Now its time "For the Rest of the Story" Many of the ChessMAGIC! customers have been asking me for my side of the story in the dispute with Tom Brady/Decibel BBS. I've been hesitant to discuss this publically, but due to the request of customers and potential customers, I'm making this information available for your viewing. I'm not going to sit back and let Mr. Brady continue with his malicious actions without a response. I've nothing to hide and will provide as much information as I possibly can. Anyone logging onto my BBS can view this bulletin. Unlike Mr. Brady's derogatory bulletins that are NOT displayed to everyone that access his BBS. They appear to only be displayed to those that are "sysops" which would be potential purchasers of ChessMAGIC! or existing customers, as the old distribution archives provide Decibel BBS as the contact/support BBS. Local users have never seen such bulletins. Also it must be noted that he has locked out some registered ChessMAGIC! customers from his BBS. I'm offering a REWARD for anyone that will provide me with a copy of the bulletin(s). Termination Services ======================= First of all, I terminated Mr. Brady's services for a variety of reasons. He never left the association on his own, it was entirely my decision! I will discuss the many reasons for my decision to eliminate Mr. Brady and his services from the ChessMAGIC!/KnightWare products. Reasons for Termination ======================= 1) CMSED - System Editor written by T. Brady using FoxPro My intentions with CMSYS was to make this part of the ChessMAGIC! registration, not to be sold separately. Mr. Brady had persuaded me into limiting CMSYS so that CMSED would be the main system editor for ChessMAGIC!. At this time, I did not know his intentions, but found out quickly from one of my customers. At this time, CMSED was suppose to be in whole a part of the ChessMAGIC! registration. Mr. Brady, behind my back, started requesting separate registration fees for CMSED, limiting the functionality in releases to registered ChessMAGIC! customers. After confronting Mr. Brady with this situation, he first stated he was a third party software developer and could do anything he liked. I kindly reminded him that I could easily modify ChessMAGIC! that would make CMSED worthless. Then he took the position that he was just testing the marketablity of CMSED before informing me about. He denied behemently that he was trying to keep anything from me. I only continued with his services at this time, because I was not in the situation of starting a BBS. To add injury to insult, he also only wanted to provide me with a miniscule portion of the CMSED sales. He stated I did not have anything to do with CMSED so why should he provide me with a percentage that was comparable to what I was providing him for ChessMAGIC!. I then had to remind him, that I permitted him to to distribute CMSED as the main editor and also kept ChessMAGIC! compatible with it and that this situation could change easily. As of this date, I have never received any proceeds coming from the sales of CMSED. 2) ChessMAGIC! Support Conferences on Decibel Mr. Brady would not provide me any of the communications from my customers. I only received the information that was directly addressed to my BBS name and its highly likely that much of it was censored by Mr. Brady. I requested this information many times from Mr. Brady, and he would always have some sort of excuse for not providing me with this information. He intentionally buffered the information from me, in an effort to lock him and his BBS in the association. Finally he set the conference up for my access, but first removed all the previous comminications from it! One customer had uploaded a file, containing the Canadian algorithmns for rating calculations, for me to incorporate into ChessMAGIC!. Mr. Brady deemed that it was not necessary for this to go into the product and would not provide the file to me. Mr. Brady never did have the "say so" of what went into the product. It is inexcusable to buffer such information from the author of the product. 3) Developement Testing/QA files Mr. Brady was to provide me with the ChessMAGIC! game data base from his BBS weekly. When he did provide it, and it was sparse, he only provided portions that he decided were necessary. This handicapped developement testing/debugging severly. 4) Theft! Mr. Brady has witheld registration money and customer information from me, since March 1992. I have not received a penny from any registrations going through Decibel from March 1992. I also have not been provided customer information pertaining to these sales. Mr. Brady has never provided me a reason as to why he decided to retain monies and information which are due to myself. If you ever hear Mr. Brady denying this, the "proof's in the pudding", I have customers that have surfaced proving this! 5) Last Release to Decibel I provided Mr. Brady the means to register ChessMAGIC! for customers. He provided the credit card registrations, then was suppose to disburse the percentage of the sale that was due to myself. In the last release I provided him, in an effort to rectify the situation in 4 above, I altered the registration scheme, so that only myself could issue r egistered ChessMAGIC! products. Mr Brady never put this release on his BBS or made it available. He always complained about it having a bug, but would never provide me the information about the bug. He saw that he would lose control of the registrations and was going to do his darndest to keep that capability in his control. I could no longer "afford" for Mr. Brady to supply registered copies as he decided to pocket the entire proceeds for himself. 