Grey Alien Framework no longer for sale

Hi all, so I'm no longer selling my BlitzMax Game Framework. This is because I've sold the IP to Big Fish Games today (although I retain a lifetime license). I made sure that my contract allowed me to offer support to existing customers (bug fixes and documentation improvements etc) for another year. I still plan to make a V1.10 soonish including offering the framework as a module to compliment the plain source code version.

I'd like to thank all 200+ of my customers for your business, enthusiasm and help. The framework is way better because of your fantastic input, many thanks. I hope that you enjoy using it for your own games.

Please continue to keep the source code private as per the conditions of sale, especially now that BFG owns the framework, thanks!

/me scratches it off of my list for Santa

Hmmm i still wonder how may people own BlitzMax.

That's a shame... seemed to be quite popular.

Where's MGE's framework then?

A long shot, but any hints as to what BFG are going to do with it?

This is why I hate big companies (take FlameDuck for example, anything he makes in his spare time WAS owned by the company he worked for).

When you mentioned, to Gfk, "If you need you'd better get it soon, as something is in the pipeline..." I thought you might be having a sale, and even considered getting it (regardless of the sale).

:/

Indeed, how is progress?

WOW! Congrats GA!



Excellent... whats going to happen to your forum? (I find it an extremely useful knowledge base)



Again excellent!

Also whats going to happen to Grey Alien Games? I've noticed that you have changed your site a tad (moved Blitz Games to the front page etc)...

NOOOOO I was going to buy it with blitzmax....... Congrats though!

Great job Grey that must have been a profitable deal. Will BFG actually be using BMax now for all titles to improve development time?

Those four words make me cringe to this day.

Hope you got a fair deal.

Thanks all. Sorry to those of you who wanted to buy it, but I can't make any exceptions. Please do not obtain a copy through illegal means ;-)

Yes this certainly opens up the market for someone like MGE. Good luck to him. I might even buy it myself ;-) As Taumel points out, the BMax market is actually pretty massive and my 200+ sales is a drop in the water.


I did consider having a last minute sale but it wasn't really in the spirit of my deal with BFG.


I'm going to use it at BFG for my games, and as I'm now an employee they really needed to buy the IP instead of having an integral part of their games owed by a 3rd party. We are going to continue to develop it for my future games and for other games made by the team here in Vancouver.


Yes I am going to keep the forum as it's very useful to customers. And I enjoy taking part in it.


My company will still exist - it's useful to have that as a backup + I want to keep the blog going. I took all the affiliate games off my website because of the non-competition clause in my job contract, but I'm allowed to keep my own games. In fact Holiday Bonus for Mac is coming out on several portals this Christmas.


Yes it was definitely worth doing. It's a nice conclusion for the product. BFG will be using BMax for my titles and *probably* for some other ones in Vancouver, but in Seattle they do their own thing. I will encourage its use to improve development time, especially as we have a tried and tested framework to use.

(note to self: prepare an exceedingly difficult tech support question to be delivered in 364 days)

Interesting.. I hope you mean what you make that sound like, a large commercial company using BlitzMax (get the credit it deserves!)

Every time I mention BlitzMax to mainstream programmers they go "what?". Then I say it's based on C++ underneath but it's more like an OOP Basic which is very easy to quickly make games with and then they get it.

Was that a response to my post? If so, is that a "yes, BFG is/will be using BlitzMax"?

My understanding is that GA is still going to be using BlitzMax while working for BFG... so thats a yes... isnt it?

And based on what GA stated here:



Looks like another yes to me ;-)

Congrats Jake! I'm sure you wouldn't have done this unless there was some serious moola involved. The only thing that isn't clear is:

Is BFG going to sell the framework still or keep it strictly as an in-house tool?

I don't understand why BFG can't continue to sell your framework, seems a bit silly to me.

@Plash, yes my reply was a reply to yours - I've been meeting lots of other developers since moving to Vancouver you see. Your other question was already answered above as therevills pointed out.

Ahem ;-) It feels pretty good to build up something and then sell it off. Some entrepreneurs do that all the time: make company, build it up, sell it, then make another one and repeat. Don't forget I've retained a lifetime license (as have all the 200+ existing customers) so if I need to go self-employed again, I can use it to make my own games and of course continue to improve it. It's a certain amount of admin processing individual framework sales each month (although admittedly not too much), but it's much simpler to get multiple years' worth of sales in one lump sum and the dosh is pretty handy right now because we spent a lot of money in England doing up our house to rent it out before we moved.


No BFG will not be selling it. They've recognised that it is a valuable asset and that continuing to sell it to potential competitors is not wise. Also it's not worth their while selling a few hundred copies of the framework compared to just making some great games with it instead.

