waiting for resolution RAZBAM Situation Post Archive (will be deleted)

[Beirut]

14 minutes ago, Oban said:

 . . .  why would any potential new employee work for a company that's not paid their employess and sub contractors for several months, I sure wouldn't , would you?

 

 

Depends on the office coffee bar. 

 

 

[Rifter]

1 hour ago, nessuno0505 said:

The incredible thing after 88 pages is that there are still those who defend Razbam.

One could as well argue that after 88 pages there are still those who pretend to see the world in black and white, right and wrong, guilty and not guilty.
My personal takeaway of this debacle: All have lost. Us customers, Razbam and Eagle Dynamics.
Naming someone to blame only serves to channel your own anger because in the end you are helpless anyway and cannot change the situation.

[primus_TR]

2 hours ago, HWasp said:

How is it even possible to come up with this?

Very easy if you can think straight

[primus_TR]

36 minutes ago, Rifter said:

Naming someone to blame only serves to channel your own anger because in the end you are helpless anyway and cannot change the situation.

So, let's do away with the whole justice system,  since what's done is already done and we cannot roll time back? I disagree. It should be known who shat the carpet (although it is obvious in this case)

[Blackeye]

2 hours ago, Nightdare said:

Like "Not allowed to use product for other means or parties without consent of the parent company" - If you don't enforce that, any similar dispute following risks having that as precedent, you might just have given contractors carte blanche in doing whatever they want with your product

That is my point exactly: While "not enforcing clauses" may result in a precedent this does not equal "absolutely must not give money to the other party", so using IP loss as reason for not paying at all does not fly - that's all I said. You may not want to pay because you believe you'd have a hard time actually getting the other party to pay penalties or damages, but that has nothing to do with automatically losing your IP.

2 hours ago, Nightdare said:

I didn't assume, your comments show a clear lack of scope and a basic mindset of "ED should just do whatever helps me get what I want now, no matter how", with no idea about any ramifications which may entail, which made me conclude you have no practical experience with these kind of issues

Well since I don't have that mindset you are assuming things and incorrectly too. I'm not sure which statement(s) might have given you that impression or have a lack scope, but since your impression is wrong, your conclusion doesn't apply.

 

3 hours ago, Nightdare said:

Panic helps no one

No but (attempting to) sweep everything under the rug until it blows up doesn't either and I don't really see anyone panicking anyway.

 

3 hours ago, Nightdare said:

Thing is that ED is handling this situation as should

That's what I'm not so sure about.

 

3 hours ago, Nightdare said:

 but forget thinking you have any authority in dictating the timespan and results

And again with those made up insinuations and ad hominem attacks... just stop - it doesn't help your point.

 

3 hours ago, Nightdare said:

How could have ED handled this dispute better? There are 2 parties in this

The only suggestion I see which IS in control of ED was immediately stopping sales of the F-15

Making a prominent official statement, amending the store pages with the current status, offering guaranteed refunds if you buy now or making partial payments to RB to keep things going come to mind. Admittedly the last one isn't entirely in ED's hands but RB could not have claimed "no payment at all" in that case. You can probably find more in this thread if you read it with an open mind.

Yes, all of those have potential drawbacks for ED and one is a what-if scenario anyway, but they also have (had) potential advantages. The way ED does it now might be the best for them as many people tend to forget trouble once the next shiny new thing comes out, on the other hand some may not and the drama might impact the long term reputation.

[afnav130]

4 hours ago, Nightdare said:

 

and all I need to do is look up your transaction in my bank account and find its not there, my bank confirms there has been no deposit under that reference number, now what?

Then thats not a ME or a You problem. Thats the banks issue and thus it needs to be corrected. Don't be so obtuse to think that in modern times a bank transfer to the correct account number that has been validated can't be easily checked to see if it was deposited. This isn't 1940 anymore every little thing is tracked, every little thing is easily verifiable.  

[Rifter]

24 minutes ago, primus_TR said:

So, let's do away with the whole justice system,  since what's done is already done and we cannot roll time back? I disagree. It should be known who shat the carpet (although it is obvious in this case)

The modern legal system in constitutional states is one of the greatest achievements of all. We certainly shouldn't get rid of it.
Especially since it replaced the medieval torch and pitchfork system, which some still prefer, for whatever reason…

[Oban]

5 minutes ago, afnav130 said:

Then thats not a ME or a You problem. Thats the banks issue and thus it needs to be corrected. Don't be so obtuse to think that in modern times a bank transfer to the correct account number that has been validated can't be easily checked to see if it was deposited. This isn't 1940 anymore every little thing is tracked, every little thing is easily verifiable.  

