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WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

whoshere.zendesk.com

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Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#121

Post by lotharbot »

dllthomas wrote: post #111
slantyyz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. One. Cares. Sadly, 719 pts and 198 comments (as of now) and a top 3 ranking on the front page (for the other story) for several hours say otherwise. Everybody loves a David and Goliath story, and the one side of the story that was told first belonged to the little guy. It was quite fascinating to watch the anger and venom build up in the other thread - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4055256 . I don't have…

> I've always found that in most disputes, the truth ultimately lands somewhere in the middle. Often, but I don't know - I've often found it to lie nowhere near either party...

As the Vorlons [0] used to say,

"Understanding is a three-edged sword; there is your side, there is the other side, and then there is the truth."

There is no guarantee that the edges are anywhere near each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlon

Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#122

Post by anton000 »

Steko wrote: post #79
zainny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These emails are so strange. The tone taken by both parties is just so...unbelievable. For example, Brian's opening salvo "Neither of these options are remotely acceptable to me. It is also offensive to me that you would think my time was only worth $100/hr, considering I turn down requests offering 4 times that rate regularly." Seriously, "regularly" turning down offers for work at a rate of over $400/hr? And also,…

I love how he went to them in the beginning to port their app, listed WhosHere in the search keywords for his app and then acts like these guys appeared out of nowhere to blindsided him. I'm not sure how strong the merits for the trademark case are but I got no sympathy for this guy.

Omitting to mention that he tried to sell them an app, and failing to mention the other party's offer of 100k. Just throws out any sympathy I have for Brian.

Clearly this is just mud-slinging and a good play at eliciting the developer and HN community's tendency to white-knight oppressed "davids" without hearing both sides of the story.

Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#123

Post by bryze »

jakejake wrote: post #56
jrockway wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true. But you don't have to send an extremely nasty letter with the two conditions, "give us all your assets and consult for us" or "be sued for $100,000". That's where my anger comes from. They could have said, "We think your name is similar to ours, and to ensure that we can defend our name in court in the future, we need you to license it from us for $1." But instead, they chose to be shit bags. (I could be…

In the email exchanges Brian comes across as the shit bag to me. Here's a sample that makes me wonder why he has a PayPal donate button on his site and why his original post was a cry for money: "Please do not confuse someone who would rather not waste their time and money on legal matters with someone who cannot afford a lawyer. I was born wealthy; I have an obscene trust fund. I assure you that if required, I will…

Do you actually believe that he's being honest? Sounds like he's puffing up to try and discourage them. When you're up against people who bring you into the legal ring, it might be a bad idea to show them that you're penniless.

Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#124

Post by ryanmolden »

zainny wrote: post #26
anton000 wrote: post #15

apparently according to Brian he has an obscene trust fund, so why didnt he lawyer up. Perhpas the mileage HN could bring + bad press he can bring about to a competitor was more enticing? https://whoshere.zendesk.com/attachments/token/v4qbuvns0xkik...

These emails are so strange. The tone taken by both parties is just so...unbelievable. For example, Brian's opening salvo "Neither of these options are remotely acceptable to me. It is also offensive to me that you would think my time was only worth $100/hr, considering I turn down requests offering 4 times that rate regularly." Seriously, "regularly" turning down offers for work at a rate of over $400/hr? And also,…

Those quotes from his mail made me immediately picture Ignatius Reilly.

Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#125

Post by jimboyoungblood »

ricardobeat wrote: post #60

I assume WhosAround, WhosThere, WhosClose, WhosComing and WhosUpMyAss are also trademark infringements?

yup. i made an iphone app named WhosAround a few years ago and got sued by the WhosHere guys. Just Google "myRete lawsuit" (myRete is their corporate name)

Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#127

Post by msellout »

jrockway wrote: post #11

We literally bet our life savings on this and years of zero vacations to bring WhosHere to where it is. Making a bad business decision and living a shitty life doesn't entitle you to sue people who make a similar app just because their app's name uses some of the same letters as your app's name. (Both companies picked crappy names that are poor brands and poor trademarks. It's like calling your hamburger shop "Hambur…

If you don't take legal action to protect your copyright / trademark, you will lose it. That's part of why big companies are such jerks all the time. If they weren't, they'd be out of luck when it really mattered.

Edit: whoops, should have read the other replies first.

Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#128

Post by blueben »

bryze wrote: post #123
jakejake wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the email exchanges Brian comes across as the shit bag to me. Here's a sample that makes me wonder why he has a PayPal donate button on his site and why his original post was a cry for money: "Please do not confuse someone who would rather not waste their time and money on legal matters with someone who cannot afford a lawyer. I was born wealthy; I have an obscene trust fund. I assure you that if required, I will…

Do you actually believe that he's being honest? Sounds like he's puffing up to try and discourage them. When you're up against people who bring you into the legal ring, it might be a bad idea to show them that you're penniless.

So we should believe what he says in public instead of what he says in private? Lets be honest here. He's lying. It doesn't matter which statement is a lie. That is a massive statement of his character.

Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me

#129

Post by blueben »

jrockway wrote: post #11

We literally bet our life savings on this and years of zero vacations to bring WhosHere to where it is. Making a bad business decision and living a shitty life doesn't entitle you to sue people who make a similar app just because their app's name uses some of the same letters as your app's name. (Both companies picked crappy names that are poor brands and poor trademarks. It's like calling your hamburger shop "Hambur…

I think that you decided to join the Internet Hate Machine before you knew all the facts, and now you're finding it difficult to admit to yourself that you were taken by a good story.
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