December 93' INTRODUCTION This message is actually a follow-up to Clive Flory's six-part story on FrontDoor v2.0 in FDECHO and attempts to fill the gap from the initial start of the FrontDoor idea up to Mr. Homrighausen's leaving for Australia. > THE BACKGROUND > > About 3 or more years ago a Mr. Peter Stewart was > approached by Joaquim to be involved in developing an > E-Mail system. Peter was involved as a full partner and > they jointly developed the Front Door package up to the > release of ver 1.99c. > > The development of FD was along the following lines. Peter Stewart > developed > > The Interface > the Mailer > the Nodelist compiler > and the Editor > > Joaquim developed Front Doors Setup program and some of the > Protocols. > > The FUNDING for this development came from a number of sources. > It was not funded by Joaquim. At the end of the 1.99c development > JH proceeded to end the partnership with Peter Stewart. > > Through David Nugent I invited Joaquim to Australia to do some > software development. At this stage I had other projects I was > interested in doing . When Joaquim came to Australia he convinced > me into funding the next version of Front Door. His convincing > arguments were that he or at least James had about 600 orders ready > to be fulfilled IF ONLY WE HAD VER 2.00. > > We felt that Front Door should be developed along commercial lines > with a lot more commercial features and requirements than it had > at the time. > > I had at this stage already PAID for Joaquims airfare to come to > Australia. For the next 12 months I PAID Joaquim a weekly WAGE > while he developed what became to be called Front Door ver 2.00. > > Over the past 5 months I have since discovered that there are at > least FIVE other people and companies that have been in my > situation with Joaquim. These people and companies have over the > past 3 to 4 years lent him money or funded the development of Front > Door. On every occasion legal documents were signed and verbal > promises made and on EVERY occasion Joaquim has broken his > promise. Why does He now live in Luxembourg ? Because the legal > jurisdiction makes it a very expensive exercise for anyone chasing > him to recover monies. The Beginning of Front Door Some 5 years ago, back in the summer of 1987 I came across a very small FidoNet utility to be used with Fido v11w. The purpose of this utility was to circumvent the annoying need for a user dialing into a Fido v11w Bulletin Board to have to press the space bar twice after the initial connect in order to permit the Fido v11w software to recognize the appropriate baud rate of the incoming call, i.e. 300 baud, 1200 baud, or the enormous speed of then 2400 baud. That utility software, written by some fellows in Stockholm, Sweden, was appropriately called FrontDoor. As it turned out, one of the authors was a young man by the name of Joaquim Homrighausen. FrontDoor was neither a mailer, nor an editor, nor anything of the sort. It was just a small, but useful utility. At the time, the only mailer available to the FidoNet community was Thom Henderson's SeaDog. And the only reliable BBS software was Tom Jenning's Fido v11w. To make a long story short, I communicated with Homrighausen on several occasions via FidoNet over the following weeks/months and was finally approached by Joaquim Homrighausen with his request that he wanted to come to the United States for a lengthy stay. I offered my help and the help of my company AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc. of Miami, Florida and also suggested to him to think about developing the FrontDoor utility into a full-fledged commercial product, a mailer in direct competition to Thom Henderson's SeaDog. Joaquim at the time indicated that he was the sole author and holder of all rights to the FrontDoor product. He also stated that developing a full-fledged mailer as suggested would be a matter of a mere 3 months from start to finish. Based on that projection, I suggested to Joaquim that he needed enough monies to be able to survive in the United States for 2 months. Additional needs could be met by programming jobs he could complete for my company on a pay-as-you-go basis. Also, that way, equipment would be available to him to complete his FrontDoor project. The Initial Months in Miami Shortly thereafter, Joaquim contacted me with more definite travel plans and set the date for arrival in Miami, FL for early fall 1987, after leaving his job at Ericsson AB in Stockholm/Sweden. After some additional FidoNet traffic resolving such matters as living quarters, type of clothing required in Miami, computer equipment needs, etc., Joaquim informed me that he would be arriving together with a certain Peter Stewart who had "asked" to also be permitted to come to the United States. Homrighausen assured me that Stewart was an accomplished programmer (.. but not as proficient as he, Homrighausen, and that both of them would be