Again big congrats Jake. I did the same thing (selling engines) twice in my life time. Then I made some serious moola myself selling a few websites before the internet bubble busted. :)

Yah, I kind of figured BFG was going to keep it in-house. But I wanted to be clear on that.

Nice to hear you're still doing support for another year for the existing customer base. ;)

Well done Grey, I am pleased for you. Well, I'll look forward to your final release before any more (short term) development to the engine goes of the radar.

Have you any ideas about what you'll be including in your final release & have you a rough ball park when you might kick it out?

Like MGE says, glad your supporting the existing customer base for another year.

Bugger, so your not selling it anymore? Dam.

Congratulations Jake :) I bought your framework a few months ago, very pleased with it. Glad I bought it when I did, too.

Good luck with BFG ;)

@MGE: Yeah I heard about that website stuff, was very impressed!

@Blitzplotter: It's hard to say because Christmas is coming up and I have to finish my current game which is due in Jan. So I'll work on the framework again after that. Probably Feb. The next release is basically small improvements here and there, and a few minor fixes. The main thing will be improved documentation and a module.

What ever is made privately outside of work and working hours by an employee at home, shouldn't be any of an employer's business IMHO !.

That would be like working for ASDA/Wallmart, and being told by your boss "You are forbidden to shop at any other stores !"

P.S...
If any employer gave me instructions on what I can and cannot do in my spare time, I would tell them to stick their job where the sun don't shine !

Chances are they wouldn't care. Especially in games where developers tend to be dime a dozen, young and willing to make these kinds of concessions.

Unfortunately in most cases the employer has a better bargaining position than the employee, especially during economic downturns.

I've only worked for one company myself that trying to force down a draconian set of rules like that, but was lucky enough that all employees refused to sign the forms in question so it just kind of fizzled out.

Is there any other frameworks available that compare with Grey Alien's? I seem to have missed out on something extremely useful.

How come the Share*It page is still online?

https://secure.shareit.com/shareit/product.html?productid=300072102&sessionid=1094094731&random=e9cf48bee7a1851e03666bdaf72efcfe

You can do what you want, but they'll own it.

I had to get permission to sell Hole in One eight years ago, as it was in my contract with Gremlin Interactive/Infogrames that they owned anything I produced, whether in work or outside of work.

@Gfk Thats one helluva binding contract.

Its fairly standard.

I also wasn't allowed to work for any other developer/publisher within three years of leaving. But since they chose to make me redundant, I didn't take much notice.

Three years? For me it's 1 year, which is still quite long imo.

@Gfk, yeah news got out at my last place that I'd scooped some money on an educational product, there was nothing in my contract stating that anything done in your own time is theres. However, you'd be surprised at the people that perceive it as 'moonlighting', when its kind of just a hobby, but you do get them everywhere.

Whether or not it's actually binding depends on your local laws and jurisdiction... Many employment contracts contain un-enforceble clauses, but even though you are legally in the right doesn't make that they can't make things really inconvenient for you if you breach them.

Evne though you might win in court, it still sucks if someone actually takes you to court in the first place, especially if it's your employer.

GfK: So if you made a baby during the time you were employed there, they would own it. Nice deal. :)

No it doesn't work like that. In counts for the kind of work you do. If you're a programmer, everything you program in your own time belongs to your boss.

@ GFK.




That really sucks...

When are software companies going to wake-up and realise that it is tallented people like yourself, that make their production clocks tick !.

They should respect their employees. They really are taking the piss !.

It's not just software companies.

Where I used to work, the company owned the IP of everything you did whilst employed by them - it was a telecoms company.

I really think this is standard for all technology companies. Whether enforceable? I don't know. I certainly think if I produced something directly relevant to their operation then they would have won.

Also, restrictions on working for competitors for 1 year after leaving - but they never persued this with anyone who did.


Basil

Thanks Htbaa, will remove soon.

tsk, does BFG want you to have that extra line o' text in your sig? :P

What's the matter with that CS_TBL? I guess he's just proud of what he has accomplished. And he may, just like you do with your signature.

@CS_TBL: It's what I have in my sig at Indiegamer and I just removed the framework link so I thought I'd standardise my sig.

Very much related to this topic is this case which has been in the news lately: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/12/11/bratz.vs.barbies/?iref=mpstoryview

the people making the 'Bratz' dolls just lost a large lawsuit from Mattel.(Bratz dolls apparently surpassed Barbie in popularity in recent years)

anyway, Mattel claimed that the guy who came up with 'bratz' did so (on his own time) while he was employed by Mattel, and that therefore they own the rights. (He apparently quit his Mattel job to pursue making Bratz, but thought up the concept while he still worked for them)
The judge agreed with Mattel, and forced the Bratz people from selling their dolls from now on. the decision can still be appealed, but suffice it to say that it doesn't look good for them. and if nothing else, being forced to stop making their products this close to the christmas shopping season will cost them millions in lost revenue.

