What Happened?

[dovy]

@fairwinds @motin @mital

So what happened?! TideKit was in "beta" and being deployed to actual users and you up and disappear? If you really worried about the competitors, why not just open-source the code?

Can we get a refund? We'd really like to get our money back, it has been 2 years since I signed up.

And if not, PLEASE give me the source code. I'll keep it free and the community will make something better.

P.S. Who were your competitors? I don't know anyone who could compete...

Devs, post how much you paid and when so we maybe can get a refund.

[meeech]

Hey dovy. I haven't been a part of it in ages. We parted ways a long time ago. It's all @fairwinds and mital.

M

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 12, 2015, at 11:27 AM, Dovy Paukstys notifications@github.com wrote:

@fairwinds @Paratron @motin @syamilmj @meeech

So what happened?! TideKit was in "beta" and being deployed to actual users and you up and disappear? If you really worried about the competitors, why not just open-source the code?

Can we get a refund? We'd really like to get our money back, it has been 2 years since I signed up.

And if not, PLEASE give me the source code. I'll keep it free and the community will make something better.

P.S. Who were your competitors? I don't know anyone who could compete...

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[ThinkDevStudios]

Yup give our money back.

[dovy]

@meeech Thank you for the details.

[dovy]

@mital Care to chime in here? Can we have the source code?

[dovy]

For the record, I was slot #617, paid $29.00 June 21, 2014.

[Paratron]

Yup, we were only part of it when it was opensource under http://tidesdk.org

[Paratron]

By the way: why are we referenced here? Aaaand why is this an issue thread in this repo? I am confused. :)

[mattkenefick]

I don't really care much about it, but I paid $99 back March 2nd, 2014.

[Kroid]

Early Bird $29.00 PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU 000902

May 7, 2015

Be great, if they'll publish code to open source.

[cobalamin]

I don't care much about the money itself, but the way this was handled doesn't sit well with me. I'm No. 655, 2014/07/21

[ThinkDevStudios]

Also paid $99. If your not a part of their team anymore could you atleast give us their name so we can get our money back?

[dovy]

@Paratron, just trying to get to the bottom of this. Thank you for the clarification. You have been removed.

This repo is just an empty github notification repo. ;) We're using it to try and contact those behind TideKit to see if anything is possible. ;)

[ThinkDevStudios]

I agree with cobalamin. They just disappeared and even blocked all of their followers. Said they are closing without mentioning about the refund. They dont need to release the beta yet but they should have atleast shown a video of the tool working so we would know whats happening to the development.

[mattkenefick]

@rovillesarate I highly doubt they have any money. I'm sure they spent it all on.. food, resources, etc. I wouldn't get your hopes up for any refund. My guess is that they're just going to vanish into the abyss, much like their "product."

[Paratron]

Okay I see. As far as I am informed it was only David (fairwinds) and mital at the end. You should contact them. Also that in the op post is the personal mail address of my friend Christian, who is no CEO of anything related to tidekit.

[Paratron]

Oh, and never was. Thats important...

[DanRaine]

$99 for me

[dovy]

@Paratron Email removed. Thank you for the info. Just trying to bring the responsible parties to at least come clean even if there is no money. The email was beyond ridiculous.

[Paratron]

Yeah, very understandable. I am sorry for the lost money :( Out of interest: where did you get our names and mail addresses from?

[dovy]

Twitter messages by people trying to find who's involved and historic cache of TideSDK since all other repos have been deleted. Lol.

[Paratron]

Okay, I see. But please keep in mind that TideSDK is the predecessor to TideKit - TideSDK was the open-source project that evolved from Appcelerator Titanium Desktop.

[rwdim]

I was #691 $29, Sept 1, 2014. Forget the money.. it's gone, and it doesn't appear that there was that much if only 209 people signed up between 9/1/2014 and 5/7/2015. $21K at most in that timeframe.

As far as I can see, every update was fiction, and the summation email was a big "haha, F@C* YOU" from those involved. If they really cared about the platform, they would have done something to open source it, even if all of it couldn't be made available.

How about even just saying "I'm in over my head..." and asking the community for help? Nope... why would you when clearly you did no work to be proud of and would have to come clean about the money.

