waiting for resolution ED/RAZBAM Situation Info & Discussion

[Kang]

3 hours ago, Bounti30 said:

Everything else is speculation.

Right, lets get back into some serious speculating here.

I think it takes so long because the agreement includes a joint venture of a new module and the whole thing can't be resolved until that is finally ready for early access. I mean, look at the evidence: thing has been going on for more than 2 weeks. Can it be any more obvious?

Don't know about you fine folks, but I for one am really excited for the English Electric Canberra (or B-57 if you insist for some reason) coming to DCS in 2027.

[Nightdare]

On 7/29/2025 at 8:46 PM, Horns said:

Adding this because I haven't seen it mentioned in the source code debate, apologies if it has and I missed it. As with all my posts, this is just my understanding: When ED first announced that they would change agreements to require the source code for third-party modules, my understanding was that that requirement was tied to the overall third-party agreement, not the agreement that is signed for a module; if that is true then the third-parties who were already developing for DCS when VEAO went under, Razbam being one, are not obliged to provide the source code for any modules they create in the future, as well as any modules they had created before.

If anyone has anything official that contradicts that please post it, the last thing I want to do is inflame the debate with incorrect information.

Edit: Please note that this would not prevent a third-party voluntarily submitting the source code or voluntarily signing a new third-party agreement.

 

Now I could understand the steps ED took to 'secure' module futures, could not be a blanket demand covering all 'old modules' (As they were Produced and as such fulfilled contracts)

But the way things seem to be going, even modules that weren't mentioned until years after the Hawk are all still at risk for becoming vaporware

For all we know, the most recent releases can go tits up if someone didn't have their morning coffee

 

If ED owes the customer 'some' transparancy, it should be which modules' sourcecode is secured.

 

 

[Koziolek]

46 minutes ago, Nightdare said:

If ED owes the customer 'some' transparancy, it should be which modules' sourcecode is secured.

 

Yeah, I don't understand the mystery in that. It could even be a marketing tool for the 3rd party: " No more Hawk controversy. Our module is secure as long as DCS World is alive - buy it with confidence"

Unless most of them are not secure - then I "understand" ED's reluctance to talk about it

Edited 6 hours ago by Koziolek

[OmasRachE]

In that regard, I would have actually expected something like this to be contractually regulated from the outset. Something along the lines of a clause obligating the developer to hand over the source code to ED in the event that the developer ceases operations or discontinues support for future versions.

 

[Koziolek]

11 minutes ago, OmasRachE said:

In that regard, I would have actually expected something like this to be contractually regulated from the outset. Something along the lines of a clause obligating the developer to hand over the source code to ED in the event that the developer ceases operations or discontinues support for future versions.

 

That is exactly what was supposed to happen after hawk - all "future" modules were supposed to be secured. But considering that ED is very silent about that we do not know if it ever happened. Maybe they could not agree to the terms of that "handing over" and in reality not even one new module is secure. Or maybe all new contracts include it. Take your pick

Edited 6 hours ago by Koziolek

[jeventy26]

17 hours ago, jeventy26 said:

nullI think everyone is saying that ED told us that if the 3rd party can't support they would have the files... Does not look like that was true.  So no, we don't have veto power... but you can see promises were made.  ED has admitted they do not in fact have the files. 

Still wondering if anyone has thoughts on this... because unless I'm missing something, ED did say they'd retain the files, and now we're finding out they don't.  That's not a legal gray area, and unless I am missing something that seems like a broken promise to customers?  

[OmasRachE]

I think you are missunderstanding this. Razbam did not leave DCS yet. And even if they will cut all lines in the future they can claim a reason for this, namely not beeing payd for their sales. So the question if Razbam is forced to give out the code by contract could well be part of the litigation and therefore ED should better not claim that they will have access to it in the future.  

[Aapje]

9 hours ago, Oban said:

However one has remained consistent to their statement, the other side keeps throwing kerosene into the fire, in the hope that the more people who get burnt will flood the hospital that they start supporting the kid standing there with the box of matches. !!  

Seriously? You mean the consistency of suddenly flipping from 'we are still working on a resolution and we will tell you when we have one' to 'we signed an agreement to resolve the conflict 8 months ago'?

[jeventy26]

53 minutes ago, OmasRachE said:

I think you are missunderstanding this. Razbam did not leave DCS yet. And even if they will cut all lines in the future they can claim a reason for this, namely not beeing payd for their sales. So the question if Razbam is forced to give out the code by contract could well be part of the litigation and therefore ED should better not claim that they will have access to it in the future.  

