I would not opine about things I don't know, wouldn't be serious. But my own experience was that Merik contacted some years ago to some work but the true is that he never promised me nothing more that revenue on sales. Was my entire decision invest time or not. (May be at beginning I was a bit angry, but was my own missunderstanding).
Now, some years after such first contact, I'm using a vpn service of him and seems to work ok, and started trying also a seaside hosting plan. I repeat, is my own experience and he don't lied me. About other things and other people, of course, I can't talk. Cheers. 2011/3/3 Janko Mivšek <[email protected]>: > Stef, > > you were right to warn us about that guy, he approached me as well, but > I somehow have a feeling to detect such suspicious "business" people in > advance so I declined upfront. > > Best regards > Janko > > On 03. 03. 2011 19:46, Stéphane Ducasse wrote: >> Hi guys >> >> Marcus was mad against me that I sent this mail public but I TAKE >> RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS MAIL! >> I was ***really*** thinking before sending it. I send this mail to protect >> our community. >> >> In the Ruby community, YYY XXX (not our guy) was asked to leave the Ruby >> community by both Matz and DHH, and that's after he was asked to leave the >> PHP community by Rasmus. >> >> Stef >> >>> Hi guys >>> >>> I do not like to do that but in the past we got problems with Merik >>> Voswinkel. So I would like to warm you against >>> him. Several of you got approached and my advice is run away. Here are some >>> simple facts that happened to us. >>> >>> Stef >>> >>> From Lukas: >>> >>> Starting in 2007 Merik contacted various people from the Smalltalk >>> community offering them to take part in his startup. His projects and goals >>> constantly changed and nobody quite followed what he wanted to do. When he >>> discussed with me it was a mash up of Pharo, Seaside, Pier, Cola, and >>> Croquet all running on some custom cloud hardware ... >>> >>> Merik was working together with a "fake" research institute that only >>> existed as a website. I also learned that Merik is broke and lives from >>> support of the dutch government. Merik aggressively applies for venture >>> capital and writes huge proposals with weird ideas. On some of these >>> proposals (that I found on the web) he added Avi Bryant and myself as key >>> team members (with picture, bio and all), even if we both never accepted to >>> do anything with him. >>> >>> >>> From marcus: >>> We got a note from the local organzier that a "Venture Capitalist" wanted >>> to attend ESUG and we could even use his Boat for the social event. But >>> strangely, this Venture Capitalist was not able to pay 400 EUR to attend. >>> But he was not able to say that. (we later learned that he is living of >>> social wellfare... so it would have been no problem to get him a free >>> entrance). So he offered to make videos. With very expensive "Professional" >>> equipment. >>> >>> Later it turned out this kamera was actually the one of the guy organizing >>> the remote croquet talk, and he got somehow pissed too because Merik >>> promised him something for the camera use... >>> >>> Of course, Merik did have to operate the "Professional" Camera himself (not >>> often, maybe a day he did?). We had to threaten him violently to get the >>> completely useless tapes. (which are in some strange format and >>> unprocessed). >>> >>> so, that's Merik. >>> >>> He was sending around "Business Plans" to people using team members that >>> never agreed. For example Lukas was used like that. If Lukas does not >>> object, I can send these "professional" business plans.. so you can ROFL, >>> too. >>> (Lukas an me did a course right at that time about venture funding: >>> http://venturelab.ch/, so we know a little bit about these things...) >>> >>>> Then people could hack his machine on his seaside hosting because the >>>> ports were open so :) >>> No, he was running seaside with development tools enabled. He is completely >>> clueless. >>> >>> So pay attention. >>> >>> Stef >> >> >> > > -- > Janko Mivšek > Aida/Web > Smalltalk Web Application Server > http://www.aidaweb.si > > -- ================================================= Germán S. Arduino <gsa @ arsol.net> Twitter: garduino Arduino Software & Web Hosting http://www.arduinosoftware.com PasswordsPro http://www.passwordspro.com =================================================