Their posts discuss "TideKit's Isomeric Apps™" (SIC), and on June 5th, David forked "ISOMORPHIC-flux" iam4x/isomorphic-flux-boilerplate . I presume this was a mad-dash attempt to produce something to the "membership".

Man up, David, and tell us wtf happened.

[ErickRodrCodes]

I had my hopes and expectations with Tidekit, no joke, I was doing an app which utilizes tidesdk and I was expecting tidekit to solve some of my most critical logic issues.

For my surprise, I just check out tidesdk project and WTF! everything is down?!!?!? that is outrageous and sadly I have to work on what I have on hand.... better to perform a git with the current public API and downloads, plus sourcecode and installers... at least I was lucky enough to install and keep the installers in a new laptop two days ago...

[ErickRodrCodes]

At least if no product, please give us the source code and leave it open source, as community we can work to improve and perfect what you guys sadly didn't complete for free.

[ErickRodrCodes]

AND IS F*CKUNG SUNDAY!!!!! NOT EVEN MONDAY!

[meeech]

At the least there should be a fork of the tidesdk code up on gh. Else I'll upload it when I get a chance. Re: email people referring to, can't comment since I haven't seen it. M

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 12, 2015, at 3:37 PM, Erick Rodriguez notifications@github.com wrote:

AND IS F*CKUNG SUNDAY!!!!! NOT EVEN MONDAY!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[rwdim]

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd place my bet on Webinos and/or Zurb as the foundation for what they were trying to accomplish, if it even got past TideSDK. @fairwinds opened an issue on zurb/foundation in 2014.

[ErickRodrCodes]

Accordingly to one of my sources, they developed almost everything, it was not vaporware at all. They make desk apps with no problems but difficulties with mobile lead them with the problems they have now.

[materazu]

PASSENGER Julien Moulin PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU 000347 STATUS Early Bird

WHERE ARE MY 30 DAY TRIAL ? hum ? Do you want all passenger come to you and let you see the moon in front of you ?

I hope all bastards founder of scam tidekit can see that, because we are very very very edgy about your laborious communication !

Thx for this thread, continue the fight, mafia have nothing to do in our world.

[TheBrousse]

Well, according to their website's whois information. They are owned by a Canadian company named CoastalForge.

Registry Registrant ID: 
Registrant Name: System Administrator
Registrant Organization: CoastalForge Inc
Registrant Street: 1959 Upper Water Street
Registrant Street: Suite 1700, Purdy's Tower 1
Registrant City: Halifax
Registrant State/Province: Nova Scotia
Registrant Postal Code: B3J 3N2
Registrant Country: Canada
Registrant Phone: +1.8554392000

I'm pretty sure they would be easy to track down. I am also pretty sure that Canadian law would allow legal action.

[ErickRodrCodes]

Christian Becker left the company in April. Nothing to do with the current outbreak.

[ThinkDevStudios]

Maybe the reason christian becker left ia that he knew about the impending doom that tidekit will be facing soon so he bailed out fast. He is still part of it even if he left earlier. They promised a beta and thats where they failed. It would have been a different story if they had and dissappeared because they only promised a beta.

[hstaab]

This is a little too sketchy... No one in their right mind would abandon all of that work.

Paid $29.99

[ErickRodrCodes]

tell to me @cloudyhls I paid $99 for the full access....

[hstaab]

This whole thing reminds me of Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie

[ErickRodrCodes]

Just in case: since the guys remived the github fork, I got a copy of theirs in my github account: https://github.com/tbogard/TideSDK

[rpeterson]

I think it was $99 well spent on some trying to do something audacious. Sorry they lacked either business skill or development creativity to see it through. I'd buy the company and take it to finish but they did t offer that up. Just handled as bad as balanced payments did with ending business.

[ThinkDevStudios]

Yup please reupload. Maybe the reason uts that easy for them to abandon it is because they have not work on any of it. If they did it is just logical to just make it open source so the public can make something of it instead

[ErickRodrCodes]

As @dovy mentioned, if I don't have my money, let me have the code, at least as community we can maintain it and add more ideas.