If I told my boss, "Don't worry, if the vendor drops the ball, I have everything backed up," and then when it all falls apart I say, "Actually, I don't have anything," I'm getting lit up.  No excuses.  That’s not a miscommunication.  That’s me giving false assurance and hoping no one notices until it’s too late.  That’s exactly what this looks like.  ED told us they’d have the files.  That gave people confidence to buy.  Now we’re being told they actually don’t have them, and it’s being shrugged off like it’s just legal nuance.

If I pulled that stunt at work, I’d be updating my resume.

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Koziolek said:

That is exactly what was supposed to happen after hawk - all "future" modules were supposed to be secured. But considering that ED is very silent about that we do not know if it ever happened. Maybe they could not agree to the terms of that "handing over" and in reality not even one new module is secure. Or maybe all new contracts include it. Take your pick

In situations like these, where ED doesn't necessarily have the ability to force a new contract on the plane makers, you can easily get a chaotic situation. For example, some plane makers may have agreed to hand over or escrow the source code, while others may have resisted.

And ED might not have been willing to treat all partners the same. For example, according to VEAO, they were not left with any option not to supply their source code for new modules, and because of that decided to leave DCS completely. But at the time they were selling only one module that clearly was not a huge seller. This is a very different situation for ED than losing Razbam or Heatblur, who make some very popular modules. So I can imagine that if RB or HB refused to agree to a new code sharing contract in the past, ED might have gone along with it, rather than have Razbam or Heatblur leave DCS.

If something like this is the case, then it is also fully understandable that they wouldn't want to publicly state that some third parties got an exception, because that could result in other third parties refusing to sign such a contract or developers that already signed the new contract getting upset.

If something like the above is true, then ED might have painted themselves in a corner a bit by promising that future modules would be safe from abandonment, if the actual truth is that this is not the case for all modules released (in early access) since VEAO left. Then they can't really walk back that statement without many in the community getting upset and demanding answers, that they would not be willing to give.

Edited 4 hours ago by Aapje

[Oban]

15 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Seriously? You mean the consistency of suddenly flipping from 'we are still working on a resolution and we will tell you when we have one' to 'we signed an agreement to resolve the conflict 8 months ago'?

For 18 months the statement was the same, and when there was something to share, they shared it, so where's the sudden flipping ? 
I think you'll find that their statement was more along the lines if we have something to share, then we will, they did, even if it was more forced due to Ron once again using social media to put out information that was designed to make ED look bad. 

Why hasn't Ron Zambrano himself not explain why they rejected the agreement and broke the confidentiality clause that went along with it ? 

You keep saying you have no Bias, even Stevie Wonder can see you're 100% not impartial. 

I don't need to hide mine, I actually do believe that less said soonest mended and keeping to the statement is the correct procedure, but I'm also no fan of Razbam's CEO, 95% of his 3rd party guys are gleaming though, but Ron's business decisions in the past are one of the reasons guys here dislike him. 

Nick grey doesn't escape criticism either, but at least he's actually stuck to the narrative for the past 18 months, and when he felt compelled to dislcose the "settlement agreement" he did, he threw that ball right back at Razbam..... all I hear now is crickets from Razbam. 
 

7 minutes ago, Aapje said:

In situations like these, where ED doesn't necessarily have the ability to force a new contract on the plane makers, you can easily get a chaotic situation. For example, some plane makers may have agreed to hand over or escrow the source code, while others may have resisted.

And ED might not have been willing to treat all partners the same. For example, according to VEAO, they were not left with any option not to supply their source code for new modules, and because of that decided to leave DCS completely. But at the time they were selling only one module that clearly was not a huge seller. This is a very different situation for ED than losing Razbam or Heatblur, who make some very popular modules. So I can imagine that if RB or HB refused to agree to a new code sharing contract in the past, ED might have gone along with it, rather than have Razbam or Heatblur leave DCS.

If something like this is the case, then it is also fully understandable that they wouldn't want to publicly state that some third parties got an exception, because that could result in other third parties refusing to sign such a contract or developers that already signed the new contract getting upset.

If something like the above is true, then ED might have painted themselves in a corner a bit by promising that future modules would be safe from abandonment, if the actual truth is that this is not the case for all modules released (in early access) since VEAO left. Then they can't really walk back that statement without many in the community getting upset and demanding answers, that they would not be willing to give.

I doff my cap to you with this one, as it's a great post. 

[Koziolek]

50 minutes ago, Oban said:

I doff my cap to you with this one, as it's a great post. 

I agree, he usualy uses a lot of letters to spell B......T but this one is surprisingly spot on

[Aapje]

4 minutes ago, Oban said:

For 18 months the statement was the same, and when there was something to share, they shared it, so where's the sudden flipping?

