
Android-x86 dev offers $50k for proof of contribution by Kickstarted ConsoleOS - sandGorgon
https://lists.01.org/pipermail/android-ia/2015-December/001107.html
======
JohnTHaller
For the confused, ConsoleOS was successfully funded at $78,000 on kickstarter
to release a version of Android that dual boots with Windows. After a year,
nothing was released. The head of ConsoleOS, Chris, claimed the Intel dropping
their Android project was the reason. He finally released code on github and
it was just the Android-x86 project with the name changed. He claimed to have
wanted to contribute significant code to the Android-x86 project but was
refused and posted a single private email from a long chain as proof.

From Reddit, it has come to light that Chris has orchestrated numerous other
crowd funding projects that failed at best or appear to be outright scams at
worst.

Here, the head of Android-x86 is calling Chris on his bluff and promising to
pay Chris $50,0000 if Chris posts code for just 10 of the 100 new features
that were promised in the kickstarter a year ago. In the follow-ups to this
request, Chris made a request to change venue for the discussion, a request to
take the discussion private, and additional excuses. The head of Android-x86
stated again that no more discussion was required, just post the commits for
any 10 features out of the 100 of Chris' choice publicly in the next 24 hours
and get $50,000.

~~~
creamyhorror
I've read some of the surrounding discussion, and the Android-x86 lead (Chih-
Wei) very clearly laid out events from his point of view on 12 Dec:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-x86/qkWG2TwVBq...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-x86/qkWG2TwVBqs/tW1Rm9u9DAAJ)

 _Chih-Wei Huang wrote:_

    
    
      Christopher Price continues cheating his backers
      and all others that "his team" is developing an OS which
      is much better than other competitors (including android-x86):
    
      http://consoleos.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/COS-competitive-061214-003.png
    
      However, one year and a half later, the guy just
      copied and renamed android-x86 and then claimed this
      is his amazing OS!
    
      All the developers of android-x86 including me
      have spent many sleepless nights to code,
      test and debug android-x86 to make it better,
      but this guy just copied it to deceive his backers.
      The dishonest actions do hurt the android-x86
      community very much.
    
      ...
    
      However, cheating the world that he is developing
      something amazing on Kickstart in 2014
      but finally just copied an open source project that
      he degraded at first (see the competitive chart on his
      site) is very immoral.
    

A commenter on Reddit guesses (probably correctly) that Chris Price is just
using the KS money to create demand to get interest from companies who might
join his project. It's obvious that $78k isn't going to get you much of a
prototype, though it can get you swag & marketing:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3yslc1/androidx86_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3yslc1/androidx86_offers_christopher_price_console_os/cyh1csn)

 _samandiriel wrote:_

So... I would say that what the kickstarter was _really_ for was to get
capital for Price/MMV to woo _companies_ by putting together marketing tools
and _some_ kind of proof of concept release, who would then put in the code
and talent required to make ConsoleOS actually happen for the Kickstarter
backers (assuming the proof of concept release wasn't good enough to meet the
advertised feature set, which appears to be the case).

Perhaps originally Price thought he could just throw the IA stuff to some
cheap contracted sweatshop coders and get the product to the finish line that
way and then get hardware manufacturers to license it, but that died when
Intel axed IA.

What it seems to boil down to is that MMV is trying to leverage the open
source model to create a product they can sell to hardware manufacturers,
using seed money to obtained by way of Kickstarter for marketing and extremely
half assed attempts to sort of weirdly co-opt other projects such as IA and
x86 and then somehow persuade coders to donate their time and energy to do all
the _actual_ work for them (which is what 'open sourcing ConsoleOS' appears to
connote).

~~~
on_and_off
For the curious the kickstarter campaign video is also worth a watch :
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmv/console-os-dual-
boo...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmv/console-os-dual-boot-android-
remastered-for-the-pc/description)

Lots of features listed on the campaign page but nothing to back it up, IMO
the whole thing smells very fishy.

~~~
funinobu
AMI has a product in this area that actually works.

------
georgefrick
Hrm, so the Kickstarter said this:

* We're aiming to ship Console OS Developer Release 1 within about 30 days of the Kickstarter’s conclusion.

* From there, we’ll use Kickstarter funds to build out support for the devices that you vote for.

* Our goal is to implement all of the features listed here over the next year

But then said this:

* We have most of Developer Release 1 done. It'll include a starter version of our user experience and should work on all 25 devices we listed in the initial supported device list.

* The Console OS Pro feature set is largely what funds will go toward (in addition to expanding device support, based largely on Kickstarter backer votes).

Nobody should have contributed to this; they never said why they needed the
money or what it was for. It's ridiculous to read about them working 18 months
in the shadows to get "near" developer release 1 but then promise to build out
a feature set in 11 months (since they want a month to finish what they
started).

19 months -> dev release 1

11 months -> undetermined device support (no formal voting!), + a big ass list
of features.

I love Kick Starter, and I've received every single thing I've committed
towards. But people have to be careful and pay attention to what they're
getting into.

------
minimaxir
Overall Context for the dispute:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3y91d1/dram...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3y91d1/drama_on_randroid_over_console_os/)

(if there's a better source, let me know)

Key quote/thread:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3y6eqc/console_os_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3y6eqc/console_os_stole_androidx86/cybdjza)

> After Christmas, we're getting back to coding, and yes - pushing to GitHub
> new content. We hope that this puts perspective to the situation - and why
> we decided to fork Android-x86 versus contribute to it.

