Hi Again Fellow Simmers !
Life goes on and a year or so has gone by and with RCS panels anniversary
anouncement I took a stroll by Roy's RCS Site only to find my name is still
posted on his site under his Nazi Like hall of shame and libelous Forum .
He accused me at that time of stealing some old MS Flightsim 98 gauges he had
laid self righteous copyrights to which I subsequently learned were WRJ_Gauges
used in Older MS Aircraft and are public domain . Any one of us can the put a
black dot on an MS gauge bitmap and call it our own by these standards .
On my visit to his site I found this long winded statement describing Roy's
falling out with several members of his own team and the organization he was
supossedly helping with the R4D release and subsquently appears to be accused
of his own indiscretions involving the B25J worthy of his very own hall of
shame but apparently he was hoping for a low profile on this issue .
So in recognition of his eternal trashing and posting of my mistake I wanted
to give Roy his own credit due , this is why we should keep it free folks and
not stifle other aspiring artists efforts by schoolyard selfish tactics and
attempts at intimidation through public humiliation efforts which Roy is a
master at . Seems what comes around goes around and his own self claimed
highest standards bit him on the rump !
Once again Thank you Roy for your hall of shame and look forward to seeing
you being accused of more wrong doings in the future !
Falcon7
("RCS Panels - Statement
Many untrue and libellous accusations have been made against me directly, and
the RCS Panels
team by implication, on the web over recent weeks. To attempt to put the record
straight I
am issuing this statement.
It is not intended to be a full repudiation of the so-called ‘evidence’.
We are not posting any photographic evidence and/or detailed ‘point by point’
responses to
MAAM's accusations on the internet. This does not mean that we cannot defend
ourselves. We
have plenty of photographic/textual ‘proof’. We have been asked to submit a
detailed
‘defence’ directly to a number of independent parties to be examined. This we
have now done.
However, the crux of the accusations against me is that MAAM believe they have
some sort of
agreement with me that any reference material gathered by me at MAAM would
not/could not be
used in the production of RCS Panels Packages. I can assure you that no such
agreement was
made. I did receive a number of emails from MAAM demanding such an agreement;
however, I
ignored them. I am in no way at fault if they assumed that no argument
constituted
agreement, which is not the case. I own the copyright of my own photographs
whether taken
at MAAM or elsewhere and as such they can be used for reference. What I did
agree to (and
have abided by) was that our new B25-J would not replicate MAAM’s ‘Briefing
Time’. It does
not!
Another accusation is that we have pirated Bill Rambow’s graphics. Again, we
have not. After
Rambow left the RCS Panels team, all his graphics were removed from the RCS
database. Our
new graphics expert, Steve Wayne did not use Rambow’s graphics and chose the
laborious,
time-consuming but ultimately rewarding method of hand-painting graphics, based
on images
provided by the team from various reference sources. Details of his techniques
and reference
sources have been supplied to the independent examiners. Before the hounds
begin to howl,
it is entirely possible that the same reference material was used by both MAAM
and RCS for
certain elements of the product, but I can assure you we did not use any of
Rambow’s
bitmaps; we are quite capable of making our own.
Perhaps we could pursue the issue of metadata stamping on the MAAM graphics at
some point in
the future - what have they pirated from us I wonder?! Certainly many of the
things in
MAAM’s current B-25 package are my ideas from the initial Beta work!
Long before they could possibly have seen any of our new images, it was widely
leaked that
Rambow / MAAM would make all efforts to get the RCS Panels package, and myself
in
particular, disgraced or banned for copyright infringement. Russ Strine,
President of MAAM,
expressed concern that our success would impact on their sales. His concern is
understandable but can in no way justify his attempt to ‘sink’ the opposition
by submitting
an open letter full of false accusations to AVSIM, and oddly, not to me!
Yet another accusation is that we have set out to deprive MAAM of income. On
the contrary,
the whole RCS Panels team had the interests of MAAM at heart, even after the
break away by
Rambow. I believe the following information will confirm this.
1. Version 4 of the R4D (where I started from scratch) was the first package
that was
intended to be released on CD. The team were all keen to raise some money for
MAAM. They
thought up the idea and called it ‘Donationware’.
2. It is well documented, that I was disgusted that only one in three hundred
users who
downloaded the programme from the net, ever bothered to register and send any
money to
support the Museum. To overcome this problem, a friend of mine and I, wrote the
"Time
Locking" software that forced users to pay and register to use any future
versions. I had to
insist this software was used for the release of Version 4.75 for FS2002
because at the time
Rambow was totally against its use. Jan Visser was so against it that he would
have nothing
more to do with the team and quit, initially withdrawing his own aircraft
model. I stood
alone on the principle of Time Locking but forced the issue and we pressed
ahead to the
release. Two weeks after the release, when Pete at MAAM announced that what I
had done was
fantastic and had massively increased contributions to MAAM, Rambow, curiously,
changed his
mind and publicly took ownership of the Time Locking concept.