BFG using BM, even if it is only for some projects, is nothing to sneeze at. I would imagine if Max3D ever does appear, you might see BFG using that, too.

What happens if you make it in your spare time but tell nobody, then when you leave your job you suddenly get a "lot" of work done in a short space of time? :) How can they prove it?

I'll bet that's exactly what Mattel doll designer Carter Bryant said while he was designing Bratz and working for Mattel.

Sad to hear this is no longer available. I've heard good things about it.

If people are still after a framework, they could have a look at the RetroRemakes Framework link in my signature. Free and Open Source.

I could do with a few more people playing with it and coming up with ideas for improvement (additional developers would be good too).

The problem is, at least in Denmark, they're not the ones who have to prove anything. They just have to take it to court, than you have to make a plausible case that you didn't work on it while under the employ of another company. How the hell do you do that?

Who signs contracts that state, everything you make outside the company is of the company? Its like signing away your life. What a scam.

@Greyalien,
Im very happy for you you got a deal. I hope its a good one with 4 digits at least?

I was a bit shocked tough as i got into this topic, since i was looking for it so i could buy it. Now what do i do?

It's only anything you make which is in the same area as the company you work for i.e. could be regarded as competition or using the company's "Proprietary Information" to make something (in other words, secret skills/knowledge/techniques you learned as their employee). So if I wanted to make a piece of business software in my spare time, or write a song, or draw a picture, no problems.

I wouldn't have sold it for 4 digits.

Sorry. You either have to make your own or wait until some of the other frameworks in development become available.

General: Let this be a lesson in seizing the opportunity! If you see something you think you want or need and you know it's good value/useful - just get it, don't procrastinate, in case the offer disappears later!

I tell my wife now and there is a useful Jaguar going for a song on the way to work, but the negative effect the fuel consumption would have on my bank account - I wouldn't benefit from seizing that opportunity.

I suppose opportunity is maybe the wrong word - gas guzzler is more like it! Is the fuel any cheaper over there Grey ?

Diesel has just dropped below a pound a litre here for the 1st time in ages - although somewhat curiously it is easy to work out now that diesel is 11 to 13 percent more expensive than unleaded. I'm sure a while back the margin was only 2-4 percent.

Unleaded is around 0.82$ CAD per litre in Montreal, which would be approximately the same in Vancouver, maybe slightly less.

Probably. Most of the cost of fuel in Europe is taxes.

$1.79 / US Gallon here in Washington state (~31 pence/litre).
From what I can see Vancouver is is ~0.40/liter.

Hey, it just so happens that I have a kickass game framework that does everything Greys used to do that I suppose I could start selling! :)

Except now he can afford international assassins.

Flaming Hell... That's only about a quarter of what we pay in the UK !

Steve mate, your the first person I've seen that is shocked at the price of fuel in the UK!!!

I thought everyone here in the UK now was pretty well used to the idea that we get our eyeballs ripped out at every turn! ;)

Its that bad, one year when I was self-employed, a taxbill come in with a girocheck on the bottom stating how much I owed them, which was 1 shirt off your back! :)

Dabz

Yeah I say $0.82 per litre on the way to work (I was on a bus). So only 40p-ish a litre. However the Ron Standard of fuel over here is not as good. I used to put ron 98 in my Impreza (@1.20 per litre or some ripoff price) but I'll be lucky to find ron 95 here!

Grey: apparently there are different methods of calculating that number as well -- I wonder if there is any difference between how Europe does it vs. North America.

Yes, octane is calculated differently in North America than Europe.
Regular is usually 87 NA octane, which is equivalent 91-92 RON.
95 RON stated above is around 90-91 of NA octane rating (which is readily common to every (100%) gas station I go to)
98 RON would be about 94 NA octane (which is available to almost every (80%) gas station, what I usually put in my motorbike)
100 RON would be about 97 NA octane (which is rarely available (15% of gas stations)).

SOP and has been for decades.

Wow I never knew that! I couldn't believe that all these US sports cars were running on crud.

People who have families and bills to pay, and feel they're above flipping burgers for a living?

The problem is that it appears that the vast majority of tech companies (at least in the US) pretty much demand you sign such a statement, so you don't really have much of a choice unless are already in a position to start your own company instead.

People tend to need "a job" more than most companies need "that particular potential employee.

That's a good point Gfk!

Lucky me that's not legal on Spain, company only owns what you do during your working time, if it's done while you're in the office.

What is most shocking is those who act shocked by such a contract are showing how little they know about the history of computers. Woz had to get permission from HP because of their contract in order to develop the Apple. HP still has such contracts, as do most major companies. It is for the protection of the employee just as much as it is for the employer.

I posted this before... in the US at least, you can't waive your right to work...



