This seems like a terrible forum for both the original complaint and this response. There doesn't seem to be any good that can come for either side or the HN community.
From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
81–90 of 114 posts
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#82NOTE to developers: This is why you shouldn't accept PayPal!
Or why you should get your money out of there as quickly as humanly possible. I never leave more than ~25 bucks on there.
It doesn't matter how much money you leave in there. Do you have a CC on file or bank account, they might charge it, and even if you don't have paypal might not allow you to do any more business using their platform until all is cleared and you paid if the charge-back goes through in the client's favor.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#83If you ask for a refund, I think you do not own anymore the work of the "bad developer". If pigeonly platform has anything in common with the "bad code", you have a copyright problem. I think you should have asked a partial refund in order to keep property of the work done.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#84Like other comments, I wish, that unlike your accusers, you would not engage on the same level of public mudslinging as it will hurt you professionally.
That said, there is a significant difference between paying someone and getting a refund, and not paying altogether.
A better recourse would have been to go to court to get your payment back, and have independent professionals (as you already did yourself) grade the work completed. Note that in these cases the software is graded by its "peers" (average programmers), meaning that if the work is deemed "barely" acceptable, you will not see your money back.
I hope you the best on this issue and also hope that hackernews will not be used as a platform for legal/code-theft arbitration in the future.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#85A lot of opinions and subjectivity in the comments here.
This was a business to business transaction. What it said in the contract, and the jurisdiction that the contract fell under are about all that matter. Anyone in this business knows the grey area work for hire programming contracts fall under. (Depending on some legal opinions if it was "work-for-hire" it may be completely void as work-for-hire doesn't cover programming except under narrow cases.)
Here one party has publicly received a large sum of money. Lawyers will look favorably on that upon taking cases. The programmers who feel they were wronged can then decide, should we wait a while? Will the company get more funding or will they go out of business?
A worst case scenario would be that the original contract programmers are entitled to a large percentage of equity in this company. Whether or not the code is used today may not even matter.
Another lesson here is to be careful who you work with. Make sure they can accomplish what you expect. It should be damn evident pretty quick when a developer is producing poor code (if it isn't, you shouldn't be in tech.) If you bake defaulting in to your business model, be careful. Individuals and small businesses remember getting screwed far longer than faceless corporations who will just sell your debt to a collections agency.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. Not true at all. I'm a freelance developer that would be ashamed of handing over poor quality code and I believe that if there are developers out there who do little in ensuring that their clients receive the best quality software that they're capa…
"Poor quality code" is a matter of opinion. You can't decide not to pay someone because they've delivered what you consider poor quality code. The best defense from that is to track development (with milestone deliverables), and evaluate code quality (or pay someone to evaluate code quality) as you go along, so you can end the relationship early before you've wasted too much money. Waiting until they're done and deci…
True, but it's like lemon laws for cars. If your new car isn't reliable, you're entitled to a refund.
Yeah, there's no law that applies in this instance, but I do sympathize with the company if the code really was subpar. There are a lot of bad developers out there, and for someone who doesn't program it's very difficult to avoid them.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Normally I'd agree with you but it sounds like this work-for-hire arrangement wasn't based on an hourly wage but rather payments for deliverables. If the software was as bad as described, no deliverables were met and the developer isn't owed a payment. Note that this assumes the contract specifies the specifications for what was deemed acceptable work.
The problem I have with that argument is that the original post said there were multiple payments that were all reversed later. If the code was so bad, why wasn't the developer terminated much earlier? Doesn't multiple payments normally imply that multiple milestones were hit (i.e. deliverables accepted)?
This could be an attempt to get a running proof of concept and then trying to minimize the cost of that proof of concept after the fact. It would be curious how much the investors knew about these events.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#88There's actually already a public forum for this type of dispute. It's called a court room.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#89* Don't stiff people, ever.
* Don't renege on agreements.
* Don't play hardball with bit players.
* Don't ask for refunds on contract work.
You biffed it[1]. Suck it up, pay the guy his money, apologize for being a douche (maybe ask for a public acknowledgement of him receiving his money even), move on.
[1] A good way to properly manage this sort of thing is to have milestones, on each milestone, evaluate the contract for a terminate/no-terminate point; if it's terminate, pay what's owed up to that point and tie the relationship off. Which, by the way, is not uncommon advice on the internet.
Re: From the startup who allegedly stole software and raised $2M with it
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Requesting a refund is different from a charge-back via PayPal. Anytime Paypal's involved, the waters are so muddled who can say what happened? To even be entitled to a refund, the person has a limited amount of time to file a complaint. If the complaint is filed, Paypal may do the chargeback all by itself, even if this isn't specifically what the complainant intended.
Paypal nearly always sides with the buyer. If it's a service, even more so.
My limited experience of disputing a PayPal transaction was exactly the opposite (i.e. I was the buyer).