Roy Wood wrote:
>You continually present two faces to the world. One that appears on this >list as helpful and smiley and one that appears in private emails (and I >have seen the ones you have sent to others) which are at best >belligerent and at worst blackmail. [snip] >No I am not playing with fire at all. I refused point blank to pay Peter >some money I owed him. I agreed that I owed it to him and I refused to pay >him. On the face of it this looks pretty bad doesn't it ? But then you >only know what Peter chooses to tell you. After many attempts to get Peter >to face up to some kind of support for his product when Tony Firshman had >over half the boards not working and customers who had paid for them and >did not have them I decided to refuse payment until he sorted it out. We >went to Eindhoven to meet him to talk about it and show him some non >working boards. He spent the entire show nuzzling up to TT and did not >address the problem. We made him take the boards with him so we could find >out about the problem. He took them and 18 months later he had made a few >comments about a few parts which were not very good but these were not >necessarily the root of the problem. We have found since that a lot of the >problems were down to faulty video ram which he supplied. I wanted to use >new parts. They would have cost more but the chance of problems would have >been reduced. He said that, if I raised the price of the product to cover >the cost of new, instead of second hand parts, he would raise his license >fee. Tony and I agreed to take only 30 pounds per board as a profit. Peter >took 250 DM (at the time 100 pounds). What price free software now ? >I do have an ongoing dispute with Peter because, when I closed my shop, I >was practically bankrupt. I have struggled to keep Q Branch going and to >support the users. I told Peter that I would pay him the money I owed him >because I was quitting the Q 40 and accepting the loss I had made on it >but he had to wait until I had fulfilled my obligation to the general >users and I gave him a date on which I would do that. I was a little late >in the payment but I paid him most of what he was owed. There was a small >matter of 1200 Dm outstanding at the time which he admitted to me in a >letter. Part of the payment was to be the delivery of three working Q40s. >At the time he still had the three boards and processors. When he took >delivery of the three boards one did not work he just sent it back and >accused me of trying to cheat him. I had never seen these three boards >they came directly from Tony Firshman himself and were working when they >were sent out. He returned the board and sent an email offering me to pay >him 1200 to close the affair. This was timed neatly to expire before I >came back from the US show. By the time I had read the email he had sued >me for much more than he said I owed him. He won the case because I, >incompetently, misread the date on the letter giving the court hearing >date and trusting made an offer to mediate without a hearing which was >ignored. I have seen many emails Peter has sent to other people in which >has threatened many things. At the recent Manchester show none of the >traders would talk to him and the feeling was so bad that he pulled out of >the planned meal. I have no objection to this being out in the open. I >have kept it quiet because I felt it would not be good for the QL scene >for these matters to be aired in public but don't try to threaten me >because it just won't work. >I stand by the statement I made before. The general run of traders do not >trust Peter because we have had a first hand experience of his behaviour. >Even recently he has stated, when Tony Firshman offered to supply some >parts to D&D, that he did not want any of Roy's defective parts. Funny >that. Tony Bought all of the parts for the Q40 except those supplied by >Peter himself and some of the SIMMs which I bought. Peter parts were the >most defective including EPROMS that would not program, one defective >processor, two low speed processor (which we never asked for but were >charged for) and very shoddily recycled video ram which has caused many of >the problems we have had. >Next time you open your mouth try to find out a few facts. If you don't >want to believe me ask Jochen Merz, ask Tony Firshman. >> >>Certainly we should try at any cost to keep this matter out of *this* >>discussion. >No we should not. >-- >Roy Wood I have chosen to delay the reply until the SMSQ/E licence discussion comes to some end. Everyone can judge how fair it is when one of the co-authors of the SMSQ/E licence abuses the discussion about the licence to damage my reputation. The accusations raised by Roy Wood are too deeply affecting my person and my investments in Q60 hardware, to remain uncorrected. I apologize for also having to go off-topic in order to defend my good reputation, see my next posting. Peter
