Root Sholes In Trouble?

[BenDroid]

Check out http://www.sholes.info . Looks like things might be falling apart at the sholes headquarters. I sure hope not. Here is what was said (might be taken down soon...who knows).

A personal view point.

• February 18th, 2010
• By Michael Purcell
• Write comment

"Friends, I write this with in anger and with a heavy heart. There are things going on around here that make my stomach churn. For past several weeks all of you have been enjoying a fantastic mobile experience thanks to the efforts of many developers, researchers, and even an artist. Many of you have donated what you can by buying the smupdater application on Android Market. Unfortunately, I am sad to tell you that not one ROM developer has seen anything from these donations. The gentleman that wrote the application (this is his only contribution for the record) has refused to distribute the funds to appropriate points of spending. For example, trevorj bricked his Droid for all of you, he had to get his phone replaced on his own, no money was put forward for this to be done in a more appropriate way. Other developers and especially the researchers have bricked their phones. Again, none of them were supported with funds from smupdater to this date.
The developer insists he does not want the money released under his name for tax reasons and wants for form a company first. However in one fight he essentially said so long, thanks for all of the money, this he later stated was in jest. For some time many of the developers have questioned his intentions. My personal opinion (and it is just an opinion, I state for legal reasons) is that he is playing everyone for fools. From what I have been told he is contacting a lawyer regarding these issues and someone seemms to have advised him that if he cashes out before two weeks from today, he cannot be sued.
It was never our intention to profit from this research, merely to have fun and do something exciting. This has gone too far in my opinion, if I were a paying user of smupdater, I would ask for a refund before it is too late.
Just my two cents.
This post has been carefully written for legal reasons, I do not need to be sued. Take from this what ever you like, but this is all just my opinion. For security reasons, editing will temporarily be disabled."

...Would really suck to see it end this way.

 

[BenDroid]

As I said...the post would be taken down. But the quote came straight from someone at sholes. I am not saying it was this Michael guy since you never know, but a post was made by someone with access to their site.

Stay tuned for scenes from the next .... AS THE SHOLES TURNS. (Too Cheesy?)

 

[RyanB]

Man I'm glad I hadn't gotten around to buying that updater yet, though I an getting closer to rooting by the day. Is there a way to support him/them in a more direct fashion, sans the nonsense?



Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[BenDroid]

Not sure. I just left their IRC chat and it is just a bunch of garbage if you ask me. It is another one of those he said/she said BS situations. There is no way to tell what is going on or what is going to happen. I just hope for the sake of all those who are thoroughly enjoying the Sholes Rom (including myself) that this crap get worked out.

 

[snake_fist_gung_fu]

What dose this have to do with us? I mean are they gonna punish us for something thats there fault??? We had no idea that this guy was gonna take the money and run and we still expect support. If they dont give it to us then I will just move to BB and call it a day.

 

[andrew53517]

What dose this have to do with us? I mean are they gonna punish us for something thats there fault??? We had no idea that this guy was gonna take the money and run and we still expect support. If they dont give it to us then I will just move to BB and call it a day.

I'm already considering moving to BB, he moves faster in development it seems. This stuff with sholes is bull crap, so what if he took all their money, not our problem. They need to still make ROM's for fun and the people and not for the money.

 

[andrew53517]

Guys, sholes app is off the market now.. you can't do anything with it... dang this stinks! Officially moving to BB!

 

[radikal]

thats annoying, hate it when people do this

 

[Paralda]

Things seem to be under control. They have a lawyer mediating... basically there's a disagreement about appropriations of funds. Camel says he's trying to get money to the devs, but from a tax standpoint, the money gained from the app store does not count as a "donation" in the traditional sense.

So, I think it's just a bit of an over-reaction from some people, and will be settled in a few days.

 

[brettlewis]

sites down too

what a bunch of hooey! I just assumed that it was one guy sitting in his basement that hasent seen the light in three year. I guess its more complex then that....

Im not sure if any of them have legal standing though, isnt all of this stuff illegal as it is? If one sues, theyll all go down.

 

[milrtime83]

From what I've read on other forums it sounds like there are problems with the person that developed the SMUpdater app and not the rom dev's. Supposedly he is trying to keep all the money from the market app and not distribute it to everyone else.