arriving with at least $ 2,000 in cash each, as suggested, to survive the initial two months period. When I went to the airport to pick up Homrighausen and Stewart, there were a total of four people: Joaquim Homrighausen, not even 20 years old - and his belongings, all stuffed into one single duffle bag - , Peter Stewart - considerably older than Homrighausen (early thirties) - with his duffle bag, and two additional young boys, Peter Stewart's son and that boy's friend. The only thing they did not have was MONEY to live on! It did not take very long to find an initial place to stay for these fellows. However, transportation was an immediate problem, especially since public transportation in Miami is not too good and also since my company's office was located in an industrial area with no access to any public transportation. And neither one of them had enough money to be able to purchase a used car for basic transportation as had been suggested. As a matter of fact, there was hardly enough money to purchase food for all of them. So, payments by AMS to Homrighausen and Stewart began under an agreement that repayment would come as soon as FrontDoor v2.0 could be sold and that AMS would retain an exclusive interest in the FD Project. However, problems surfaced almost without delay. Since Peter Stewart brought his son and that boy's friend, Peter was somewhat handicapped and unable to devote his entire attention to trying to finish a project in order to make money on the finished product. Meanwhile, both fellows had been equipped with identical AT clones with PRIAM drives and Everex external modems. In addition, Homrighausen was equipped with an XT-clone and Everex 2400 baud modem and a new phone number for the FrontDoor BBS under the nodenumber 1:135/20. Now, rather than devoting their entire available time to the completion of the FrontDoor product, Peter Stewart spent a month or so completing a Terminal Communications Package for a company called Scandinavian PC Systems, while Joaquim Homrighausen spent his time on attempts to crack Thom Henderson's SeaDog so that copies of the same serial number of Seadog could talk with each other. When Homrighausen finally cracked SeaDog, he placed the appropriate messages citing details of the patch into the SeaDog echo - using a handle, of course! Progress on FrontDoor was next to none. Homrighausen and Stewart and boys showed up at the office around 7 o'clock in the evening and left in the early morning hours after a night's play/hacking, running up a phone bill with Long Distance calls and creating a tremendeous additional electric bill by operating the airconditioning system for the entire office building at full blast. Soon it became apparent that initial goals for FrontDoor could not be kept. More Time Wasted Many discussions ensued between myself and Joaquim Homrighausen as the self- styled leader of the Homrighausen/Stewart duo as to the progress of FrontDoor - or lack thereof. Promises were made and broken with never ending regularity and blame was usually assigned by Joaquim Homrighausen to Peter Stewart's lack of progress which in turn prevented Homrighausen from completing his task. Equally, blame was assigned to the presence of these two young boys and their diverting Stewart's attention from the real needs of the job on hand. So it went for several months until, a round-trip to Sweden later (of course paid for by my company) Homrighausen and Stewart were back in Miami, this time to finish the job on hand (so Homrighausen said)! By now summer had approached, more support monies had been spent, computer equipment had been upgraded: But, STILL no FrontDoor! Oh, there were some test versions, but they did crash with never failing regularity! The night sessions at the office continued unabated and with it the high electric bills and even higher phone bills! Yet, mind you, these phone bills were not for outgoing BBS calls made from the FrontDoor BBS, nor were they made for the purpose of testing the FrontDoor package! Mostly, these calls were made by Joaquim Homrighausen calling BBS systems all over the United States as well as untold overseas calls! Meanwhile, Joaquim Homrighausen completed ONE assignment for AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc. by salvaging a lost LOTUS v2.0 data file for one of my company's clients. The job was completed within 14 hours and a 70% credit for the monies received from that customer for this job were posted to Homrighausen's account, as agreed upon beforehand. Some months later, Peter Stewart completed a rather extensive assignment by rewriting and vastly improving the substantial portion of a proprietary software package originally written by an AMS client for that client's proprietary use. As before, 70% of the proceed received from that billing were credited to Stewart's account. Summer had gone and fall had almost passed when the first release of FrontDoor v2.0 (yes, version 