Except you're missing several critical points.

You do not know the terms and conditions of the finance agreement between both parties.

You don't know any terms and conditions or the clauses that may or may not have been placed within the working contract.

Did RB pursue the outstanding funds through legal channels to begin with, such as initial remiders, final reminders, threat of legal action, (confirming that they are in breach of contract with your lawyer), having your lawyer contact their legal team, with the threat of legal action for fee's due?

In this case, there's no indication of the steps taken between A-Z  ( Z being Ron Zambrano going public).

There's zero evidence presented that all the steps between A-Z were exhausted, and I highly dount that RB's lawyer would have said , you've nothing to lose here Ron, go public and cause a shyt storm. Factual evidence of this will all have to be presented now through the legal channels.

As for ED, there's a claim of breach of contract on RB's behlaf, of which nobody here is privy to

There's claims of a breach of IP rights ( IIRC that the base model for the F15E was ED's to begin with, and RB developed and tweaked it to their criteria)

Nobody here knows the full story between both parties, so its all pure speculation as to who is right and who is wrong.

[Hammer1-1]

9 hours ago, exhausted said:

I didn't distort or read your post carelessly and I agree that publicly discussing the issue does not weaken a claim Razbam may have. 

 

yeah it only makes you look petty and vindictive. doenst weaken a claim at all...

[afnav130]

1 minute ago, Oban said:

Except you're missing several critical points.

You do not know the terms and conditions of the finance agreement between both parties.

You don't know any terms and conditions or the clauses that may or may not have been placed within the working contract.

Did RB pursue the outstanding funds through legal channels to begin with, such as initial remiders, final reminders, threat of legal action, (confirming that they are in breach of contract with your lawyer), having your lawyer contact their legal team, with the threat of legal action for fee's due?

In this case, there's no indication of the steps taken between A-Z  ( Z being Ron Zambrano going public).

There's zero evidence presented that all the steps between A-Z were exhausted, and I highly dount that RB's lawyer would have said , you've nothing to lose here Ron, go public and cause a shyt storm. Factual evidence of this will all have to be presented now through the legal channels.

As for ED, there's a claim of breach of contract on RB's behlaf, of which nobody here is privy to

There's claims of a breach of IP rights ( IIRC that the base model for the F15E was ED's to begin with, and RB developed and tweaked it to their criteria)

Nobody here knows the full story between both parties, so its all pure speculation as to who is right and who is wrong.

I don't care about all that for this discussion point. RB makes model, ED sells said model. ED verified the model before it was released to the public so I doubt it has anything do with the F15E. So, once the first payment for sales were due for that specific model, they should have arrived. I doubt this is a once per year payment schedule. If you sell something on someone else's behalf that they put their blood sweat and tears into, then withhold those funds FOR ANY REASON is and extremely low thing to do. Thus I would put out the evidence publicly that we did indeed pay them what they were owed up until a certain point. 

[maxTRX]

Before the next chapter starts.  What have I learned:  (1) Corporations are greedy and like to hide everything to protect reputation. (2) Customers like to shine a big spotlight on every dark place and hope for some 'whistleblower' to reveal the entire story/scheme...  Oh wait, I already knew that

What else I know... Oh yes, the lawyers love to proceed very quickly for 'some' reason.

[Oban]

1 minute ago, afnav130 said:

I don't care about all that for this discussion point. RB makes model, ED sells said model. ED verified the model before it was released to the public so I doubt it has anything do with the F15E. So, once the first payment for sales were due for that specific model, they should have arrived. I doubt this is a once per year payment schedule. If you sell something on someone else's behalf that they put their blood sweat and tears into, then withhold those funds FOR ANY REASON is and extremely low thing to do. Thus I would put out the evidence publicly that we did indeed pay them what they were owed up until a certain point. 

Oh but it's all do do with the F15E, that's the module that RB was awaiting payment for, all of the other modules are several years old.

Again, you're only looking at this from your persepctive, if there's a breach of contract, and under the terms and conditions, there's more than likely a clause that states you can withold payment, it's protecting your business.

You obviously don't work in a management capacity, or at corporate level where you deal with the writing of contracts, terms and conditions etc.

What you would do, and what coprorate managers and legal representatives do are poles apart, based on tecnical and legal experience, that's their roles, they have the knowledge, you don't.

You probaly also think you're a pilot because you fly said Modules too. !!

Leave the experts to hash this out, it's what they get paid the big bucks for, and they will have all the evidence as to whom is right and wrong in this case

[afnav130]

6 minutes ago, Oban said:

Oh but it's all do do with the F15E, that's the module that RB was awaiting payment for, all of the other modules are several years old.

