File under "What the hell were they thinking?" At least, that's almost certainly what the various media arms of Time Warner yelled at them when they discovered what Nullsoft had done.
AOL pulls Nullsoft file-sharing software | CNET News.com: A day after developers at America Online's Nullsoft unit quietly released file-sharing software, AOL pulled the link to the product from the subsidiary's Web site. The software, called Waste, lets groups set up private, secure file-sharing networks. The product became available on Nullsoft's Web site on Wednesday, just days shy of the four-year anniversary of being acquired by AOL. Waste is a software application that combines peer-to-peer file sharing with instant messaging, chat and file searches. Users can set up their own network of friends and share files between each other. The quiet launch of Waste was the work of Nullsoft's principal developer, Justin Frankel, a soft-spoken 20-something known for his tech savvy and his streak of rebelliousness.
I'm guessing that unless Frankel has some sort of protection in the contract under which AOL acquired Nullsoft, he's awful close to being dismissed out of hand today. Surely there's nothing that would require AOL to continue to employ someone who is constantly being a pain in their ass. (And if his contract really is that iron clad, someone else in the Time Warner empire is getting fired for having written it in the first place.)
Posted by iain at June 02, 2003 01:04 PMComments