2.0) was released to some Beta Testers. However, the choice of Beta Sites selected by Homrighausen was soo poor, that one of these testers inadvertendly made the software available for downloading from his BBS. Against my objections, Homrighausen dispensed with a closed Beta Test and opened Beta Testing to the public at large, creating the very first of many more NON-COMMERCIAL versions of FrontDoor v2.0. FrontDoor v2.0 had now been in development for more than one year from the arrival of Joaquim Homrighausen and Peter Stewart in Miami - and still no firm release date in sight, nor an end to the ever increasing list of software/ hardware needs/demands nor housing, transportation and basic utilities support by the "developer". At about that time, the welcome mat of the "dynamic duo" (as they were referred to internally) had been withdrawn from the office of AMS and Homrighausen and Stewart were invited to find appropriate housing on their own as well as find a different source for their basic means of support. Homrighausen and Stewart left Miami to fly to Sweden where they completed an arrangment with Scandinavian PC Systems causing funding for the FrontDoor Project to be resumed by Scandinavian PC Systems. The change was reflected in the copyright of the next Beta Release of FrontDoor v2.0 which henceforth included Scandinavian PC Systems. Several weeks and several Beta Releases later, Messrs Homrighausen and Stewart formed a US Corporation called InterZone Software with its seat in Miami, Florida. Homrighausen was President and Stewart functioned as Vice President. InterZone Software had no assets other than these two individuals, a new copyright in the FrontDoor v2.0 Beta software and a bank account at Barnett Bank of South Florida with more or less a $ -0- balance. The Rent for the Homrighausen/Stewart apartment of about $ 800.00/month as well as the phone and electric bill for these fellows was still being paid by AMS - not even mentioning the initial rent deposit of $ 1,600 nor the deposit required for the power company or the phone company. While FrontDoor v2.0 Beta was out in public for "testing", Homrighausen also created the Trans Altantic Project (otherwise known as TAP) - with the initial months of TAP phone bills being paid by AMS! By now, according to Mr. Homrighausen, the release of the final version of FrontDoor v2.0 was imminent - "just around the corner". That darn Car! Meanwhile, if for no other reason than to facilitate the immense amount of travel required by the "developer" Joaquim Homrighausen and to cut down on wasted time, thus speeding the release of that "final version", AMS made a used VW Rabbit available to Mr. Homrighausen. He promptly totalled that car - of all places in a parking lot - and AMS even had to pay for the tow truck to haul the Rabbit to the junk yard. That car was followed by an old Ford Mercury - basic transportation, no more! The fate of that Ford was equally glorious: Messrs Homrighausen and Stewart had the car towed from in front of their apartment and never bothered to retrieve the vehicle from the towing firm. Scratch a second car!! Counting Backwards! By now - spring and summer had come and gone AGAIN and FrontDoor v2.0 was no closer to final release than before. There always was this new "feature", this additional tweaking of speed, the new this and the new that! And, of course, every new gizmo "broke" at least one old one, if not more. So, instead of coming closer to release, the Beta Testing continued. As a matter of fact, the FidoNet community became rather annoyed with Mr. Homrighausen and mandated FrontDoor v2.0 to meet certain minimum FidoNet FTSC standards before release and use within FidoNet could be condoned. The FTSC further strongly suggested to indicate that the current version of FrontDoor v2.0 was indeed a BETA version. Hence, Mr. Homrighausen changed the version number to FrontDoor v1.99. Several releases of FD v1.99 followed in rather rapid succession, each containing more and more problems with the SEALINK protocol and some other "undocumented features". But, at least now, the version count was more correct since the beta releases started with FD v1.99, then FD v1.99a, followed by FD 1.99b and finally, many, many months later FD v1.99c. Money, Money, Money!! Meanwhile, the Homrighausen/Stewart duo had changed apartments and moved into better quarters. There was enough money from somewhere for Homrighausen to invest in new equipment. While Peter Stewart was still working on his old AT clone originally obtained from AMS, Homrighausen had replaced that machine with a brand-new 80386-based computer, VGA display and US Robotics HST modem, one for his machine and a second one for his BBS. But, curiously enough, there was not a cent to pay back the advances from AMS - which by now had stopped dead in their tracks! There even was enough money to purchase a brand new car: a Ford - financed via Ford Motor Credit! I had