Answer to all those questions?

Like Peggy said, KAM knew IB was in this court case for the "long-haul" and wasn't going to be cheap either. If your thinking early doors that you're going to run into serious debt if following it through to very end, not knowing if you will win anyway. I'd think serious about cutting my losses also. May be a defeatist attitude, but sometimes common sense does win the day backing down. Doesn't matter if you know you're innocent, you can never predict the final outcome of a court-case going in your favour.

 

from an April thread, "virtually every penny that XenForo has made has been consumed by legal fees."

 

In their defense on this one. Companies often times settle because its cheaper and less risk to settle then to fight. This occurs in both civil and criminal cases.

I agree completely.

Well, if that was the whole truth, they would have been smarter to say that. It would have gained them sympathy. Also, if this was the whole truth, logically it would mean development would have been slowed, not ceased.

 

A court case doesn't make you incapable of posting a couple of lines to your own business forum.

 

It easy for us looking at it from the outside, not being involved with debts mounting up and up, and there's no guarantee of a win at the end. Your house and everything worked for could be on the line if loosing. Being innocent is all well and fine, but it still doesn't mean you'll win come the end, not when lawyers are twisting things in court against you.

Another thing, although I can't see this happening. I've wondered if Internet Brands would settle with KAM on the grounds, they continue developing XF getting a wage or whatever is agreed. But IB own XenForo as a separate forum product getting sold alongside vBulletin. They would then own 2 of 3 forum software companies in direct competition with IPB. That sounds like a win, win for IB and something I'd not rule out they might be interested in wanting to do.

After all, they do buy sites up if it can be added to their list for making them money. What's so different really about XF doing the same thing for them, then it wouldn't matter if they lose sales of vBulletin to XenForo, they'd own both and would have a very strong position in the forum commercial sales market.

 

I would have done everything I could have to settle it from the get go short of selling/killing the company.

It was a really dumb move on their part to begin with to release it 1 year to the day they were terminated/quit from IB. It doesn't matter what it is, it only matters what it looks like and what the plaintiffs can prove, All it will take is 1-2 features in XenForo that were planned for vB4 (or any version while they were there) and it's going to be game over.

That's a huge risk (granted it will come with a huge reward if they win), but I don't know if it's a risk I would take letting this go to trial.

 

At the end of the day, KAM has most likely learned that it isnt as easy as it looks to run a business. IMO, they (KAM) need to work for someone. They dont appear to me to have the necessary customer service / business skills to run a company. Its not a dig on them, everyone doesnt have the necessary skilset to be thier own boss.

The real shame is Xenforo really is a nice piece of software. They did a good job with it.