Now, of course there is the big catch for many of us here "or relates to their products [or your job]" as Grey pointed out above in his.

Now I work for a company that has nothing to do with creating games... any games I create in my spare time at home on my computer are mine, even if I signed such a broad contract. now of course if the contract was specific in it identifying the IP in question, well that's of course binding.

Yeah exactly, if I made non-games I'd be fine. However if I did make games then actually the sensible route is to involve BFG if I think it's good enough to market and to use their resources. Also if I make a free little game that is non-commercial I just have to ask permission to put it on the web and the answer will most likely be yes.

"Also if I make a free little game .."

Assuming you have any time for that sort of thing. One thing you're realize very quickly (if you havn't already) , it's totally different coding for a boss than yourself. You may actually have no desire to "code" at all once you're out of the office or at home after a 8-10 hour day at work. Plus, nothing worse for the home life with the partner if you code all day at work and code all night at home. :) lol..

MGE, hows your framework coming along?

Yes absolutely :-)

Free? What's got into you man!?
You've just moved to the good-ole US of C. Where's your capitalistic spirit got to? (We can probably have someone forward it to your new address...)

haha, well free for fun is what I was thinking where I could just mess around with some ideas with no pressure for it to be commercial - although of course having mini games under your belt is good from a portfolio point of view and may even drive traffic to your site. However I don't think I've really got the time or inclination any more...but we'll see ;-)

@Grey, you'll be back to your normal self after the christmas break... if not well you'll have more time to shoot the breeze and stuff.

My problem is wanting to achieve ambitious 3d stuff, which needs time... I'm sure its possible - even as an indie - MadJack is an inspiration in that regard. I've just found Blender - good modelling tool.

Actually I'll be in crunch mode for my current game which is beta testing in the first week of Jan...

I must say it is a real shame that this software has been pulled from this community - many of us gave assistance and now there is nothing for us to utilise - we don't even get the chance to pay for it.

Do BFG think they own the rights to the 3rd party code that got assimilated into the framework?

Interesting point since half of it was taken from public domain code in the code archives.

And yeah, I know there's stuff in there that I put a lot of hours into and now Indiepath has mentioned it I am slightly peeved that one person has seen fit to take the lot and capitalise on it while the rest of us can no longer have access.

Well, i imagine they don't own the rights to that code, since as you say, it's public domain.

But are BFG aware of that?

GA is quite an astute chap. He wouldn't have sold the rights to public domain code... would he?

Well any code that wasnt developed by Gray Alien should be free for the authors to do as they like with.

I assume they bought that particular composition and modification of code, and not the original code fragments.

In other words everyone could still take those code fragments and build their own framework. (As I understand it.)

GA did a fantastic job of taking code (often shards of code) or advice from these forums, polishing it when required, checking it works on different spec and then making it a cohesive whole along with his own code.
If you have the framework some of it is awful coding and, I am sure, starting again GA would do it differently but for pure effort and task completion he deserves all the success it has brought him.
Having said that it might have been a nice touch to release a version into the community and sold development rights to BFG.
I'm just not sure about selling IC to public domain code.

If it's public domain code then Grey can do what he likes with it, and that includes selling it. He can't claim ownership of the original code, but once he's got his hands on it he can do what he likes with it. If you all want to trawl the code archives and piece together all the code that made up the framework then go right ahead. No one can stop you. Not even BFG. I thought everyone realised that a lot of the framework was public domain code and that what you paid for was GA's time and effort in compiling and refining it so you didn't have to. It's a shame that it's no longer available for new Blitzers, but GA made the framework and he can sell it lock, stock and barrel if he wants to.

I agree. I applaud his framework. I'm just gutted i missed the chance to buy it :o(

I agree and I did get a chance to buy it.

Well it seems that some others have kindly answered for me and probably explained more succinctly that I could.

However, I'd like to clarify some points:

1) The framework is not "half" other people's code, sigh. This is insulting and slanderous. It's a myth perpetuated by people who don't even own the framework so how can they know? Crazy. Here's some stats to chew on:

AOTMG Demo = All mine
Speed Run Demo/Make Me Happy Demo = All mine
Docs = All mine
Multiple Examples = All Mine
4 Commercial Games each of which improved the framwork a lot = All mine

CommonCode = 25 functions credited to others out of 165(ish) = 15% (don't know what % of the code lines are mine and I'm not about to count). These functions were either emailed to me or I asked permission to use them. Many are modified from their original form and contain additional comments. Also some supporting Types that I made and one contributed by a customer. I have lots of code (and bug fixes) freely contributed by customers who wanted to make it better and that's great! This file is nowhere near as important or large (4000 lines vs 12000 lines) as CommonTypes (see below). This means that other people's FREELY GIVEN code is approx. 3.75% of the total (excluding AOTMG and other examples which would further reduce this percentage).