3. As a direct result of the "Time Locking" software, donations to MAAM
suddenly went from a
few thousand dollars over a long period of time, to more than $95,000 USD
relatively
quickly.
4. After the "Bust Up", RCS Panels offered the completed RCS B-25J package to
MAAM, in their
colours if they wished, to raise funds. They refused.
5. I had previously put a package of ideas forward to enable them to raise even
more money
from the FS community members and the public in general. These stemmed from my
previous
commercial background, and none were taken up.
6. With my agreement and no strings attached, MAAM are still selling our
original CD of the
R4D version 7 to raise money. I feel justified in claiming that most of the
innovations in
the R4D project were mine. The night lighting system, Overlay systems, Dual
Panel on the fly
system are examples. So it would have been easy for me to have stopped these
sales 9 months
ago - but I didn’t, and again I believe these actions demonstrate that I held
no malice
towards MAAM and am strongly in favour of keeping vintage aeroplanes where they
belong, in
the air. My ongoing support for the MAAM cause has raised them a considerable
sum of money.
Other than a life-time membership of MAAM which I am now unlikely to benefit
from, they have
an unusual way of showing their appreciation.
7. You will be interested to note that RCS Panels still offers full Technical
Support to ALL
users of the R4D product even though we are no longer connected with MAAM.
This is a time
consuming activity but I am committed to providing a worthwhile package of
support to the
FS community.
I offer the above as clear proof that I/we have no wish or intent to blight
MAAM and the
raising of funds for them. I consider that I/we have acted with honesty and
honour
throughout this unfortunate period.
All of this information can, if necessary, be backed up with documentary
evidence should
anyone see fit to mount a legal challenge. The numerous communications between
Rambow, MAAM
and ourselves also serve to back up everything I say, and MAAM are welcome to
make them all
public if they wish.
I have tried to describe the true situation unemotionally and I contend that
MAAM have no
right or reason to continue to block access to the RCS B-25 package.
In response to MAAM’s ‘background’ to this sorry story, I would ask only; ‘Why
did Rambow
leave the group?’
I can see this only from my personal, subjective perspective. Jan Visser had
responsibility
for the external model and I acknowledge his excellence in this area. However,
I found him
difficult to work with - and I suspect he had similar difficulties with me! We
can’t always
like everybody, I’m sorry, but that’s life. Once he had left the group over the
"Time
Locking" issue, I did not want to have to work with him again.
I was concerned that the Gmax version of the R4D being sold at the WWII Weekend
in June 2002
was full of bugs and would lower our reputation. When Visser (who, although no
longer part
of the group was still working on the Gmax version) trashed our sound
engineer's work and
files, I’m afraid that was the final straw and I withdrew my gauges and
effectively
cancelled the project.
Rambow strongly disagreed with my decision and genuinely hoped, I believe, that
if he got
Visser to apologise, I would have a change of heart. He did not understand that
that just
could not happen. In part it then became an issue whether Rambow wanted to
continue to work
with the RCS team or with Visser. You know the outcome.
In spite of all of the above, the RCS team were still prepared to give Mr
Strine and MAAM
the benefit of the doubt, believing that they did not really know what had been
going on. A
major problem with my/our relationship with MAAM had been poor communication.
When we
were team mates I trusted Rambow, why would I not? He was the ‘man on the
ground’ and able
to visit MAAM frequently. Only after Rambow had left the team did I discover
that Mr
Strine's understanding of the situation did not reflect reality. In simple
terms Rambow had
been treating me as a friend, gaining my trust, taking the major credit and
kudos for the
project but feeding MAAM with a very one-sided assessment of the previous RCS
involvement.
So I wrote to Mr Strine at length explaining the situation as I saw it in
detail. I made an
offer of the finished B-25 painted as "Briefing Time" and continuing sales of
the current CD
and I also made a commitment to strive to raise significant funds for MAAM even
during our
work with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The only proviso was that he
had to make a
choice between Rambow’s new team or ours. I suspected that this might be seen
as an
ultimatum but I felt that he could not sit on the fence. Mr Strine made it
clear where he
‘nailed his colours’ and why, and whilst I think he made the wrong decision, I
fully
understand and respect his motivation.
For now, I am only concerned that those of you who know me are not left in any
doubt that my
integrity remains intact and that the RCS B-25 is now offered openly to those
flight-simmers
who would wish to download it for their personal enjoyment.
I have so often attacked others for not respecting my copyrights, and for so
long leapt to
the defence of others whose work has been pirated, that you surely cannot
believe that I
would have ‘changed my spots’.
I assure you I have not.
Roy Chaffin
RCS Panels ")
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