[radutopala]

$99 here as well on reservation #382 .. #tidekit scam .. if they dissolved the company, they did it so not to refund.

[mattkenefick]

The following is not meant for malicious or similar intentions, but more-so to provide a timeline and status to what most of you probably didn't experience. The lack of progression, or demo of such, has been happening for a long time. Obviously I can't speak to whether progression happened or not (which is revealed in the emails), as @tbogard mentioned, but it can at the very least show where particular issues were raised. Christian Becker was cordial and accommodating throughout the process, but I think he had little to work with. That as not his fault as being CXO, which could explain his leaving in April (as someone above had mentioned).

If this email thread is in the wrong, let me know and I'll remove it. I think I removed all personal details from it.

---

6/5/14

Hi Matt,

I am Christian Becker, the CXO @ CoastalForge. I just read your comment about TideKit and don't understand why you think TideKit is vaporware. Could you help me understand this? Would you explain this to me?

We want to get better in informing people, your answer would be a great help!

Best Christian

---

6/5/14

Hello Christian,

It feels like vaporware because there was a whole sign up and collection of money to be a part of it. There were words of a possible beta for pioneers shortly after. Announcements from CostalForge were “in a couple weeks we’ll be filling seats."

Recently there was an announcement that there would no longer be making announcements because you guys have no idea when it’ll be done.

The blog is neat.. but talks about nothing. I want to hear about the newest feature that has been finished and what’s next. The blog should be a change log, updates, and milestones for when this is going to be released. It seems like you guys are keeping it very hush hush about WHERE in the project you are. Is it in testing? Is iOS implementation complete? No one has any idea where the progress is on this except you guys, and you guys won’t talk about it. That leads me to believe that you’re embarrassed about where in the project you are and the actual projected dates are way way down the road.

Who cares about “What These Influential Leaders Want to Tell Today’s 22-Year-Olds.” ? It’s probably a great article, but nothing to do with TideKit and the development cycle. It’s just filler for the blog which should be having content that actually matters.

Here are a few comments from your blog (from others):

"Like other people I'm really really in need to get my hands on TideKit so we can move ahead with our TideSDK based application, and what I read so far about TideKit, looks amazing. But... knowing your guys history with ETA's, I'm not asking for a specific date"

“...Examples would be nice. To be honest I'm starting to loose interest due to the amount of time it has taken to see anything out of tidekitt, at this stage sounds like vapour ware... We need to see something…"

“...What WAS frustrating, however, was to not get an update on the latest progress, the newly planned resolution and launch, and an understanding of what went longer than expected. This is how you win and retain the trust of all of us, who want nothing more than for this project..."

We just want to know where this app is at so we can plan to use it for projects or give up on it and use something else that already exists.

So.. why is it vaporware? Because you’ve been collecting $99+ from a bunch of people for the past 14+ weeks and have told us nothing. You’ve told us that you’re not going to tell us. You tout this blog as if it’s some sort of progress, but the blog itself says nothing. It’s full of comments asking the questions you guys won’t answer.

And if there isn’t some significant update or progress report by June 11th, I’m going to have to kindly request a refund of my $99 Pioneer membership, because it’s just not worth it anymore. There’s only so long one can wait in the dark on the words of “it’s coming”.

Sorry.

---

6/5/14

Hey Matt,

I read what you wrote and understand where you're coming from. There is no need to sorry, this is exactly what I wanted to hear from you. I knew you're critical but also very honest about our project, that's why I contacted you.

We are currently in a taff situation. Give me the weekend to think about a solution. Can I come back to you to talk about it again?

Thank you Christian

---

6/5/14

Christian,

I’m not sure if that says a “staff situation” or a “tough situation,” but either way, that’s fine. I really like TideSDK and think this project would be wonderful, but it just needs to either get off the ground or bring aboard people that can help.

You can contact me whenever you like.

Take care,

---

6/9/14

Hey Matthew,

damn auto-correction, I am from Germany and my mail client corrected me, I meant a tough situation.