CommonTypes = 73 types covering all aspects of making a game. Only one (TBitmapFont) is based on Indiepath's code (which he allowed me to use) and that has been heavily modified and improved. It's no longer the same at all. Think about how often we all do this with other people's code, especially when learning...probably nothing would ever get made if we DIDN'T do this.

2) Many people helped me to test the framework early on and for that I am very grateful. Also many of my customers helped me to test it and posted fixes/improvements on the framework forums. These are public forums and all the test results and code snippets are freely available for anyone to assemble if they want to. They are 100% public domain and do not come with any GNU license or caveats. Don't forget that I did *plenty* of my own research and testing and contributed to those threads and often post framework snippets to help people out.

3) The framework was never free (like many games that you are writing that people also help with) - although some people that helped me did actually get a free version. People have known this all along. Whether I sell a copy to someone or the entire framework to BFG makes no difference (You can sell a composition containing some public domain work (think about kids rhymes) but not the IP to those specific pieces of PD work because no one owns the IP. BFG have bought the composition and the IP for my work). It's my product and I can do what I like with it (correction, it WAS my product).

4) Hopefully now that my framework is out of circulation someone else will make a decent framework to fill the gap. I've already seen several excellent candidate frameworks (or partial frameworks) whose authors can decide if they release them for free or not. Perhaps someone could start a community framework if they are prepared to a) go through all the threads over the last 3 years and piece together the info and b) put in loads of new stuff. Maybe some of the complainers should do this instead of complaining?

I hope that this clear things up for people, if not, then I'm sorry because I don't intend to revisit this thread to battle it out with people as it just generates bad vibes.

Well I was smart and bought GA's framework since it was obviously worth it so I can't complain. Haha.

And?

The entire point of public domain is that anyone can do whatever they want with it, no strings attached. It doesn't just mean that it's free -- It's perfectly valid to take a public domain program and sell it to anyone who is willing to pay for it.

If whoever wote it doesn't want that to happen, they should have published it under a more restrictive license (For example: Freeware, where the original author retains the copyright and can impose restrictions on how it can be spread)

... yet I'd still be interested what it means to be sold the IC to a product containing PD code.

Since the dawn of the computer age people don't understand the meaning of PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Especially things like "This software is in the Public Domain. (C) by Author" are always good for a laugh. (I must admit that I made this mistake myself when I was a very young teenager and didn't know the legal difference between Freeware and Public Domain software and wanted to give away one of my early text adventures for free - but not in the public domain. Not being an English native speaker and years before I even began learning something about the law, back then I thought this was one and the same thing.)

Anyway. Following some people's logic, I think D. Richard Hipp should sue Apple for using SQLite in Core Data and Aperture, Adobe for using it in Lightroom and the entire rest of the world that knowingly or unknowingly uses SQLite in one way or the other. After all, Richard Hipp wrote this baby and put it in the Public Domain...

I agree with Winni, as long as you aren't SELLING Public Domain code alone it should be fine.

Even if you ARE selling it alone it's fine -- there's a ton of places that make money selling disks filled with random public domain software. (More so before the internet became popular, but they are still around)

... but this isn't selling code. It is selling the Intellectual Capital. Doesn't that make a difference?
I just don't know how holding the IC for public domain code works.
Still just interested but beginning not to care.

I own the framework and the code. There's really nothing to be alarmed about here. If GA was selling a library that was mostly pd I would have said something on this forum the same day I purchased it.

Granted it might have been better to have a publicdomain.bmx file that gets included with the project, but still there's not alot of pd code here. One of my routines is in the code and I'm even credited. :)

As far as the framework itself. I only use 2 sections, the timing (which I have since modifed) and the shared folder access. I really don't know if these 2 sections are pd or not, I don't have time to search, organize, test, that's why I paid GA for the framework. ;)

@MGE: That's a good idea. I'll put together a file with the PD stuff in it.

@GA, I wouldn't even worry about it. If you were just releasing it sure, but since it's a closed project, no biggy. :)

I've done it anyway, even though I'm in no way obligated to, because I'm fed up with "naysayers" ( http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=82765 )

Who do you mean? A couple of people have asked whether it is possible to sell the rights to PD code and a lot more people have provided explanations, support and defended your honour when, as far as I can see, nobody has really had a go.

I agree that most people were excellent with regards to it but a few people here, in other threads and in the past have been less than "gentlemanly" and even a small dissent bothers me (I know I should probably not let it get to me), and so I thought I'd try to resolve it in a way that benefits other people.

@TonyG: Just to tie up the final loose end, the BFG framework purchase contract states that they are purchasing the original work from me which excludes public domain code listed in an attached schedule because it remains public domain (except it's in legal speak). Hope that clarifies matters. It's a non-issue as you can see.