no idea about the car until the day that Ford Motor Credit's collection department called me, demanding payment of the seriously past due/delinquent installments! Not even the first payment had been paid on time! The reason for Ford Motor Company calling me was simple: My company had been given as credit reference and place of employment. Those blasted "Officials" It should/could have happened much earlier, but finally did happen: The US Immigration Department became curious about Mr. Homrighausen and started to inquire at Mr. Homrighausen's home address - which strange enough was the office address of my company, AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc.! After all, Mr. Homrighausen was still in the United States on a B-1 visa. For any layman not familiar with US Government terminology, a B-1 visa is a Tourist visa allowing a maximum stay of 6 months with one possible extension of 6 months. Gainful employment or other income producing work is strictly prohibited under US immigration law to the holder of a B-1 visa. And any company or individual granting employment to such a "tourist" is subject to a $ 10,000.00 fine per illegal alien! And for all intents and purposes, Mr. Homrighausen was an illegal alien under the law of the United States. Mr. Stewart's case was not much better, except for the fact that his grandfather somewhere had been a US citizen and thus Peter had a more "legitimate" claim to a stay in the US than Joaquim Homrighausen. Also, Peter never made any waves to speak of, left the country when needed to obtain a new visa and quietly worked and tried to take care of his son whom he had brought back from Sweden on one of the several trips he had made back home! The Jailbird! Joaquim Homrighausen always appeared to have a fascination for the fast lane and "action"! Hence, it was no surprise that he took a liking to Chris Irwin, the developer of D'Bridge, equally residing in Miami. Over a bottle of Vodka and assorted other strong booze, Joaquim and Chris often exchanged "ideas". Those exchanges usually lasted until one of them finally gave up too drunk to continue. The sessions were most often noticed in Miami's Net 135 since Chris Irwin usually felt an urgent need to place rather obscene traffic in Net 135 internal traffic. At times these sessions were apparently of some use since Irwin and Homrighausen developed some ideas from these sessions and implemented these ideas in the Beta Version of D'Bridge or the respective Beta Version of FrontDoor. Yet, it will probably never be known who stole what idea from whom since both guys were usually too drunk to remember! Also, Iwrin and Homrighausen had a strong sense of competition in that both intended to be the first in the final release of their respective product! As it turned out, Iwrin made that release, Homrighausen did not! It was - to the best of my recollection - the release of D'Bridge that caused Homrighausen's abrupt change of fate as the direct result of yet another drinking binge between Irwin and Homrighausen! This time, however, the drinking binge ended on a rather serious note withe the arrest and jailing of Joaquim Homrighausen. Florida law is rather simple in that it is against the law for minors to purchase and/or consume alcohol. Hence, many restaurants and bars often "card" individuals who look too young. While Irwin was over 21 years of age - Homrighausen was still a minor, i.e. less than 21 years of age! Yet, when "carded" he produced a faked ID he had created while in Sweden at Ericsson AB. Apparently the innkeeper became suspicious and refused to sell additional alcohol to Homrighausen, especially since he was also already rather obviously drunk at this ealry hour of the morning - around 2 o'clock! Now, NOBODY denies anything to Mr. Joaquim Homrighausen and thus Mr. Homrighausen became very loud and very obnoxious. The innkeeper asked Homrighausen to leave and when Homrighausen refused, he called the police. When the police arrived, Homrighausen had just left the bar but was still stopped by the police. When asked for identification, he produced his falsified Swedish Driver's license. The police did not accept that document and instead arrested Homrighausen for public drunkeness, disturbing the peace and producing a falsified identification. Because of that last item, the falsified identification, Homrighausen was delivered to Miami's Dade County Jail and booked on criminal charges! Being allowed one phone call from jail, Homrighausen called me at about 4 o'clock in the morning asking for my help. By now he was somewhat more sober, especially since the booking procedure of any US jail is rather degrading, especially the body search conducted while stark naked! During a flury of phone calls with some members of Miami's Net 135, and especially one SysOp who also is a guard at that same jail, I was able to find out that Homrighausen had been booked on criminal charges and not just