Frankly I am surprised by your response here xeroc. Your arguments seem rather weak to me.
I have always respected your work ethic and technical insights, as well as your helpful attitude towards the people in this community, myself included. I still have you as my proxy, but there are things about this BitShares Munich drama that aren't adding up. We're not being given the whole story on the matter. Perhaps you're not either. Unlike many people I am not one to blindly accept a narrative. All I am doing here is asking questions and trying to gain clarity.
a) The last time you and I corresponded, you were sitting in the Munich office of Bitshares Munich while Chris was actually in China. That tells me that you have very good access and are far from being a disinterested party.
How am I supposed to work with the people in the BitShares Munich office if I wasn't there? I wonder how Ken did it all these months.
Are you saying onceuponatime is mistaken and you were NOT in the BitShares Munich office as he stated? As for you needing to "be in the office" to work with people there, certainly physical presence isn't required, people "work from home" all the time. We have people all over the world working together to get things done, have meetings, discussions, collaborate etc., surely you know that. Perhaps kencode works best from home without office distractions. Did he say he would meet you there and didn't? If so was this after Chris4210 made plans to ransom kencode's paycheck to obtain the IP you were hired to create github repos for?
As for the access, I only have as much access as Chris gives me since I am only contractor to BitShares Munich with very limited focus.
BTW, Munich is host to other companies and startups as well .. but that is non of your businesses ..
It does make sense to provide contractors limited access, but "limited" is vague. If you had access to the BitShares Munich office when both kencode and chhris4210 were away that doesn't seem all that restricted or "limited". Again, a rather odd response. Was this in reference to this Constantin party? Whoever or whatever outside party may be involved to try to force kencode to relinquish his control of what he has worked so hard to build (and protected my having his majority ownership stated clearly in the contract with Chris4210) by withholding his salary, that is an aggression and a clear violation of the NAP (Non Aggression Principle) BM and many others including me fully endorse.
If this remark was NOT related to such outside influencers, this remark is even more strange. Who isn't aware that the city of Munich Germany has many other businesses. I don't see where oneuponatime asked you about other Munich businesses so I don't understand why you replied so defensively. It seems to be a totally irrelevant remark.
None of us should be so naive to believe that when we finally get enough traction and begin to truly threaten and disrupt status quo money flows and financial interests that said interests won't try to defend their control. We all need to be prepared for when that day comes, b/c it may not come as a frontal, obvious attack. Could this be such an attack carefully planned and calculated to introduce delays and strife at a minimum and outright controlling interest in the products BitShares Munich is working on as a best case outcome?
b) The picture above actually shows that you are aiding and abetting Chris Herring (and other parties?) in a hostile takeover attempt of Kencode's (51%) company, Bithares-Munich, which he started and of which I was the first backer. You should be ashamed of yourself. "Re-branding" is a very very misleading way of describing the nefarious activities being perpetrated in Munich.
Chris Hering is officially the CEO of BitShares Munich ... you can see that by looking into the company register of BitShares Munich IVS. As long as that is the case, I can be hired by Chris who has to sign each and every contract.
OK, fine. Were you aware that Chris4210 only has a minority ownership position and kencode has a majority 51% position in BitShares Munich? Are you aware that a majority owner can over-rule a minority owner? Why do you put so much importance on Chris' title? What matters is contracted ownership rights, titles are merely a label. The contract dictates ownership rights. I have seen the contract and it clearly indicates ken owns 51% of BitShares Munich and Chris4210 has only 49%. What more do you need to know? Did you bother to ask kencode if he approved of the actions Chris4210 asked you to do? Considering ken was unwilling to give you access to the private repos Chris4210 asked him for didn't that give you pause? What do you consider due diligence in such a situation, to follow the dictates of the minority owner of the company, or do not care? I would say you should care.