Again, you're only looking at this from your persepctive, if there's a breach of contract, and under the terms and conditions, there's more than likely a clause that states you can withold payment, it's protecting your business.

You obviously don't work in a management capacity, or at corporate level where you deal with the writing of contracts, terms and conditions etc.

What you would do, and what coprorate managers and legal representatives do are poles apart, based on tecnical and legal experience, that's their roles, they have the knowledge, you don't.

You probaly also think you're a pilot because you fly said Modules too. !!

Leave the experts to hash this out, it's what they get paid the big bucks for, and they will have all the evidence as to whom is right and wrong in this case

You have no idea what my background is and I don't know yours nor do I care. Means nothing to me. What I do know is one side won't even admit if they paid them or not. You want to hammer the head of a company that did something in breach of a contract? Fine. But what about all the worker bees who worked basically for free if RB is to be believed. People get so caught up in the "let the lawyers deal with it" when in a lot of cases that just makes things worse. Lawyers love billable hours and will milk that as long as they can. I am sure anyone who has to deal with them knows this to be true in a lot of cases. 

I doubt it has to do with the 15E and more likely with the Super Tucano. Stop shilling for ED or even RB. Plenty of people call out RB and rightfully so for going all in, but are reticent to even look at the lack of info from ED that would clear a lot, and I mean a lot of stuff up in the public sphere. 

[Oban]

17 minutes ago, afnav130 said:

I don't care about all that for this discussion point. RB makes model, ED sells said model. ED verified the model before it was released to the public so I doubt it has anything do with the F15E. So, once the first payment for sales were due for that specific model, they should have arrived. I doubt this is a once per year payment schedule. If you sell something on someone else's behalf that they put their blood sweat and tears into, then withhold those funds FOR ANY REASON is and extremely low thing to do. Thus I would put out the evidence publicly that we did indeed pay them what they were owed up until a certain point. 

How about this Instead of the slanging match that unfolded ?

DISCLAIMER:
"Dear Customers, after seeking legal advice due to situation outwith our control, we have been advised to suspend all activity in the updating of our products until further notice.
We deeply regret having to take this action, and are hopeful that the matter can be resolved as quickly as possible "

Yours sincerley
Ron Zambrano
CEO Razbam LLC


That would have put the ball in their court, there would have been no finger pointing, no hearsay, no speculation, no public spat.

And their lawyers would have dealt with their grievance.

Not all the lawyers posting here in the court of public opinion.

3 minutes ago, afnav130 said:

You have no idea what my background is and I don't know yours nor do I care. Means nothing to me. What I do know is one side won't even admit if they paid them or not. You want to hammer the head of a company that did something in breach of a contract? Fine. But what about all the worker bees who worked basically for free if RB is to be believed. People get so caught up in the "let the lawyers deal with it" when in a lot of cases that just makes things worse. Lawyers love billable hours and will milk that as long as they can. I am sure anyone who has to deal with them knows this to be true in a lot of cases. 

I doubt it has to do with the 15E and more likely with the Super Tucano. Stop shilling for ED or even RB. Plenty of people call out RB and rightfully so for going all in, but are reticent to even look at the lack of info from ED that would clear a lot, and I mean a lot of stuff up in the public sphere. 

You only know what you think you know.

[Horns]

3 hours ago, Rifter said:

The DCS ecosystem is tiny - a niche in a niche. That means, no matter who has more dirt under his carpet, both sides are losers in this matter.
We are not talking about an enterprise level company which has a dispute with one of its many suppliers and has an army of lawyers ready to proof who is in charge. We are talking about economic dwarfs who’s business relationships depend very much on friendly partnerships because the economic survival of all involved parties is decided from year to year. There is no ‘strong’ player in the DCS ecosystem. ED is not in a position to tell their 3rd party developers: ‘Love it, hate it or leave it’. ED must always strive to maintain good relationships with its partners and have an early warning of disagreements and dissatisfaction, just like its business partners.

97.8% of all conflicts between companies are solved in an out-of-court agreement. If it wouldn’t be that way, our whole economy had allready been collapsed because everyone would legally litigate each other to death. Going public aggressively, like Razbam did, usually indicates long-held dissatisfaction, rather than a question of whether one can gain an advantage in court.

I'll restate what I said in the last sentence of my previous post: Razbam might have had a reason for wanting to settle this out of court, with finances being one possible reason, and wanting to settle out of court *does not necessarily mean they felt their case was weak*.

I don't know if a lot more litigations would lead to economic collapse, but I think it's probably moot because a large increase in the number of cases going to court would cause the legal system to grind to a halt before it could threaten a national economy.

