MSI Afterburner Developer Hasn't been PAID for a Year, Product Development in Limbo?

[Mark Kaine]

11 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

though even if he does own the IP, there could be licensing deals in place that prevent this

no money = no license,  its that simple : p

 

that said i dunno if the dev even wants to open source it or that he really does it for the money (never had that impression personally,  its more like a pet project to him, i think)

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

no money = no license,  its that simple : p

Hah - as if anything involving contracts was that simple.

8 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

that said i dunno if the dev even wants to open source it or that he really does it for the money (never had that impression personally,  its more like a pet project to him, i think)

I don't know either - but everyone saying "Open Source it!" is definitely not thinking about what the Dev wants, or what is even legally possible.

[circeseye]

53 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Hah - as if anything involving contracts was that simple.

I don't know either - but everyone saying "Open Source it!" is definitely not thinking about what the Dev wants, or what is even legally possible.

if you go to guru3d he has his own msi afterburner thread and goes by Unwinder.

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Hah - as if anything involving contracts was that simple.

i mean to be serious for a moment,  it probably *is* this simple for him, just depends if he wants to burn all bridges or not and how big msi influence actually is... i don't think hes getting a lot of info from nvidia directly... although I don't really know this stuff, only what i can puzzle together from the vague and often contradicting stuff he says on the forum.

 

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

don't know either - but everyone saying "Open Source it!" is definitely not thinking about what the Dev wants, or what is even legally possible

yup, as said if i had to guess that's not something he'd actually want probably,  but at some point maybe does "for the greater good"....

[Isuck Assimov]

If you like Afterburner boycott MSI, simple as that.

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, Assimov said:

If you like Afterburner boycott MSI, simple as that.

Why and how is that a valid response?

[Mark Kaine]

On 1/17/2023 at 4:34 PM, Assimov said:

If you like Afterburner boycott MSI, simple as that.

MSI is pretty crap overall,  but so is EA (as a prominent example) and people don't even manage to boycott that... but in theory,  how would that help Afterburner, dude is still not getting paid?

 

 

[Isuck Assimov]

everything else would be hypocrisy, wouldnt it ?

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, Assimov said:

everything else would be hypocrisy, wouldnt it ?

Can you elaborate on this? Hypocrisy how?

[Isuck Assimov]

12 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Can you elaborate on this? Hypocrisy how?

I'm afraid elaborating on this would cross the threshold of content that's too political for the forum.

I'm not sure where you have trouble understanding it though, feeel free to DM me.
 

[starsmine]

6 hours ago, Assimov said:

everything else would be hypocrisy, wouldnt it ?

Dead ass, not trying to bait you to crossing the threshold, but I am having trouble understanding your take. 

What has MSI done wrong in this instance that is boycott-able? 

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Assimov said:

I'm afraid elaborating on this would cross the threshold of content that's too political for the forum.

I'm not sure where you have trouble understanding it though, feeel free to DM me.
 

I'm just struggling to understand how boycotting MSI would in anyway benefit the Dev for Afterburner?

 

Would that help him get paid faster? No.

 

Would it help or improve the development of MSI Afterburner? Also no.

 

As far as we have confirmed, the primary reason for the Dev not getting paid is due to sanctions outside of MSI's control.

 

Do you disagree with any of these statements?

[Isuck Assimov]

4 minutes ago, starsmine said:

What has MSI done wrong in this instance that is boycott-able? 

I'm sorry, did i read different articles than you guys ?
Wasn't it established that MSI is still doing a lot of business in Russia, going around sanctions by operating out of asia ? Seems like they only respect the sanctions when it saves them money but not if they would otherwise lose business. This seems much too shady to support them in the future unless they try to reimburse Nicolaychuk or you support this kind of double standard behaviour.

 

10 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I'm just struggling to understand how boycotting MSI would in anyway benefit the Dev for Afterburner?

It's called solidarity. Also it's standard practice with most Hardware companies to only react to negative press if enough people take notice and make the decision to step back from MSI.
You can be dead sure that nothing is more convincing to the board of supervisors than a drop in revenue due to bad pr. The only language they speak is bonuses.

 

14 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

As far as we have confirmed, the primary reason for the Dev not getting paid is due to sanctions outside of MSI's control.

 

14 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Do you disagree with any of these statements?

Yes, see above.

[dalekphalm]

19 minutes ago, Assimov said:

I'm sorry, did i read different articles than you guys ?

 

19 minutes ago, Assimov said:

Wasn't it established that MSI is still doing a lot of business in Russia, going around sanctions by operating out of asia ?

Was it? You'll have to link me to the article that discusses this. Them having assets in Russia that can legally operate independently without violating the sanctions is not the same thing as going around the sanctions.

 

But if you have concrete evidence that MSI is bypassing the sanctions, please post it.