We're limited in what we can announce publicly because our lawyers recommended us to hold things back until we're legally covered. All our competitors are watching us very closely, and you know that these aren't small companies like we are. They're Adobe, Google, Intel, Appcelerator. They've millions in their pockets, huge production and legal teams. We have to secure our technology first, before we go into too much detail. I hope you can understand our situation.

Nevertheless, I also understand your position, and you're not alone. People are waiting. Over the weekend, we put a team together that now focuses on creating a legally secure live demo. The details aren't all clear yet, but we'll show you how development with TideKit will be. We'll create an app for multiple platforms out of the same source of code.

Besides that we'll use our TideKit Tuesday posts to show you more about our platform, our app, CLI, Pricing and more. All the different things people asked about.

What do you think?

Best Christian

---

6/11/14

Hey Christian

Demos of the working product are a step forward. Wouldn’t be bad to start docs / examples for people to study, so we can hit the ground running and write apps while the platform is being developed.

It’s interesting, but at the end of the day, it’s about time. Seeing a movie trailer or a video game preview without a release date is frustrating and means nothing. There’s nothing to wait for.

---

6/17/14

Hey Christian,

I overlooked my June 11th date, but just saw another blog post “You just don’t have enough time and skills.” Wasn’t too thrilled with the content or anything listed under “So What’s Next?”

Who do I talk to about refunding my pioneer membership? At this point, I’d rather just wait for someone else to start blogging about it and then hop in. I paid for something early-access to toy around with and it’s just simply not happening.

---

7/1/14

Hey Christian,

I haven’t received a response to my previous email. Who do I talk to about refunding my pioneer membership? I would like to do so ASAP.

Thanks.

---

7/22/14

Christian,

It has been 22 days since my previous email and 35 since the original request on June 17th. Can you reply?

Thanks.

---

7/23/14

Hey Matt,

I'm sorry, I thought I had already answered it.

As you agreed to, you might have read our terms, TideKit bills are non-refundable at the moment. In order to treat everyone equally, we cannot make an exception.

Best Christian

---

7/13/2015

How’s it going, man?

END.

[dovy]

Lies, all lies. How is Christian not involved in this? Seems like he was running right along with this. Disappointing.

[prashaantt]

Number 616 here, paid $29.

Companies fail, no big deal. Keep the money or please us by refunding at least a part thereof, but open source what you've done, you wouldn't need to care about those "competitors" anymore.

@tbogard Thanks for the fork. They pulled down the original documentation too, but here's the last snapshot from the Wayback Machine for anyone who cares: http://web.archive.org/web/20150612031818/http://www.tidesdk.org/

[TheBrousse]

@mattkenefick, in your exchanges, they mention the followings:

you might have read our terms, TideKit bills are non-refundable at the moment

Does anyone have any links to those terms?

[radutopala]

http://web.archive.org/web/20150317085950/https://www.tidekit.com/terms

[TheBrousse]

@Paratron I believe Christian was more involved in this than only the TideSDK open source project judging by those emails. Assuming they are genuine, just because he resigned before the project tanked does not absolve any wrong doing according to Canadian business law.

[TheBrousse]

@radutopala well, I'm not a lawyer, but it doesn't take a genius that they will have to prove that they actually provided a service for the monetary compensation they received. This would would have allowed them to exercise those terms on their"customers".

But if there are no customers to begin with...

It's the chicken and the egg thing.

[radutopala]

@TheBrousse indeed.. in the end, we haven't got anything from what they've promised.

[tiptronic]

@tbogard : is this the latest repo available? GH shows it as 3 years old - which would not be anywhere near current.

[ThinkDevStudios]

As i was reviewing the thread. Webinos and foundation was mentioned. If @fairwinds had included webinos as part of their tidekit system then it just make sense why they havent shown anything. They were relying to use an open source web application framework which is technically still in development. So if thats the case then its really wrong for them to be asking money for early bird beta testers since they did not have anything to begin with yet. Maybe at the time they thought about tidekit they dis not have an idea when was webinos framework will released. I just hope they made it clear from the begining that this was just all but an idea. But their post specially the roadmap stating their progress is almost done is what got us interested to signup in the first place. We need to sue this guys maybe not for the money but i just wont let them get away for tricking us this way.