This is a major issue for this community. Many are eagerly awaiting the completion of the projects kencode is managing. You xeroc carry a lot of well earned clout here, and like it or not your involvement can have a major influence on the community's perception of what's going on. It's one thing to help Chris4210 out with marketing efforts that may require technical consultation but it's quite another to be going against kencode's interests in technical matters which ken has been managing quite well and to which Chris4210's only involvement should be limited to that of an accountant that pays wages. Elsewhere on this form others have raised concerns about how Chris4210 is managing funds. See the thread about Alfredo's salary, which was to be paid 50 / 50 by his worker and matching funds by BitShares Munich but which 50% to be provided by BitShares Munich has not been accounted for.
Chris4210 is clearly overstepping that role in opposition to kencode. And although I had no reason to doubt Chris4210's sincerity until this drama began to unfold I am not comfortable with his answers and my confidence in his sincerity as a result is declining. TBH I can't say it is exactly helping my confidence in you either. You and Chris4210 are considerably younger and less experienced in business than ken is. He assured me he has contracts in place that leave no ambiguity about IP ownership of the contractor's work with every dev team member he has hired, and this is the central issue Chris4210 raised to justify his actions, without mentioning that kencode has a majority ownership interest in the company.
I am sad this situation has developed, withholding salary is manipulative and contrary to the best interests of the project. You spoke up 2 weeks ago in the mumble saying this might work out best for everyone, which sounded like a defense for what Chris4210 is trying to do. Chris4210 was very evasive in answering questions in that mumble. If you have truth on your side there's no need to be evasive. This is a typical legal tactic and it does not help to get at the truth of the matter, it only obfuscates and hides information in an effort to manipulate public perception. That's not a position of integrity, and I would hope you can see that.
I have no idea what causes your sudden hostility against me - and tbh, I wonder if I should care - I did nothing wrong in helping out a local company to deal with the business problems - no matter who caused them.
It's no secret you & kencode don't get along very well, and it shouldn't be hard to understand why onceuponatime might be strongly opinionated and a bit emotional towards these attempts to gain control of ken's dev team and code he has been working on so hard for so long on.
I'm not saying Chris4210 has no skin in the game, clearly he does and has also worked hard to market BlockPay and make it a recognizable brand. Not sure precisely what the core disconnect is between them has been triggered by, be it an outside influence, greed, or philosophical differences, but the contract should be king and from my perspective that puts ken in a superior position that this community should respect.
As for the github repos ... I was told that Ken was asked to move over BitShares Munich property (read: the code that was paid for by BitShares Munich investors ... and that has been ordered by BitShares Munich CEO) to a neutral (read company-owned) github project multiple times but he didn't comply.
Can you believe that BitShares Munich (the company) has not been granted access to the private repos for BlockPay and the internal exchange?
Sure, I can easily believe that and it's perfectly understandable. If ken has 51% ownership in the project everybody else's perspective is secondary. His failure to relinquish control of the private repos is simply to protect his interests in the face of this power play. Why is Chris4210 trying to intervene in technical management? He has no expertise in such matters, hence he contracted you to do the dirty work. Sadly you are helping him.
Investors? Don't you mean donors? What standing do they actually have to demand anything as donors? Ken is not defrauding or screwing anyone over. He is trying to develop and deliver the products and just when he is about ready to begin testing this drama surfaces (tho it has been brewing for some time now).
Either way ... I made my (business) decisions, offered my assistance to the company (that includes everyone of BitShares Munich) as a contractor to either deal with business demands or on the technical aspects - and that is what I did. BTW, I have been very open to kencode as well who has asked to hire me to deal with Trezor support (I declined to to having too little time tho), so please don't tell me I was) ... but I am sure some devs from the BitSharesDEV telegram group can confirm that I am helping the guy that ken hired instead.
If you think that was morally wrong, then I can live with it. For me this drama has been way too time consuming for the last 2,5 months (yes, that long) and I decided to get back to productive mode. You guys can stick with Kindergarden - I am done.
I am sincerely grateful to all you do for this community as I said above xeroc, and truly hope you are done helping chris4210 gain control over ken's work, whether you see it that way or not.
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