I was asked why I thought Razbam went public, I went with the answer which assumed it was a reasoned action. I absolutely agree that their going public could have been the result of frustration rather than a value judgement. Personally, when I see an action, especially in business, and that action might either have been the result of a conscious decision or an emotional response, I usually assume reason won out. YMMV.

[Mizzy]

13 hours ago, exhausted said:

Mizzy there is a simple explanation that perhaps some are refusing to accept: Razbam went public to be informative with that to expect now that payment from ED lapsed for months. If you want things sweet and direct, then don't be so evasive. 

That doesn't appear to be a true reflection at all, a one sided argument in fact. Ask yourself this, why only Razbam ?!!. There are numerous 3rd Parties involved with DCS development, so why just Razbam have they picked on ! your opinion is non sequitur. You are refusing to accept Razbam went public to cause threads like this and their reputation is now doomed, who on earth is ever going to buy another product from them !.

"Razbam went public to be informative" sounds like you have a vested interest in the Company and hardly objective. I signed a NDA with ED several years ago and it was clear what the Contract was. I fell foul of a clause in the NDA and received a polite notice of the breach, they pointed out to me the agreement I signed and settled without dispute. Razbam know full well what they signed and implications if broken directly or indirectly. Razbam motives for going public are VERY evasive as to the real reason why ED apparently won't pay them. You are not portraying anything other than your speculation and to say Razbam were being informative is ludicrous in the extreme. Greetings.

Mizzy

[Whisper]

3 hours ago, Oban said:

[...]

ED's terms and conditions for RB for the SE by all accouints was that they'd receive remuneration for services complete upon completion of the SE ( it's not complete, it's in early access)

[...]

Do you have any source for this claim? Because I find it very very doubtful that any 3rd party would sign such a predatory contract, or for ED to set up such system where they benefit from third parties work during the whole early access phase while not paying them.

That would be the sure way to kill their 3rd party ecosystem, which is something I'm pretty sure they don't want.

Would that be something specific to RB and the SE?

[Mizzy]

1 hour ago, Oban said:

Nobody here knows the full story between both parties, so its all pure speculation as to who is right and who is wrong.

Indeed

15 hours ago, Horns said:

To try to offer the public an explanation for suspending support of their modules that placed the blame on ED rather than themselves. I don’t think for a second a lawyer suggested it would help their legal case.

 Edit: I suspect (I don’t claim to have knowledge of their game plan) everything Razbam have done from the announcement of the suspension of support onwards has been about trying to use the public to put pressure on ED to accept an out-of-court agreement more favorable to Razbam than they would otherwise get. I wouldn’t be surprised if they felt they had to keep this out of court - not necessarily because their case was so weak, perhaps because of their financial position or some other reason.

 

Yes quite ED will undoubtedly be in a better position to protect their IP, it's their core business afterall.

[primus_TR]

2 hours ago, Rifter said:

Especially since it replaced the medieval torch and pitchfork system, which some still prefer, for whatever reason…

You mean how Razbam tried to do by publicly accusing ED of wrongdoing without evidence, and facilitating vitriol on their Discord channel as part of their pitchfork and torch strategy. Common sense is a scarce commodity these days. 

[HWasp]

4 hours ago, Oban said:

RB employees and sub-contractors will have terms and conditions as to which theur remuneration is set, I don't believe for one minute any of their employees/sub-contractors were on a zero hours contract.

ED's terms and conditions for RB for the SE by all accouints was that they'd receive remuneration for services complete upon completion of the SE ( it's not complete, it's in early access)

The development time for the F15E was several years, 5+ for development. So the Remuneration would have been more along the lines of a productivity bonus.

There's not a chance that any employee or sub-contractor on the F15E development team were not receiving a salary from RB for the duration of the development, on the premise that they'd all get paid at the end of the project. 

The payment of salaries would be down to RB, and not ED.

Non payment of RB employees would be an internal issue between RB and their employees, and not related to ED in any shape or form.

The payment of Bonus's for performance related pay would be dependent on the payment that would have been expecting from ED, which the payment from ED is more than likely part of the teams bonus scheme.

Now, none of the RB employees or Sub contractors have offered up their employement terms and conditions for public scrutiny to show how and when they were to be paid on a monthly basis, nobody works on an annual one payment per year, unless it's part of their contract.

I don't know about anyone else, but if I worked for a company, busting my balls, and after the 1st month they said " sorry, can't pay you until the client pays us" then you'd be like " WTF, I have a contract, and you've not honoured that, I want paid" but the Finance department say "don't worry, next month for sure"

Then you carry on working your ass off, as you don't want to leave because you will lose that salary owed.