I'm just disappointed that there's not more whining.

I'm still scratching my head why BFG would even want to purchase the framework? Blitzmax (as good as it is) isn't really leading the pack on now and future technologies. Now if BFG approached Unity or TGE that would probably make more sense.

Shutup markcw I'm sick of you and your comments.

Happy now? =]


Because casual gamers have shitty old rigs that the 'latest and greatest' would only break on?

@mge : lol good one ;-) One good reason is they can't hire me as an employee and have my games being dependent on something that my external company still owns.

To preface, I didn't contribute anything to the framework (which might very well make my opinion very invalid), nor did I ever have any intention of purchasing it or using it. So what I say here isn't sour grapes because I actually think Jake is one of the cooler cats on here.

That said, I can certainly understand why some people might be upset about this.

One other alternative would have been to release the framework into an open-source community project.

It would put you in a much less litigious position, and BFG/the community at large could use it without charge or worry of copyright infringement if it carried a BSD-type license.

In an open-source project you could have announced your intentions here and anyone who contributed code that felt it shouldn't be in your project would have had the ability to voice that opinion and give you the opportunity to re-write it yourself or work something out.

I don't think the issue is so much that you sold it and that you might have profitted from it in an unethical way. But that the outcome of the sale has essentially fought the spirit of collaboration from the forum that made parts of your framework possible to begin with by locking it away.

Similarly, if Mark were to sell BlitzMax to, say, PopCap under the same arrangement, it would basically leave your Blitz development at BFG dead in the water. Wouldn't you feel a little betrayed there considering the contributions you've made?

Now the argument that you produced 90% of the code has some weight. How much it weighs has a lot to do with how dependent it is on the 10% you didn't write. Again, I'm not a licensee of yours, so I wouldn't know.

But what's done is done. I think you're one of the more pleasant and intelligent contributors in this community, Jake. And even though I don't personally agree with the way you handled this, I really don't believe you have a single malicious bone in your body. I just fear that actions like this might make people think twice about collaborating with you in the future. And that's a real shame considering what you've proven you can do.

Just curious... does anyone at BFG other than yourself look at the forum posts here? Seems odd that they wouldn't have investigated it a bit further, and it might put your employable character in danger if they catch even a slight whiff that you put code in there that wasn't yours (even if it was a completely innocent mistake, misunderstanding or blatantly wrong). At any rate, I'd be prepared for damage control in light of that possibility.

Not even if you bought yourself a licence from your external company? At least that way it would still be available to everyone.

Would that be any different to anybody else buying a licence and selling a game that used it to BFG?

I find this really odd. You can sell public domain code if you want. It's in the public domain, which means you can do anything you like with it, including selling it without credit to the author (though this would be really bad form) or payment.

The only reason some companies won't touch it (as apparently in Jake's case) is because they don't want to take the risk of anyone claiming ownership and having to get involved in legal battles; also, some business types consider public domain to be a legal impossibility, believing that you can't give up your automatic copyright. However, if you have a clear statement from the original author stating that their work is in the public domain, there really shouldn't be anything to worry about.

Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer! This is not official BRL advice!

Sure. Let's just assume Grey would be more than happy to completely ditch a project he has been working on for 3-4 years for no good reason whatsoever.

Personally hope Grey got at least close to a six figure sum for this project.


If it were the same terms of this sale, then all current owners of BMax would be free to continue to use the product as they do now. Even the forums would stay open.

You are kidding, right? I'd say 200+ customers and using it as a basis for his own projects is anything but the wasted time you're implying. The fact a sale occurred suggests that there's no interest in further support of it outside of whatever he's contractually obligated to do at BFG.

But thanks for commenting on bits and pieces of my post without reading it in it's entire context. The point wasn't really a matter of "can he do it", but "should he have done it".

Monetary gain is one thing. And I'll be the first person to agree with you that someone should be rightfully compensated for their work.

But you have to be really careful about weighing the value of money against the value of trust and potential damage to relationships you've built with the peers in a community that assisted in the development of the product you've created, in a public domain sense or otherwise.

It's a sticky subject. If I were in his shoes, I'd have personally chosen a different fate for it. But I'm not him. He did what he did. And now he might have consequences (not necessarily legal) as a result.



I'm quite certain that if BFG decided to sue anyone for using the framework, they'd win one way or another regardless of any licensing arrangements made. The real world usually isn't about who's right or who's wrong in court.. but who's got the most money and patience to back their litigation. If it's BFG vs joe indie developer, I'd bet on BFG everytime. Even if the indie developer were to win on principle, they'd be buried by the legal fees and NEVER recoup those costs against the game they were trying to sell. Releasing this as an open-source project would have certainly protected his existing customers in this respect.

I'm not saying that this is the course of action that BFG would take, but I've seen it happen before.