the charge of being drunk. Had he just been brought to jail for being drunk, he would have been let go the very next morning. But, this way, there was no releasing him until he appeared before a judge the next afternoon for his initial hearing. The next afternoon, at about 2 o'clock, a rather quiet Joaquim Homrighausen was led from jail in chains, chained to at least 50 other criminals into a Court Room adjacent to that jail. Peter Stewart and I were there and with the help of a public defender were able to convince the judge that the police had made a mistake and misread a Swedish Library Card for a false identification. As a result, a trial date was set for Joaquim Homrighausen and Homrighausen was released into the custody of Peter Stewart pending his appearance at trial some months later. While this might sound inconsequential to the casual reader, such a "jail term" had some serious consequences for Mr. Homrighausen. His Tourist visa was about to expire and an extension was needed. However, part of the extension procedure is the completion of several forms under oath, containing among others the question: Have you ever been jailed? Homrighausen could not afford to lie on this question since Miami's Dade County Court System has rather close ties with US Immigration and Tourist visa extensions are routinely checked against arrest/jail records. Had Homrighausen lied on the application, he would have been caught and most likely deported. Had he not lied, his extension would not have been granted! So, in either case, it was time to leave the United States and go elsewhere! The End in Miami: Moving to the Promised Land The "promised land" for Joaquim Homrighausen turned out to be Australia and his association with Clive Flory and Clive's company - which no longer exists in no small part thanks to Joaquim Homrighausen's near insatiable appetite for money. But, before Homrighausen could leave, he had to sever his relationship with his former partner, Peter Stewart and remove himself from the presidency of InterZone Software. Equally, the question of who owns what of the FrontDoor code had to be settled! Peter Stewart, who had some time ago given up on his partner Joaquim Homrighausen, could not have been happier. It was Peter who had brought Scandinavian PC Systems into the fold. It was Peter who always had to talk to Scandinavian PC Systems and explain why the Front Door Project was so far behind schedule and it was equally Peter who finally saw his chance to amicably break this partnership that had gone so far astray. The two partners agreed to part with identical source code of FrontDoor's version 1.99c and all unpublished improvements thereto. Homrighausen and Stewart would continue their respective developments, except Peter Stewart would do so under the name InterMail in close cooperation with Scandinavian PC Systems and, of course, his own company, InterZone Software. As the indebtedness to AMS was fairly clear and had always been kept separate between the two individuals, each individual would of course continue to be liable for his own indebtedness. And since Peter Stewart had been making all car payments on that new Ford, he would also keep that car. Most of these developments happened near overnight and one day Joaquim Homrighausen was gone, never to be seen in Miami again. Money? What Money?! Now, interestingly enough, while still in Miami hard at work on FrontDoor, Homrighausen developed a flurry of utilities for use within FidoNet. Most of these utilities were made available free of charge to the FidoNet community, with the exception, of course, of the TosScan Echomail utility. That utility was written entirely during the time that FrontDoor v2.0 was allegedly being developed. TosScan turned out to be a good product and a success in the FidoNet community. And since it is a product that was SOLD, not given away, it also created income! One should assume that at least some of that income would go to repayment of debt. Well, not a cent did - not to this very day! > THE CURRENT LEGAL POSITION > > So what is the current situation with front Door and myself? > Well the answer is as follows > > a. Joaquim has been stopped from using the following > components in Front Door > > 1. FDCD (the communications driver) > 2. The Install programme > 3. The manual/documentation or any > derivation of the manual > > b. I currently own the name Front Door for the area of > Australia. As a result no one will be allowed to use the name > in a product or in any literature , advertising etc. > > c. I retain , pursuant to signed documents and due to a > legally enforceable agreement between Joaquim and myself the > exclusive distribution and liscenscee of the Front Door packaging. > At this point in time we are in dispute with Joaquim and are > currently enforcing our rights in the Australian Courts. Joaquim > has elected NOT to come within the jurisdiction of the Australian > Courts. Given