OT: SCO Forum

[Mike Schwartz (PC Support)]

> Other than that, nobody I talk to seems to authoritatively know who owns
> the rights to the old Softa one at this time.  Considered contacting
> FourGen and seeing if they can help with a native version?  It's seeming
> like your best bet.
> 
> mark->

     Try to contact Keith Hanson in Seattle.  Circa 1999, Keith claimed he
was the author of some of the Menu* products and that he had the "C" source
code, all the internal development documentation, etcetera and was willing
to sell it for $10,000.00.  (I don't recall if we discussed MenuMaster,
MenuEze, MenuMaestro, or any of the other variants.  I would like to know
the exact history, but I believe that they all had different authors.)

     As I recall, Keith said Softa/Fourgen company (per se) didn't write the
Menu* line of products themselves, although Keith, Gordon and all of these
guys were all loosely tied together somehow.

     I would like to see somebody (like Gordon) post a history exactly how
Softa was developed and who was involved, starting from the days when these
guys worked at Radio Shack Stores and/or knew each other from the Seattle
Computer Club(s).  I've also heard several rumors about how Softa became
FourGen and how they migrated away from filePro.

     Most of the people involved with Softa, including me, seem to be a
little bit afraid about discussing it; possibly for fear of legal or
licensing issues popping back up.

     For example, about 10 years ago, I was communicating with some guys at
a company down in Florida (I believe it was called "S & S") who claimed to
have purchased total Softa ownership from FourGen.  They claimed they were
converting Softa entirely to Spanish and selling a lot of it in Mexico and
South America. They wanted me to "renew" my master Softa license through
them!  Then I made contact with a couple of others who claimed THEY owned
all the rights to Softa.  

     When I started poking around and couldn't find anybody who could verify
they actually owned or would support the Softa code with regular upgrades,
bug fixes and so forth, I decided to quit selling it.  (There were some
other factors.  My partner and I had just split up, and I wasn't sure I had
clear legal title to our original Softa agreement, so we both agreed that
NEITHER of us should do any more Softa installations under that license,
lest both of us be held liable if there were problems.)
 
     That's most of what I know about Softa, but I would be very happy to
get this all resolved or at least to find somebody who has the source code
to the Menu* products or would be able to re-write it and sell me a couple
of end-user licenses.

Mike