Suggesting someone should get paid well for 3-4 years of work on a really solid project? Here I was thinking *you* must have been kidding saying to give it away for free. I don't care that he used it in his projects - if Sswift sold the ownership of his systems to a third party I'd expect he'd be able to make some money off of them too.

Even with your 200+ customers (where did you pull that number from?) that's approximately 12,000+ pounds. This is a terrible figure for 3-4 years of work.


The fact that he now works for BFG and BFG obviously felt uncomfortable letting one of their devs use code that they weren't privvy to once he'd left makes no sense at all? Even if he no longer wanted to 'support' the framework (which is unlikely given that he used it in all of his games anyway) I think he has entirely earnt a break after 3-4 years of such support.


Of course. I just come in to forums, read a completely random sentence, then find some way to poke fun at it, despite not knowing what the thread is about, because I just read random sentences. Pretty amazing that I still managed to stay on topic.

On the other hand, I quoted the bits I commented on because they are what my comments related to. If everybody quoted entire posts (which by your logic would somehow indicate that they read the entire post, I assume) threads would get unweildly pretty freakin fast.


Those are questions, right? I, in a roundabout way, answered "yes".


While I have nothing to say on this (because there's nothing wrong with it) I better quote it otherwise you'll think I just read random parts of your post again, right? Right?!


In a public domain sense, no you do not - in any way, shape or form. As for the 'trsut and potential damage' to community relations... seriously. Anyone who gets uppity for using code that they posted publically with the intent of people benefitting from such code wouldn't phase me at all. It would phase Grey who appears to care more about the situation than I do (with good reason) - but it's funny that the ONLY PEOPLE getting uppity about this are people who didn't buy the framework. Nothing but tall poppy syndrome if you ask me...


This would of course have entirely NOTHING to do with Grey and therefore is completely irrelevant, yes?


Well, anyone with half a brain would countersue for court costs at a minimum.

Tall poppy syndrome? What an ass-like thing to say. Considering you have no idea of what I do for a living, it's an assumption that has about as much merit as every other thing you've said.

If you were listening carefully, I wasn't even saying anything about his monetary gain. It's was about locking off the framework from a supportive community. So yes.. thinking that you were randomly picking up sentences and skimming the post is EXACTLY what you appeared to have been doing.

Snarky comments aside, you've obviously never worked or experienced any "legal screwing" in the real world Toby. Counter suing isn't free either. Opposing legal departments can have your lawyer on the phone talking about things as irrelevant as the weather for hours at a time, and you will be billed for it. Unless of course, you can find a lawyer to donate their time to such a case for a cut of the final result (which will likely be nothing MORE than breaking even for the court costs). Good luck there.

That, and suing for lost time/revenue from being away from work are extremely difficult to win by in court. Very, very rare.

I wasn't planning to post here again (wanna let it fade away) but I hate to see people argue and there are some points that maybe need clarifying:

Gotta confess I laughed too when I saw the comment about me making the source open source, I'm with Yan on this one. I don't think many people being offered some good money for their hard work (when they also really needed it having just moved country) would say, "nah I'm gonna give it away for free actually" :-) Of course people helped me but they did so willingly and I'm very grateful - but let's not forget the big effort I put into it myself too. Of course that's just the decision I've made and if others would've been noble enough to do something else if they were in my situation, then good for them.

Another point to clarify, I do have 200+ customers and have made about £6000 which would be terrible for 3 years work, but it was a side-income because I used the framework for 4 other games meanwhile. Also people (who paid) benefited from it and said it was good value for money, and they helped me to make it better. They won and I won. The only "losers" were people who did not take the opportunity to buy it when they could and moan about it now (these tall poppies or whatever haha); although of course many people didn't need it for their projects, and that's fine too.

The PD/forum posting part of the code was 3%, not 10% and it is not very critical to the framework, although some of it's neat. Some of the 3% is very short and/or functional and could have been written the same by 9/10 programmers

No one here will litigate over 20 lines of code, and nor will BFG - it would be pointless. Also even if they did read this stuff, they wouldn't be worried about it as they look at the bigger picture and I'm a valuable employee. I've done my best to do the right thing legally in this situation (remember I have only sold my code not the PD/forum code), so there's really nothing to worry about as I've explained about 50 times now.

As for lack of collaboration from other forum members, well I'd be sad if anyone really nice misread some of these threads (like only the bad made up stuff/assumptions and not my explanations) and didn't collaborate and I hope it won't happen. If anyone genuinely "has a problem" with me or what I did then I don't want to collaborate with them anyway - who wants to team up with negative people? There are certain forum members that often seem to act negatively or stir up fuss or even insult others, and then are quick to tell others not to do the same! haha. I usually ignore them and certainly would never want to collaborate with them. Some have even talked to me about getting a job at BFG forgetting that they've been rude to me or insulted me (and just about everyone else) in the past - it's funny and also sad for them that they just can't see it, or can see it but can't help it. On a positive note I have collaborated with many really nice people on this forum who by far outweigh the negative ones and that's great! This whole debacle has made me realise just how many nice people there who support me and who seem to have things in perspective (in my opinion). Thanks all!

lol, that's brilliant!

