From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it

My name is Frederick Hutson, and I am the President and CEO of Pigeonly. I was recently made aware of a post made here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227225

In light of the defamatory nature of the poster’s statements, I felt compelled to respond. Well over two years ago, we entered into a work-for-hire agreement with the poster to write aspects of the software code for a beta version of our initial e-commerce platform. Our agreement with the poster makes it clear that we own all work product produced pursuant to the agreement. In the end, however, we were very unhappy with the quality of the poster’s work so we terminated the relationship and requested a refund.

In addition to my own assessment I consulted with several independent sources including a founding member of the CakePHP project (the framework the poster used). Everyone who evaluated the code said the same thing, to sum it up (in their professorial opinion) the framework was not utilized correctly which resulted in the numerous bugs and browser incompatibility issues. The truth is even if we wanted to work with the code the poster provided we couldn't because it was flawed. So we were left with no choice but to start from scratch with a new developer.

The bottom line here is that through hard work and determination, we indeed built the Pigeonly platform from scratch and in no way incorporated any of the code produced by the poster. We are very proud of what we have built at Pigeonly, our mission is to build great products that solve the type of problems most would overlook.

> I think you're going to have a hard time here trying to convince a developer community that a "refund" is something a client is entitled to in a work for hire situation.

Depends entirely on the contract. Many contracts include terms giving the client recourse in the case where unsatisfactory work product is delivered, especially if it's a pay-for-deliverable rather than pay-for-hours-worked contract. (But some don't, and some have more complex partial-payment or third-party mediation clauses.)

It does sound like regardless of the contract dispute over that payment, the original post's accusations about the code are still false, if the post here is not lying about what code they're using. That post claimed that Pigeon.ly is using stolen code to run their product, while Pigeon.ly claims they are not using that code in their product. Which would still leave a payment dispute but not a copyright issue.

> Everyone who evaluated the code said the same thing, to sum it up (in their professorial opinion) the framework was not utilized correctly which resulted in the numerous bugs and browser incompatibility issues.

How using PHP framework may result in browser incompatibility issues? Whole processing happens in the server side for PHP, not in browser...

Depends what the contract is for. If it's for "programming", then you have to pay, no matter what program you receive. However, if it's for "complete and functional product", then unless they produce that, you don't need to pay. Like in a restaurant, if you order pizza, and get steak, why would you pay?

Firstly, there are bugs. In everything, all the time. It's definitely not valid reason to not pay someone. Secondly, it's YOUR responsibility as the client to make sure what's being delivered is what you asked for.

Developers are not mind readers, you need to put yourself in a position where you are regularly reviewing progress, you don't need to be a developer to do this, just sit down with him/her each week and ask them to show you how the functionality works for the user. Sounds like a case of poor product management to me.