the amount of expenditure and investment made by > myself we herby give notice that Joaquim is NOT entitled to give > licenses or sell Front Door in Australia, New Zealand or anywhere > else in the world without my express consent. While I personally and in my capacity as resident of AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc. challenge the accuracy of the foregoing statement(s) in that they patently ignore the rights of AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc. to the FrontDoor Product as well as the rights possibly granted to Scandinavian PC Systems for the use of that same name, I CONCURR WITH THE VERY SPIRIT OF THIS STATEMENT and state that I myself as well as my company will fully cooperate with Mr. CLive Flory in this endeavour. > In the event that any person purports to hold such a > license or Attempts to distribute , market or sell Front > Door, legal proceedings will be issued against them and > this letter or Electronic mail will be used as proof of > PRIOR knowledge. see above! - Also, the causal reader should be aware that Clive and I are already in direct communication on this matter in an effort to successfully coordinate matters. > d. As far as we can tell it is unclear as to WHO REALLY > OWNS the rights to Front Door. It would appear that the > rights are held by more than one person and company that > aided in the development and funding of the product. Absolutely CORRECT! The question really arises if Homrighausen could give away that very same right to a single product a total of at least three times: First to AMS, then to SPCS and then to Clive Flory! > THE ALTERNATIVE (...Excerpts) > > I have however chosen to market a product called INTERMAIL. > Intermail is a package written and developed by Mr. Peter > Stewart who as you recall was the joint developer of Front > Door up to version 1.99c. see some earlier comments > In my brief association with Peter over the past 4 months I > have found him to be an absolute gentleman and honourable in > all his dealings. While you have only known Peter by "modem/phone/fax", I have known Peter in person for many years now and also claim a small responsibility for introducing him to his wife Michele - appropriately enough, of course - via FidoNet, especially since Michele was - and still is - a FidoNet Sysop in South Florida's Net 1:369. Peter is a rather quiet fellow, the total opposite to his former partner Joaquim Homrighausen! Not only is Peter an excellent and most consciencious programmer/developer, he is also a rather honest and straight forward and responsible individual! It is true that Peter still owes me and/or my company a great sum of money. However, he has submitted his business plan, has discussed his position - in short, he has been and is straight forward and honest! Truly, I am not concerned with Peter. He will make it and will pay back what he owes - right down to the last cent! I wished I could say the same for Mr. Homrighausen who never deemed it necessary to reply to many requests for a payment plan and/or similar acknowlegment. Homrighausen has simply been absolutely quiet - officially, that is. However, he has made a rather telling move through James Smith and others in Zone 1 attempting to have me removed from the FDECHO after stating my claims in that echo about one year ago. Conclusion It is rather sad when the actions of a rather intelligent individual become such that one has to truly doubt his integrity and honesty, especially when this very individual could use his many talents in a much more constructive manner than to try and "screw" his fellow men out of money! Well, Joaquim Homrighausen through his actions to date has left me no other choice but to believe that his motives were anything but honorable. Hence, I will use my best efforts in cooperation with the other aforementioned companies and/or individuals to stop this type of behavior and/or action and to force repayment, if possible, by any means available within the European Community or elsewhere. Yes, Joaquim - and I know you are reading this - I am in the process of enlarging my scope from the US to Germany, more particularly to that part of Germany that used to be called East Germany. And Germany is not only a neighbor to Luxemburg, but, just like Luxemburg, a member of the EEC. And AMS being here in Europe AND in the United States, SPCS being located in Scandinavia and Clive FLory and Dave Nugent being located in Australia, where are you going to run to now? If you wish to reach me in the US, you may do so via 1:135/8.1. If you wish to reach me in Germany, please do so via 2:241/4000. ===================================================== To all others, my apologies for this long history of FrontDoor. But it was about time that the whole story be told! Thank you for listening Peter Adenauer President AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc. Bellville, TX (USA) and Dresden (FRG)