Could i put two and two together with that? Stop posting Grey! You need not defend yourself on this issue, as it is nonsense. You haven't done anything wrong.

Thanks for your response, Jake. And as per your wishes, I won't contribute anything else to this topic after this post. You must admit though, this is an interesting debate. Taking your specific situation out of the picture, it's an interesting illustration of how very different, yet valid interpretations can be made over a "business ethical" situation. Believe it or not, I have personally been in a situation very similar to yours... which is why I voiced concern to begin with.

I do want to make a couple final points though.. Not to get the final word in, but more to clarify some things which I might not have effectively communicated. As stated, I won't respond here anymore to let the subject die. So if anyone wants one from me, they'll have to contact me privately.

We are employed in a very rough economic climate right now. I lost 2 "valuable employees" from my team a couple days ago. So I want to assure you that what I said was in your best interests, and not to make you feel bad or stir the ashes. As my boss put it the other day... "don't dangle even your little toe in the water if the shark is making passes by the dock." I'd hate for some employer to take any opportunity to use a situation (no matter how minor) to paint a target on ANYONE's back. While many want to believe employers have good intentions and are always looking out for their employees (or those who licensed a framework their employee sold to them), when it comes to the survival of the fittest, its best to take off the rose colored glasses and know they will do whatever it takes to keep the company alive. Even if that includes making decisions they wouldn't normally "ethically" make during better economic times.

I personally wasn't looking for a "defense" from you, but to simply share a different point of view. First rule by Dale Carnegie states that criticism is pointless for everyone because nobody will ever act without justification already in their head. Right OR wrong. Which is always subjective anyway.

Some people have been saying that the PD code is so common that to re-write it is nearly impossible because you might come up with the exact same code! I'd totally agree with that. The bit about laughing at opening the source though.... Considering your framework has solutions for common elements in a lot of games, its probably safe to say that others out there might follow the same patterns you came up with having never seen a line of your code (same as the PD argument). But since we all know you here, it wouldn't be difficult to prove in court that maybe this non-licensee of yours saw your code and was now violating BFG's IP when s/he in fact, really didn't (matters like copyright law are not ruled beyond a shadow of a doubt... at least here in the U.S.) I realize that this is probably a very unlikely scenario as the money at stake for an average casual game is pretty small. But it should be acknowledged.

As I have mentioned, I wasn't victimized by any of this, really. It just hit a little close to home. If anything, maybe it will make a good blog entry for someone somewhere. :)

Hope that cleared a couple things up, and show that I wasn't trying to be one of those negative/non-supportive people you were talking about.

Thanks for the clarification and advice, and sorry to hear about your work situation. No your post was fine as are your others, we agree on some points and politely agree to differ on others :-) OK I really will have to stop posting here now as I have another cool thread to start...

A lot more realistic than to suggest someone gives away a 3-4 year project away for free.


I agree I speak a lot more sense than some other people can comprehend. Oh, their poor, poor brains. Heh. Trolling.

What you do for a living is entirely unimportant to this discussion, because Grey's scenario has/had nothing to do with you - you weren't a customer and thus not affected in any way. If anything -I- should be upset that my updates will one day soon come to an end. But I'm not because I've seen the code and I can see the huge effort that has been put into it.

The simple fact of the matter is this - you had zero interest in the product until Grey sold it to someone else. You didn't care that he was previously charging people to access the code, now the only difference is that someone else owns the code instead. Therefore, the fact that you raised any points now indicates that you are unhappy about Grey's 'success' (assuming he got a fair deal for it). There truly is no other conclusion I can fathom.


The framework has NEVER been publically available to *this* supportive community if that's what you're thinking, only in Grey's forums where you have to buy the product in order to gain access there. Furthermore, those forums are still active and changes based on consumer input (and bug reports) are *still* taking place!


Bah. I would have thought that logic common sense. I guess the legal system really is set up to support big business and screw anyone else, then.

I'd be more than happy to continue this discussion in private Toby.

There's obviously a communication gap here, or you're just content on being a dick. Either way, I want to respect Jake's wishes.

wow... I suspect if BFG was to start selling the framework, they would have 1000's of new customers then? ;)

You're free to draw your own conclusions of course, but while neither of us agrees to disagree, both of us look equally the <your word>.


Hey he said he's staying out of his thread, he didn't ask for anyone else to stay out.

This forum :/

It all kind of drags on a bit, doesn't it ? ...