 

[Paralda]

sites down too

what a bunch of hooey! I just assumed that it was one guy sitting in his basement that hasent seen the light in three year. I guess its more complex then that....

Im not sure if any of them have legal standing though, isnt all of this stuff illegal as it is? If one sues, theyll all go down.

Nothing about any of this is illegal... we can do whatever we want to our own property, and android is open source.

 

[rommer]

Since when is working with open source software illegal?

 

[johnlgalt]

Umm, it could be that the site got hacked, and then taken down to prevent further hacking....

 

[iawd1]

Per Ron Dutt-

Nothing was stolen. There was a disagreement between two members of the sholes team, one being the creator of smupdater. Yes, the website is down at the moment, it will be back up shortly. smupdater nor sholes rom is going anywhere. All the money that was donated (yes donated, look it up) will be put into a LLC company so Camel and mpurcell don't have to pay ludicrous taxes on donations. Sholes is and always will be a not-for-profit team. Any money you donate goes to things such as servers, equipment, bandwidth, and occasionally, to buy information to better the Android community. If you really do wish to get a refund, you are more than welcome to, but please understand that you will be taking money away from a dev (Camel) that he does not have and and punishing someone who does not deserve it. Google keeps their cut of every sale, even those refunded.

Again, things went way out of control and personal views were mixed with the sholes team (who do NOT share the same views/goals). Things have been settled. Your donations are safe. Sholes is not dead or going anywhere. Please spread this around on any other sites who may have reposted the post on sholes.info.


http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...holesmodupdater-hes-leaving-6.html#post241030

 

[snake_fist_gung_fu]

Well all I can say is this...... If they give there supporters the cold shoulder because they cant handle the money we gave them then they will never receive another red cent from me. I will be done with them.....

 

[DR0ID]

best $5 i have ever wasted.

 

[johnlgalt]

Read a bit more carefully.

All the money that was donated (yes donated, look it up) will be put into a LLC company so Camel and mpurcell don't have to pay ludicrous taxes on donations. Sholes is and always will be a not-for-profit team. Any money you donate goes to things such as servers, equipment, bandwidth, and occasionally, to buy information to better the Android community.

Tempers flared and things were brought to light that never should have been - and now there is a bit of fixing going on.

Sholes is not going anywhere, and neither is SMUpdater. Let it rest.

 

[iamloco724]

well i think they should settle this money thing then put the app for free..then setup another donate option online so it goes directly to who can handle it or who should get it

hopefully continue developing

 

[johnlgalt]

Sigh. It is not that they cannot handle the money, it is that if they take the donations directly (as in their own name) they have to report it to the IRS - and the IRS makes you pay a ton of money on donations.

By setting up the LLC, they can avoid having their personal assets involved, thereby not taking a major hit on their tax returns next year.

It's just good business practice - separating your assets whenever you do work - whether for profit or non-profit - in which there is monetary payment or donations involved, simply makes sense.

Yes, they still have to report the income, but under the LLC's name, not their own - and thus their own taxes don't suffer.

 

[iamloco724]

i get that but technically they dont have to report it unless there issued a tax form forget which number from wheover so say they setup a paypal donation for 5 dollar donations theres no reason that i can see that they would be "forced" to pay taxes on it in that way..yes technically they should pay taxes on it if it exceeds a certain amount but no one is going to be sending them a form and i highly doubt the irs would find out

 

[BenDroid]

well i think they should settle this money thing then put the app for free..then setup another donate option online so it goes directly to who can handle it or who should get it

hopefully continue developing

Agreed.

 

[johnlgalt]

Ummm, to take donations, they have to have it go through the Android Market, right?

Just try not reporting that....

 

[iamloco724]

i dont see why they would have to go through the market liek i said set it up in the market as a free app then on the sholes.info site setup a donation button like many torrent sites have

 

[iawd1]

Read a bit more carefully.



Tempers flared and things were brought to light that never should have been - and now there is a bit of fixing going on.

Sholes is not going anywhere, and neither is SMUpdater. Let it rest.

So you basically restated what was said? Just wondering