They indeed kept repeating that there was no resolution, even after that agreement was signed 8 months ago. And then suddenly they started telling us.

So the flip is that they kept us in the dark about the settlement for 8 months and then suddenly said that it exists. And why? Because as far as I can tell there was no public official statement from Razbam, so they seem to have responded to the the alleged leaks that they tell us to ignore. Strange, to say the least.

4 minutes ago, Oban said:

I think you'll find that their statement was more along the lines if we have something to share, then we will, they did, even if it was more forced due to Ron once again using social media to put out information that was designed to make ED look bad.

This is that ED said recently:
null

Yet fact is that they had new information to share since 8 months ago, but they simply refused to share it. And how is a settlement agreement not a resolution to the dispute?

If ED signed a settlement agreement that they didn't think would resolve the dispute, then that itself raises serious questions about either their (lawyers) competence in drafting a good settlement agreement, their ability as an organization to follow the agreement, their willingness to follow the agreement, or their judgement of Razbam.

4 minutes ago, Oban said:

Why hasn't Ron Zambrano himself not explain why they rejected the agreement and broke the confidentiality clause that went along with it ? 

I find it a bit hard to argue with you if you make these kinds of statements.

AFAIK, Ron never publicly stated that he rejected the agreement and as you note, he is probably not allowed to do so. There is a mail floating around that is allegedly from Razbam's legal team. If you believe that this is real and was leaked by Ron, then you already have your answer why they rejected the agreement (a claim that ED is not making the required payments).

So I don't understand how you can be unaware of the alleged reasons why Razbam withdrew from the settlement, yet believe that they did, when both of these claims are based on the exact same piece of (unverified) evidence.

4 minutes ago, Oban said:

I don't need to hide mine, I actually do believe that less said soonest mended and keeping to the statement is the correct procedure, but I'm also no fan of Razbam's CEO, 95% of his 3rd party guys are gleaming though, but Ron's business decisions in the past are one of the reasons guys here dislike him.

I understand, although from what I can tell, Razbam greatly improved as a company, and they did much better work in recent years, and kept on improving their modules, beyond what was promised.

A lot of his workers/contractors that you agree are great people also share criticisms of ED. Of course it is possible that these people are being deceived by Ron, but another possibility is that ED is not treating the third party developers as they should.

Apparently Razbam has lost a lot of talent, so at the very least it seems sad if the positive trajectory that Razbam was on does not continue.

[Nightdare]

@Aapje

 

has the issue been resolved after the agreement was signed?

[Dragon1-1]

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

Yet fact is that they had new information to share since 8 months ago, but they simply refused to share it. And how is a settlement agreement not a resolution to the dispute?

It seems like it was agreed on, but not actually implemented. I guess they decided that "yeah, we agreed on it, but then gone back to the square one without ever getting anything implemented" is not news because it doesn't change anything for us. That seems to be the standard ED operates on, refusing to share anything that doesn't affect the community unless Ron forces their hand. Probably a legally sensible way of doing that, but it's not fun from our perspective.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

15 hours ago, Beirut said:

Not having become a lawyer just gets better and better every day. 

A man or a woman should always embrace the fact that they, do in fact, have a soul. 

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Nightdare said:

@Aapje

has the issue been resolved after the agreement was signed?

Why else would you sign an agreement other than to resolve an issue?

[NineLine]

Just now, Aapje said:

Why else would you sign an agreement other than to resolve an issue?

Signing is only one step of an agreement. 

[Aapje]

2 minutes ago, NineLine said:

Signing is only one step of an agreement. 

But by this logic you could justify never making an announcement, if the agreement covers an open-ended period of time, which is almost certainly the case for the regular contracts you sign with developers (since the contract would cover the period where the module is in the store, and there is presumably no reason to limit that period in advance). So then the agreement would only be fully implemented if the open-ended arrangement ends, which can be decades in the future.

Anyway, still waiting to hear whether ED has fulfilled all of its obligations so far, under the agreement.

[NineLine]

6 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Anyway, still waiting to hear whether ED has fulfilled all of its obligations so far, under the agreement.

There is two parties involved, you make many assumptions on many things here, please refer to the first thread for anything official. Thanks. 

[Tank50us]

3 hours ago, Oban said:

I don't need to hide mine, I actually do believe that less said soonest mended and keeping to the statement is the correct procedure, but I'm also no fan of Razbam's CEO, 95% of his 3rd party guys are gleaming though, but Ron's business decisions in the past are one of the reasons guys here dislike him.

I'd like to hear more about this...

[NineLine]

11 minutes ago, Tank50us said:

I'd like to hear more about this...

In DMs please, not here.