Then the following month, still no salary received, and the same story " sorry, we can't pay you, client still hasn't paid us" , and the preise is that next month..so you keep going?

Are we supposed to believe that the development team and RB employees went without salary for 6+ months, without any of them seeking their own legal advice ?


So the poster is right, why would any potential new employee work for a company that's not paid their employess and sub contractors for several months, I sure wouldn't , would you?

 

Nobody claimed that RB employees were not paid for 5 or whatever years, where is this even coming from? Nobody ever said that afaik.

RB's main source of income was/is cut for multiple months, whatever financial plans they had, got invalidated, that is the story. The reason is the "thing" being discussed here for 88 pages.

Why spin this story around as if it was somehow RB's deliberate decision not to continue to pay their devs? 

I'm not arguing about who is right or wrong, (nobody is probably), I just don't like that the little part of the story we seem to know is being spun around.

[Darkdiz]

In any court of law, truth is the first casualty. So who is "right" and who is "wrong" becomes irrelevant, and is really a function of how good your lawyer is

[Oban]

1 hour ago, Whisper said:

Do you have any source for this claim? Because I find it very very doubtful that any 3rd party would sign such a predatory contract, or for ED to set up such system where they benefit from third parties work during the whole early access phase while not paying them.

That would be the sure way to kill their 3rd party ecosystem, which is something I'm pretty sure they don't want.

Would that be something specific to RB and the SE?

I believe that was from claims from people linked to and within Razbam, hence the " by all accounts", now by all accounts does not make that gospel, or factual.

What's not in dispute is the claims by RZ/RB that they're owed a 7 figure remuneration, notice I said claims, as no evidence was presented, no legal documents, just a frustrated vent that started the whole shyt show off.

Like I have said, not one single person here knows the terms and conditions, unless we're all privy to those, then we can only speculate as to why ED has witheld payment for a considerable time.

[Oban]

18 minutes ago, HWasp said:

Nobody claimed that RB employees were not paid for 5 or whatever years, where is this even coming from? Nobody ever said that afaik.

RB's main source of income was/is cut for multiple months, whatever financial plans they had, got invalidated, that is the story. The reason is the "thing" being discussed here for 88 pages.

Why spin this story around as if it was somehow RB's deliberate decision not to continue to pay their devs? 

I'm not arguing about who is right or wrong, (nobody is probably), I just don't like that the little part of the story we seem to know is being spun around.

I never stated they hadn't been paid for 5 plus years, I said the development took 5+ years, there's a difference.

Once again, the payment of Razbam employees and subcontractors is a Razbam issue, not an ED one, their terms and conditions of employement were not written and drawn up by ED.

Again, I asked why none of the employees went public about not getting paid by their employee, the same as what RZ did when he stated ED has withheld funds ?

I asked why none of the RB emloyees didn't seek their own legal advice if they claimed they have been working for free for several months, were they still receiving a salary as per their terms and conditions between employer and employee.

There was no evidence presented that employees salaries were tied to payments from clients/3rd parties.

That's not spin, it's asking valid questions on why would you continue to work for several months, without seeking personal legal advice as to your rights?

[Rifter]

2 hours ago, Horns said:

I was asked why I thought Razbam went public, I went with the answer which assumed it was a reasoned action. I absolutely agree that their going public could have been the result of frustration rather than a value judgement. Personally, when I see an action, especially in business, and that action might either have been the result of a conscious decision or an emotional response, I usually assume reason won out. YMMV.

According to your wording this would imply that Razbam could have used a highly emotional accusation merely as a pretext for a calculated strategy for the impending legal battle. Which in turn would make Razbam look even worse than it has already achieved with its unfortunate action.

I don’t see any point in fueling the torch and pitchfork crowd even more.

It might be an unpopular opinion in this thread, but: This is not about someone who did something terribly wrong and now needs to be held accountable. It's about a communication disaster that damaged all parties involved, regardless of who was to blame.

And that is what makes me as a DCS aficionado really sad.

[Rifter]

1 hour ago, primus_TR said:

You mean how Razbam tried to do by publicly accusing ED of wrongdoing without evidence, and facilitating vitriol on their Discord channel as part of their pitchfork and torch strategy. Common sense is a scarce commodity these days. 

Nice try to intentionally misunderstand me, but I still have a question:
If the true pitchfork crowd lives at the Razbam Discord channel - who are the people around here in this thread (and I specifically include myself because I don't think I'm something special)? The quiet and reserved ones who hold off on making snap judgments until things are sorted out? The ones who objectively and soberly analyze the facts? So actually the ‘good’ guys standing on the right side of history?