Well XOOPS has most certainly had a rough ride over the years but never in its history has its users been lied to so much as it has since the departure of some key players just a few years ago.
They persecuted someone who's intentions were to raise the profile of XOOPS to give it a better foundation and promote the project which he did successfully.
Then came along new leadership which I sadly had involvement in helping create. James proposed the current leader (at the time of publication) to Skalpa who was then the lead developer, he agreed and so the transition begun, however after a short period of time you could see management changing into a dictatorship from the new project leader, the project had been here before and it didn't work it suppressed everything XOOPS stood for. We questioned this and were ignored, then treated like crap and lied to, our words to the community were edited and twisted to make us look bad, to make it appear like we were being aggressive and attacking the project and trying to bring it down.
Mamba was the key player in trying to destroy the public profile of once dedicated XOOPS members who gave much time and in some cases money. His attitude was downright wrong, rude and abusive he made it his sole purpose to hide the real truth from the XOOPS community and then he tried to pursue with a legal case against Herko Coomans and now the court has thrown out their case Mamba is considering an appeal claiming the Dutch courts:
"This case will be definitely a warning to other Open Source projects to avoid the Dutch "Stichting" legal form, and about the Dutch court system that obviously doesn't understand the Open Source project idea."
That almost seems a jibe at the Dutch legal system.
Mama AKA Michael Beck has shown a clear disrespect to many people and masked this from the XOOPS community, its not their fault they believe his lies, he did after all edit many posts to suit his own agenda.
I hope now that Herko will consider counter suing them for damages, these were all personal agenda's and as such I think the whole board could be liable for damages and deformation of character.
Imagine all the communities money Mamba has blown on his personal crusade to try and ruin good people, personally I'm surprised he still has a position in XOOPS........
Here is a few words from a friend of mine, Marcan:
Quote:
In case you have not heard already, Herko won the lawsuit against him (well in fact, they lost, he did not win anything ;-)). This puts an end to years of conflicts, defamation and personal harassment. Herko did not deserved any of this. After years of dedication to the XOOPS project, this is how the project thanked him. Absolutely unbelievable. Open source should be better then this...
Anyway, you can read more about it here:
http://www.xoops.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5341
http://community.impresscms.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&type=&topic_id=4250&forum=12
Now that the news is out I would like to make a very special request to all of you: show your support! In the last years, Herko did all this by himself. He was alone, fighting 1 or 2 people who managed to turn an entire community against him. The community only knows what it had been told. Nothing else. No one really jumped in the arena to defend Herko, probably fearing the 1 or 2 people at the head of the XOOPS community who were being totally unreasonable. But now, they lost, it's clearly stated publicly. They say they are thinking of an appeal, but that would be ridiculous.
The lawsuit dilapidated all the money of the XOOPS Foundation in the Netherlands (14 000 euros) + more then 1 500 euros of Herko's money himself. And it's not hard to make the connection that it probably cost the same thing for the other part. So in conclusion: the XOOPS project dilapidated more then 28 000 euros (37 000 USD) to sue the man who got XOOPS from a few thousand users to more then 50 000 users, the guy who created a Foundation to help XOOPS, the guy who successfully created more then 40 000 euros of assets for the XOOPS community, the guy who managed to register the XOOPS trademark in dozens of countries. The guy who did it all for the greater good of XOOPS. This guy was sued, dragged in the mud, publicly humiliated, his bank accounts were frozen, he got treated like a criminal. And all this for what ? For nothing. Think about all the shit he had to cope with in the last few years!
I hope this will be the end of Mamba's persistence to try and ruin good people, and possibly the end of his attitude that if you work and contribute to another project that your not allowed to do the same with XOOPS.
Here is his words to Incama, a man who has dedicated a hell of a lot of time over many years just because he had love for the XOOPS project:
Quote:
You left XOOPS, you contribute to a competing project, so please move on...
He said this in recent comments on the XOOPS news article stated above:
XOOPS Loses Legal BattleThat how he treats good people!
A lesson learned......
Re: XOOPS - Legal dispute and lies backfires on them!