Something doesn't make sense. From the ambiguity of your description, it sounds as though you own the code, and that you had no formal business relationship with Sparrow, and that you accepted no money from Sparrow (it is really strange that Sparrow would even encourage you into such a position, and that you would put yourself there --- you left them in the situation where they could turn your work down, and develop their own Windows client). If that is all true, then the code is yours, and you can turn it into a Sparrow replacement. But you are giving off a sense of finality, as if what you wrote is useless. This confuses me. Think like an entrepreneur, not an employee. If you have roadblocks to selling the e-mail client yourself, overcome them (e.g., if you are worried about UI copyright, then change your UI, and then sell it). Once you earn money from it, move to writing a Mac version, an iOS version, etc.
Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
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Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#22Release it in the wild!
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#23Before doing anything, I think that you should talk to a lawyer because there are a lot of questions to be answered.
Who owns the code? Are you free to open-source it or rebrand it? Did you have any kind of contract?What about your employment situation? Did your meetings with Sparrow's staff, and them sharing artwork, constituted some kind of licensing, agreement or anything? Did Google know about your project?
I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know any of the answers. Does anyone know what would happen if they claim that they own the code? Maybe they would have to recognize him as an employee, or a contractor and then pay him for his work. If they allow him to use the code as he pleases, the fact of the company encouraging him to develop the port, and even meeting and sharing some artwork, would it mean that they granted him an implicit licence?
Either way, probably Google's legal team has some work to do.
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#24dude. kickstarter. go. Sparrow is one of the few reasons I stick with using a mac, and am somewhat fearful of taking another job using windows again. I even tried having outlook configured in a mode to look more sparrow-ish to realize it didn't work without a real "sparrow" experience.
I imagine there will be something similar coming from Google in the future..
Google is ultimately in the advertising business. They want people surfing to the Gmail homepage so they can show ads.
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#25I wouldn't be surprised at all if an impending Windows client was part of the timing for this deal. A resurgence of people using stand alone clients on PCs that don't display ads could have been a big problem for Google's business model. If users really demand stand-alone clients I think Google could reverse course and re-release Sparrow with ad support in the near future. I like Sparrow but it's nothing so special that it cannot be easily cloned. Google won't be able to just take that option off the table unless they want to find ways to lock-out third party clients from utilizing extended GMail functionality.
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#26Something doesn't make sense. From the ambiguity of your description, it sounds as though you own the code, and that you had no formal business relationship with Sparrow, and that you accepted no money from Sparrow (it is really strange that Sparrow would even encourage you into such a position, and that you would put yourself there --- you left them in the situation where they could turn your work down, and develop…
I don't understand this either.
Why would someone that didn't work for the company and wasn't being paid be writing code for the company?
It all sounds really strange to me.
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#27dude. kickstarter. go. Sparrow is one of the few reasons I stick with using a mac, and am somewhat fearful of taking another job using windows again. I even tried having outlook configured in a mode to look more sparrow-ish to realize it didn't work without a real "sparrow" experience.
Dude is in Greece, so no Kickstarter for dude.
Indiegogo then. It's still a good idea.
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#28> I know that Europe cannot really maintain a talented team like the one Dom and Dinh Viet would need to take Sparrow to new heights.
Really? All of Europe can't provide a team for an e-mail client?
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#29Suggestion for you: help out on this other e-mail client that exists asopen source and is desperate in need of some patching: https://github.com/waseems/inbox2_desktop :-)) (disclaimer: I am the original author of inbox2)
Re: Sparrow for Windows was just a few weeks away
#30Something doesn't make sense. From the ambiguity of your description, it sounds as though you own the code, and that you had no formal business relationship with Sparrow, and that you accepted no money from Sparrow (it is really strange that Sparrow would even encourage you into such a position, and that you would put yourself there --- you left them in the situation where they could turn your work down, and develop…
I do not believe this was officially supported by the Sparrow team as he make it seems...