Another threat of lawsuit!?? lolol...

[bkeske]

Hmm, I've just received the same sort of odd email from our friend Stasi over at Mindstar Aviation.:isadizzy:

It appears that recent minor disagreements in discussions for a path forward between Eaglesoft Development Group and Mindstar Aviation may be a contributing factor here but we are unable to offer any more than that at this time.

Whatever the motivation, we are sure that Lionheart and Eaglesoft will do their best to resolve their differences with Mindstar Aviation in a mature and gentlemenly manner.

Bravo Ron.

Though, it is disheartening to hear about what may be transpiring between ES and MindStar Ron. I have been patiently awaiting your collaboration.

I hope both you and Bill can get this settled.

 

[OBIO]

Since I can't afford any Eaglesoft products anyhow, I'm a natural for this boycott LOL!

OBIO

 

[DSbiggles]

Interesting thread.

I assume that, as usual, it is another party who is threatening legal action - not a real lawyer? As I have said before on many occasions, I don't know what it is about flight simulation that seems to turn a few people into particularly litigious amateur lawyers. Has anyone actually been successfully sued for anything related to FS? I doubt it.

I'm reminded of the good old days of Peter 'Papa Tango' Tishma. He signed non-exclusive licences with a number of airlines and then wrote cod-legal letters to freeware devs, "on behalf" of the airline, threatening legal action. A particularly good trick was to cc the letters to a real legal firm and the airline. Anyone reading it, who wasn't familiar with this trick, would assume that these companies were involved. Invariably, they weren't.

Bottom line with all these clowns is to write back politely acknowledging their letter and request that "...all legal papers or similar correspondence is served to our mailing address at:... blah blah blah". Don't, under any circumstances, give them the satisfaction of replying in an angry tone and explaining why your product is not a rip off etc etc. That only serves to encourage them!

As someone pointed out earlier, the burden of proof lies with the litigator to prove what they have 'lost' and also to demonstrate how you have ripped off their creation. Not that easy, when you are talking about something that is not original in the first place - by that I mean it was originally designed by Garmin, Marconi, Boeing, Airbus or whoever.

I have often thought of running a competiton to find the most pompous/unfeasible legal threat issued in connection with a flight sim. Looks like it could have quite a few entrants. First prize would be a day in court - all expenses paid

Keep it legal!

Dermot Stapleton
Operations Director
Just Flight / Just Trains

 

[MindstarAviation]

whoah, I think this thread is getting out of hand and mischaracterizing who is at the heart of all this. The companies involved were intending to keep this quiet, but since this is out in the open, now I guess I have to reply. There is an independent contractor at the heart of all this, and it's not the president of Eaglesoft nor is it the president of Lionheart. Those two individuals are top notch people, and perhaps the heat of the moment at the beginning of all this prompted someone to start talking about this openly. But we are all talking to each other and have no problems with each other individually. All 3 of us are victims of the same issue here, we're working TOGETHER on this, not against each other. We did not expect to have to openly show exactly what happened, but if these postings stay ugly, our 3 companies may have to come up with some way to show the sim community what happened without openly bashing anybody individually.

 

[jmig]

whoah, I think this post is getting out of hand and mischaracterizing who is at the heart of all this. The companies involved were intending to keep this quiet, but since this is out in the open, now I guess I have to reply. There is an independent contractor at the heart of all this, and it's not the president of Eaglesoft nor is it the president of Lionheart. Those two individuals are top notch people, and perhaps the heat of the moment at the beginning of all this prompted someone to start talking about this openly. But we are all talking to each other and have no problems with each other individually. All 3 of us are victims of the same issue here, we're working TOGETHER on this, not against each other. We did not expect to have to openly show exactly what happened, but if these postings stay ugly, our 3 companies may have to come up with some way to show the sim community what happened without openly bashing anybody individually.

Sir/sirs, you might want to explain yourself a little more fully here. Rightly or wrongly, you are being painted as the bad guy/guys.

I am a consumer of MSFS products. I am also the person who first mentioned boycott. You see, I have known Bill of Lionheart here for a couple of years. You get to know a lot about someone by reading, day in and day out what they write. I consider Bill to be a person of high integrity and honesty.

I have also read a lot of Ron's of Eaglesoft posts here and over at AVSIM. Ron and I have exchanged emails and PMs over the years. While I don't feel I know him as well as Bill, he has always come across as a honest but practical businessman. Mindstar or its owners, I have never heard of before this.

This is not to say you have less honesty or integrity than Bill or Ron. It merely means that your issue with Bill puts you at odds with most of us here at SOH.

I would venture to say that Bill is one of the most well liked people on SOH. So, you see, rightly or wrongly, fairly or not, you do have a daunting task in convincing us that Bill misused your material.

My desire is to see more and more, better and better products for my hobby. Leaving personalities and friendship aside, issues like this one hurt the entire community. If we keep it up, companies like Garmin could decide to not let anybody copy their products. then we will all be hurt.

Sincerely,

 

[MindstarAviation]

When someone showed me this post and how it was turning, yes, I could see how Mindstar was being painted as the bad guy. I don't want to say anything more than I've already said here, which I admit is pretty minimal, until Lionheart and Eaglesoft have a chance to reply in whatever way they see fit, because I recognize that being seen as the bad guy, anything I say here will just look like me trying to defend myself.

I think all 3 of our companies are all just shocked and dumbfounded at finding out the reality of what's been going on behind our backs. None of us, not Mindstar, not Eaglesoft, not Lionheart, takes intellectual property theft lightly, because THAT hurts the sim community more than anything, because it makes people wary of putting their hard work on the market for fear of stuff like this happening, and it robs us all of fantastically usable addons.

 

[Chacha]

Let us all calm down! The three involved parties MS, LHC, and ES are amicably settling the issue, whatever it is. We don't want to put FIRE in the middle of the discussion.

All I can say is, we just wait and see when the dust settles down. The three involved are diplomatically working on it. MindstarAviation is right, let us leave that to them (LHC, ES and MS). They are working on it right now and I trust they can solve the issue without further disagreement.

I know Bill, real well, I have known the man for 6/7 years; And let's give them a chance to work on it peacefully.

Eli