying to talk people out of buying a Pegasos, and I thought I saw something at morphzone.org about him asking how anyone could support a Genesi affiliated dealer when a regular there shared his joy about his new USB2 card he got as a gift from them. This thread itself is full of similar comments, “I will never buy anything Genesi related”. Christian, I hope you realize that this (and all the effects of it) has *your* signature written all over it, and not Genesi’s problems. Mission accomplished! If it would be possible to isolate and set a price tag to the damage these public revealings itself (and not the actual problems behind them) has cost Genesi, dealers, affiliated developers, users, and partners, I wonder by how much it would exceed the amount that Genesi owes Christian? By a factor of 2? By a factor of 10? By a factor of 100?
These might be harsh words, but IMHO, only someone that thinks of himself as the centre of the world would act like this; seeing constant public revealings of private issues as a mean for his private vendetta, but surprise surprise, *A LOT* of other people than BBRV are taking damage by this. *The internal problems themselves* are bad enough, but they are internal and should be kept private, a constant revealing of those adds to those peoples burdon in a logarithmic scale. So why? Is it really worth it? OK, Christian is obviously pissed because of lack of payments, I understand that fully, and I agree in his right to be *very* pissed, but how far can one be allowed to go in a private crusade?
I think this whole situation is extremely unfortunate. Threats against the community institutions can cause nothing but an earthquake. We have seen that before, when amiga.org was threatened by Amiga Inc and some of the people that later ran off to create amigaworld.net. But it takes two to tango, and Genesi didn’t come to this situation all by themselves. I just whish that Christian had asked BBRV to dance in private instead, because this vendetta has certainly been very destructive for a lot of people.
And after this thread (and the effect it has had), how many of you here would honestly be surprised if this does not stop here? This is not Genesi’s decision, Christian has now made the decision for them IMO.
BTW, to stay on topic, I have an Olympus Camedia C4040 Zoom, a camera which I am very happy with. |