old FourGen users: beware of Gillani Inc. - Response From Gillani

"Zombie Elvis" has made several charges regarding Gillani, Inc. and the FourGen' CASE Tools. Many of the charges made by Mr. Elvis are incorrect and based on a flawed understanding of the history of FourGen and of intellectual property law. Gillani wants to set the record straight regarding the history, ownership and status of the FourGen software. Gillani also introduces its new "FourGen Passport" program to welcome old FourGen customers to the Gillani community. History The ownership and status of the FourGen CASE Tools and FourGen' Accounting (or Business) Software has been the subject of confusion and misrepresentations in this newsgroup and in the IIUG knowledge base. The FourGen CASE Tools remain a popular development environment for the Informix databases. From the mid-1980's through 1995, FourGen Software Technologies, Inc. ("FOURGEN") marketed these CASE Tools directly and through VARs and OEMs (including through Informix as the "Informix Forms"). The FourGen Accounting/Business Software boasted Modifiability-By-DesignTM because users could customize it with the FourGen CASE Tools, and this software was also marketed by FOURGEN directly and through VARs. At the end of 1995, FOURGEN decided to focus on the enterprise market for its financial and distribution management system ("DMS") solutions that were developed with and modified using the FourGen CASE Tools. At that time, FOURGEN offered its VARs the opportunity to acquire a paid-up, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to Version 4.12 of the FourGen CASE Tools and to Version 3.83 of the FourGen Business Software. Several former VARs acquired these limited licenses. This license agreement did not authorize these third parties to market the CASE Tools or accounting software under the "FourGen" trade name or use the registered "FourGen" trademark. These former VARs assumed responsibility for their versions of the software and no longer paid FOURGEN for updates, upgrades or support. FOURGEN licensed the FourGen CASE Tools and FourGen Business Software to these former VARs to ensure that the substantial FOURGEN customer base would have multiple sources of support for the software. FOURGEN also provided support to those few FourGen CASE Tools users that were unable to secure support from one of the former VARs for various reasons. At no point did FOURGEN or its succeeding companies abandon their rights to the FourGen software. FOURGEN changed its name to Endura Software Corporation in 1997. Endura was merged with a subsidiary of HK Systems, Inc. in 1998. First doing business as HK Systems, this subsidiary later changed its name to Irista, Inc. in 2000. On January 25, 2001, Gillani acquired all of the assets of Irista's Financial and DMS business, including all of the FourGen software, intellectual property (trademarks, copyrights, etc.), and the assignment of all DMS-related contracts. Gillani, and no other company, is the owner of the FOURGEN intellectual property. FOURGEN/Endura/HK/Irista/Gillani ("FOURGEN/Gillani") all continued to develop, market, license, and support the CASE Tools as part of its solution under various product names, including "Developer's Desktop," "Workbench" and now again as the "FourGen CASE Tools." FOURGEN/Gillani also continued to develop and expand the FourGen accounting software, creating first the EnduraTM Distribution Management System and EnduraTM Financial Management System, and now the GillaniTM iDistributeTM, GillaniTM Financials, and GillaniTM Human Resources solutions. The current status of the Gillani software is listed at the end. Support of Current Users Gillani is currently providing support to a large number of customers, including to users who have always maintained support and to some which have re-started support since Gillani acquired the FourGen software. Since 1995, these supported customers have benefited from over eight years of continuing enhancements, updates and upgrades developed by FOURGEN/Gillani. Licenses for the FourGen Software FOURGEN required all FourGen customers to sign license agreements. All FOURGEN VARs, OEMs or those former VARs which acquired the limited licenses to resell the FourGen software were/are contractually required to obtain written license agreements signed by their FourGen software customers. Gillani has filing cabinets filled with these license agreements. As the owner of the FourGen software, Gillani needs to ensure that the FourGen software has been properly licensed to protect its intellectual property interests. Gillani has been contacted by a handful of users for which no records exist. Further, these users cannot provide a license agreement or other good proof of having paid for the license to use the FourGen software. FOURGEN had over 150 VARs active at one time, and some did not play by the rules. We all know that piracy is a rampant problem in the global software market. Some of these unlicensed, unauthorized users may have been innocent victims of these crimes. Without a license agreement, purchase order or invoice, Gillani does not know how many servers or how many users were licensed for what products, or even if this software was properly licensed at all. Ownership of the FourGen Software At no point did FourGen/Gillani abandon its copyrights, trademarks, patents, or trade secrets. FourGen/Gillani never stopped developing, maintaining, supporting, or licensing the FourGen software which forms the foundation of the Gillani Global Enterprise SolutionsTM. An owner of copyrights, trademarks, patents or trade secrets can stop supporting or licensing the intellectual property (i.e., software), or "put it on the shelf" in other words, and still own all rights and title to that intellectual property. The few former VARs that acquired a paid-up, royalty-free license to the FourGen software never "bought complete rights" to the software. These were limited licenses with restrictions and obligations (such as the requirement to obtain, written license agreements signed by its customers). Gillani's "FourGen' PassportTM" Program Gillani welcomes all FourGen, Endura, HK, and Irista software users to the growing Gillani community. Many of your fellow users are already active members. To welcome these users, Gillani presents the FourGen Passport program. For the next six months, users with lapsed support can renew support by paying a lapsed support fee of 25% of the current license fees plus one year of the annual support fees (18% of current license fees) to receive the current version of the software plus one year of support and maintenance. All users will be required to execute a new license agreement with Gillani. The benefits of the FourGen Passport program include: ' A substantially lower lapsed support fee than that charged by most other software vendors; ' Upgrades to the latest versions and to currently-supported ports; ' Special provisions granting a basic system configuration for those users which may no longer be able to locate their licensing agreements (or other documentation) or may have acquired their software under questionable circu

Ifo Gillani wrote: > "Zombie Elvis" has made several charges regarding Gillani, Inc. and > the FourGen' CASE Tools. Many of the charges made by Mr. Elvis are > incorrect and based on a flawed understanding of the history of > FourGen and of intellectual property law. You'll forgive me if I don't give a shit...? > Gillani wants to set the record straight regarding the history, > ownership and status of the FourGen software. Gillani also introduces > its new "FourGen Passport" program to welcome old FourGen customers to > the Gillani community. Oh, lord -- another pisspoor disadvantage... -- "C'est pas parce qu'on n'a rien ' dire qu'il faut fermer sa gueule" - Coluche

> FOURGEN licensed the FourGen CASE Tools and FourGen Business Software > to these former VARs ... > FOURGEN changed its name to Endura Software Corporation ... > Endura was merged with a subsidiary of HK Systems ... > this subsidiary later changed its name to Irista, Inc. ... > Gillani acquired all of > the assets of Irista's Financial and DMS business I'm not getting warm feelings from any of this ...