Hey, nice to hear from you again Michael.
I used to be in LAVA. Actually, it was my message about Patrick Kelley, the former NI employee who ripped off my company when I took over the ATE division, stole my contacts, and slandered me to my clients and potential clients; resulting in him illegally (under California anti-SLAPP laws) that really burned me on public forums for LabVIEW.
It's really sad. That guy cost me my business; and consulting with an attorney...after it was too late, I found out I could have sued him for $950,000, including $200,000 for his SLAPP suit - had I been able to afford an attorney or had he actually legally served me (I found out about the lawsuit after he got a default and I was unable to get that reversed due to the judge in San Diego being unwilling to grant a rehearing...I was in Idaho by then.)
I have no fear of retaliation from Patrick now, especially given I know the law, and because if he does try to sue me again, it reopens the case and I get the opportunity to finally collect from that thief. I never did anything wrong or illegal; I never mentioned his name, and most importantly, I only ever said what was true, what he actually did.
I was deeply upset about the whole thing because not only did Patrick Kelley rip me off (stole $200,000 in contracts from my company when I took over ATE which led to my being given the division because there was no business), but the cooperative agreement I had with NI at the time as a vendor (sorry, can't remember what those are called...Alliance?) was cancelled by the local manager because he was a friend of Patrick, and wouldn't hear my side of the story.
I never held it against NI; but it really burned me bad.
I think that the worst was that it made me not want to ever participate in the forums again; that was another reason I left this forum as well; which upsets me because I was no longer able to contribute to the LabVIEW programming community.
I will say that my experience taught me a great deal. I am currently, by coincidence, initiating criminal and legal action against a group of people who have been maliciously libeling and harassing me, simply because they don't like me and what I tried to contribute to a community I became a part of a few years ago. I speak my mind, and I stand up for the little guy; and bullies don't like it. Anyway, my experience with the libel suit by Patrick taught me the laws, and how to protect myself.
I have to believe the LabVIEW community is more responsible and better at policing itself than this community I have been a participant in. But, I hope that everyone knows their rights, and their responsibilities. It's okay to warn people about those who, like Patrick, have highly questionable ethics and have done you wrong; but it is definitely not okay to maliciously lie about someone to attempt to damage their reputation or hurt their business.
I do wish I could have gotten Patrick, in a legal sense, for what he did to me, and more importantly, for what he did for the LabVIEW community and the clients in San Diego. Hopefully his ways caught up with him. I hear they might have.
Anyway...sorry about the long reply; but you brought up rather sore subject with me. Definitely not your fault; and no worries...I just wanted to make sure you knew of my previous participation and why I left the group.
On a personal note; my life is stalled right now. I haven't been able to work with LabVIEW at all for many months. But, I'm hoping things resolve very soon, and I can get back into the swing of things. I think all the time about the opportunities in my new field for the use of LabVIEW, as you saw by my previous post. I'd love to work with NI to create a GIS package. The ones on the market are all very pathetic, with the "best" and most popular one having a very clumbsy Windows interface and being EXTREMELY unfriendly to users. National Instruments has always had very user-friendly software, and I think they could make a killing in the GIS market. Hopefully they can realize that, and have the resources to invest in such software. Who knows, maybe I might create one in LabVIEW myself...though I wouldn't have a clue how to deal with the graphical end of a GIS software package. That would require an engine that utilized many detailed components of the processor and video driver systems. I'm just not up on those.
Okay, enough already...