19 minutes ago, Assimov said:

Seems like they only respect the sanctions when it saves them money but not if they would otherwise lose business. This seems much too shady to support them in the future unless they try to reimburse Nicolaychuk or you support this kind of double standard behaviour.

Allegedly. I haven't seen any proof of this, but it is certainly possible I missed it.

19 minutes ago, Assimov said:

It's called solidarity. Also it's standard practice with most Hardware companies to only react to negative press if enough people take notice and make the decision to step back from MSI.
You can be dead sure that nothing is more convincing to the board of supervisors than a drop in revenue due to bad pr. The only language they speak is bonuses.

But, how would this help the Dev? MSI can't send him money until the sanctions are done. Whether or not they're hypocrites in other areas, I would not want to risk any legal action being taken against the Dev himself for accepting money that violates a sanction.

 

Do you have a proposed solution that would also be legal?

 

Edited to add, I assume you're referring to this line from the original article source:

Quote

Interestingly, MSI PC hardware continued to be sold in the Russian market throughout 2022

That by itself is not evidence that MSI violated the sanctions. This could be due to a number of reasons:

1. Local retailers and PC Hardware Suppliers continuing to sell on-hand stock

2. The Russian Division of MSI perhaps selling warehouse stock

 

My understanding is that the sanctions primarily stop the flow of money in and out of the country. Money and hardware changing hands inside the country isn't really part of those sanctions, unless MSI tries to funnel money out of Russia (or into it, such as trying to pay the Dev).

 

Again, given the facts, what possible legal solution could MSI provide? As far as I can tell, the Dev would need to literally move out of Russia and have his primary residence reside in some country not under sanctions. Or wait for the sanctions to end.

 

The Dev should be pressuring the leaders of his country to... (as vaguely as possible) stop doing the bad things they're doing.

[Isuck Assimov]

There are other cross country banking institutions that could be used to pay Nicolaychuk. MSI has a presence in China among other places. Both China and Russian use CIPS as a way to byapss SWIFT sanctions.

It's also pretty telling that MSI isn't referring to specific sanctions/ not telling what the actual problems are but just saying they can't pay him because of the "political situation".

[starsmine]

31 minutes ago, Assimov said:

I'm sorry, did i read different articles than you guys ?
Wasn't it established that MSI is still doing a lot of business in Russia, going around sanctions by operating out of asia ? Seems like they only respect the sanctions when it saves them money but not if they would otherwise lose business. This seems much too shady to support them in the future unless they try to reimburse Nicolaychuk or you support this kind of double standard behaviour.

 

It's called solidarity. Also it's standard practice with most Hardware companies to only react to negative press if enough people take notice and make the decision to step back from MSI.
You can be dead sure that nothing is more convincing to the board of supervisors than a drop in revenue due to bad pr. The only language they speak is bonuses.

 

 

Yes, see above.

The logic saying that MSI got around sanctions by operating out of asia is weird to me. 
MSI IS, and always was, a Taiwanese company.

I do not fully understand Yale's argument that a russian branch existing is MSI getting around sanctions 
https://www.yalerussianbusinessretreat.com/
Yale may be correct in terms that MSI never scaled back their Russians operations. They probably did more research then I did here.

MSI's statement following yale
https://ocacnews.net/article/306278/ For whatever that is worth.


Like yes they still have a russian branch that they did not liquidate 

https://storage-asset.msi.com/file/pdf/investor/financial/111Q3_2377_AIA.pdf
 

Quote

Note A: The financial statements of the entity as of and for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021 were not reviewed by the independent auditors as the entity did not meet the definition of significant subsidiary.

But as far as I can tell, they no longer operate with rusian rubles as a company

But I could be reading that wrong, im not a financial analyst. 

Sanctions do not mean to nuke what is there generally, but it limits cash flow between the branches. so MSI russia existing does not mean money is fully changing hands right now during the war. 

And it should be noted, that afaik, the russian dev for MSI afterburner has always been underneath the european branch of the company to begin with. Again, I could be wrong here, I dont know enough about his contract with them.

[Mark Kaine]

10 hours ago, Assimov said:

everything else would be hypocrisy, wouldnt it ?

you can see it that way, i understand,  but not necessarily agree,  especially because "unwinder" doesn't agree, and he should probably know best what's going on. 

 

"But it is not their fault at all. They'd love to keep the project alive, but they cannot and will not cancel or bypass sanctions and make SWIFT magically work here"

 

As for why they cant use a none swift bank (chinese?) i honestly don't know...

 

@dalekphalm btw i didn't read it before,  but he literally says its a pet project for him... and i think i now understand why he cant really keep doing it - as i also already guessed... he does need the cards,  all new models that come out... i guess that's what MSI is actually paying him for... that shit is expensive and i don't think hes rich or anything... has a pretty normal IT job ...