6) After all of the above, I provided Mr. Brady 30 days to respond in providing me the money and customer information due, issuing the new release, and providing me the customer conference exchange of information. Mr. Brady never responded and I have "never" received any of the above! 7) On two different occaisions, Mr. Brady told me that if I dropped his services, he would "kill ChessMAGIC!". I could no longer tolerate his threats or his coersive actions in this association, so his services were terminated! Malicious Allegations ======================= Mr. Brady has made some vocal allegations in an effort to "kill ChessMAGIC!" as he stated he would do. He has contacted customers by voice phone, and has posted malicious messages on his BBS. Mr. Brady is vindictive, and this can be substantiated by several of his BBS users. He is attempting to punish me for dropping his services. The only person Mr. Brady is punishing, is himself. Some of Mr. Brady's Allegations 1) I'm not the author of ChessMAGIC! I can assure you all the code in ChessMAGIC! was written by me, except for purchased libraries. All the source code is and has always been in my possession. 2) I don't have the capabilities to write such a program This particular rumor is being verbalized from not only Tom Brady, but B.H. Forbes as well. Simply amazing, somebody is coding it. I have over 14 years of experience in designing, developing and coding major applications. 3) Backdoors are built into the program This one baffled me. I have no reason whatsoever to place a back door in ChessMAGIC!. This is a total fraudulant fabrication on Mr. Brady's part. Nothing more than a lie in an attempt to discredit the product and myself. 4) Portions of the code were pirated He's referring to the computer play code. I obtained this code several years back, and it clearly states that it could be used for anyone's purpose. There was no extensive documentation, just source code. I have removed it just to dispell any rumors. As I stated before, if I stepped on anyone's feet by using the code, I apopologize for it. There was no intent on my part to "pirate" anyone else's software. If I have infringed, it was totally unintentional and has since been corrected. Mr. Brady knew about this code from ChessMAGIC!'s inception, and knew that it was removed before his termination. Brady's Bandwagon ================= Mr. Brady has been communicating with B.H. Forbes, the purchased/author of BBS Chess. I've heard much of the same comments from ChessMAGIC! customers, that were initiated by Mr. Brady now being communicated by B.H. Forbes. If I were Mr. Forbes I would beware, because while my association with Decibel was in effect, he slammed BBS Chess quite a bit. Why the big turn around? Just be careful! ChessMAGIC! vs BBS Chess ======================== I might as well throw my 2 cents worth about this as well while I'm up on my soap box. There are rumors that Mr. Forbes is planning on initiating a copyright infringement suit against me. Mr. Forbes doesn't own the rights to the "public domain" game of chess, nor the processes that are required to play a game of chess, nor the output of statistical data produced by chess competition. If so, the USCF, FIDE, CompuServe, USA Today and other chess organizations and programs are in big trouble! Anyone can sue anyone for anything, but to win it you must be correct in your cause. What Mr. Forbes doesn't like is the competition. Well the competition is not going away, it's just going to get better! For many years, his was the only viable product available. Now ChessMAGIC!'s arrived and is making an impact. Competition provides benefits for all, especially the user base. By creating a competitive market, it requires the developers to put out the best product available, which in turn, the users reap the rewards. The public can ill afford "monopolies" as products become stagnant with little incentive for improvements. Mr. Forbes produces a good product, but so do I and the public will decide which one they prefer. Some will like mine, some his, that's the concept of "free enterprise" in a nutshell. ChessMAGIC! Lives! =========================== I've made a strong commitment to the on going success of this product as you can clearly see with my support BBS, Atlanta Chess, and the new releases and enhancements that are continuing. I have enjoyed developing this product and will continue to do so, long into the future. I truly appreciate everyone's support! The new computer play module, which I've named "Solo" (c)1992 KnightWare, is well under construction. This module can be intergrated into ChessMAGIC! or utilized as a standalone door program. The first release is will be Dec 22, 1992. Its currently running on my BBS. This product will provide unlimited nodes and anyone registering before Feb 1, 1993 with 1 year free support and updates! P.S. Tom, Pat if you're listening, I did design & code this entirely myself. REWARD ========================== Anyone furnishing me any of the derogatory bulletins that were displayed on Decibel, I will work something out for you in the terms of free registrations or some nice upgrades to your existing KnightWare products.