~~~
jaysoncena
Wow, he's really good with misdirections.

------
grizzles
I've been following this saga for awhile. I feel sorry for them. The best
analogy is to liken it to a slow motion car wreck. The Kickstarter comments
thread reads like an instructional manual on how to make your customers hate
you.

The average backers perception is that most of their time is spent doing
damage control for not being able to deliver on their promises by shifting the
blame to Intel for stopping development of Intel-IA.

They should take ownership for fucking up. Blaming Intel is the last thing
they should be doing. What does Intel have to do with it? Nothing, of course.
Their dependency on Intel doing the work certainly wasn't mentioned in the
Kickstarter's Risks and Challenges.

In a way I'd like to help them, but all their business decisions are just so
awful that you just can't help but stand back and watch it unfold through the
splayed fingers of a facepalm. I think they will somehow decline this offer,
even though it will/would be a terrible mistake to turn it down.

This should be a good lesson to founders. You can't just punch up a menu of
stuff you want, claim it's mostly done and then fail when the going gets
tough. If you are telling the market you can deliver it, you need to be able
to deliver it.

------
gtk40
I saw this apparent response:

Chih-Wei,

We have repeatedly said, including in emails (both before and) following this
that went unresponsive to afterwards, that we wanted to collaborate and
contribute. We simply were not willing to pay money up front to do so.

You will be free to take any improvements we make to Console OS on GitHub and
integrate them upstream. We didn't go to all this effort to make a bunch of
empty device trees, and call it a day.

If you want to discuss this further, with a path to resolving it - my door is
open.

But this list is not the place to do it. Continuing to repeat the same points
here, only slows my ability to lead our team to deliver - attempting to stop a
legitimate fork by these means, will not succeed.

Edit: Fix formatting

~~~
VikingCoder
A legitimate fork is only legitimate if the rationale for it is legitimate.

Chih-Wei is not only refuting your stated rationale, but is offering an
additional 64% of your budget, to merely prove that your past statements are
true. It's hard to imagine that increasing your budget by 64% would have the
net effect of "slowing your ability to lead your team to deliver," if you
merely do what you claimed you previously wanted to do and were prepared to
do.

Since your past statements included disparaging remarks about Chih-Wei, if you
fail to meet his challenge - or rationally explain why you cannot or will not
rise to it - it makes you look like a libelous and incompetent sack of crap.

Just my personal opinion.

~~~
DHowett
(You are not responding to some who represents ConsoleOS. Rather, you are
responding to a quote attributed to such a person.)

~~~
VikingCoder
(Thanks, I know.)

------
ultramancool
This sounds great, a lot of applications are already a better experience on my
phone than my desktop in many ways. The notification system and DPI scaling on
Android would be killer features for me in a desktop platform. And that's not
to mention the number of games and other little trinket apps that are just
better than web clients for banking and such.

I just hope they can find a good way to do multitasking - that's really the
only feature I think is really needed to get Android usable on desktop and
laptop hardware.

If the Console OS guys can't deliver then I hope this money will be made
available to volunteers willing to implement these features. Some of this is
stuff I'd already like to have - getting paid a bit for it would be a nice
bonus. I'm sure other devs think similarly.

~~~
pki
They already haven't delivered anything.

The only thing they have after a kickstarter where they called android-x86 and
other such projects garbage and inefficient is... a fork of android-x86, where
the only change is the removal of copyrights, names, and a find-replace of
androidx86 -> consoleos.

I think the initial (non-subredditdrama) thread is here -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3y840w/console_os_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3y840w/console_os_response_to_accusations/cybm8ip)

------
_pmf_
> However, about a year and a half later, he released the open source on
> Github- and surprise, it's a forked version of Android-x86, where literally
> only the name has been changed.

As opposed to what? What were people expecting here?

~~~
Veratyr
The problem is that __only __the name has been changed, as in nothing else has
been contributed.

People expected to see some kind of progress towards the promised features,
such as [0]:

\- The ability to run two Android apps side by side

\- OpenGL ES 3 & 3.1

\- "Full OpenGL 4 for Ultimate Gaming"

\- "InstaSwitch" (not sure what this even is)

\- Licensed Google Play app import

\- Custom, togglable UI

\- Desktop friendly UI, menus, buttons

[0]: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmv/console-os-dual-
boo...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmv/console-os-dual-boot-android-
remastered-for-the-pc/description)

------
snydly
I'm assuming this "Pricetopher" is the same guy?
[http://pricetopher.com/](http://pricetopher.com/) That's a bit disturbing.

~~~
creamyhorror
Rather interesting link. Their profiles seem quite different - this
Pricetopher doesn't seem to have any tech aspects, seems to have an alternate
LinkedIn account, isn't as well-spoken, and has felonies on record. But both
are Chris L. Price, which is a bit of a coincidence. I'd still be surprised if
they turned out to be the same person.

~~~
snydly
Yeah sorry, yesterday I thought "hmm a talented sociopath could make several
completely different lives.., it's the same guy!" But no, looking again, they
look completely different.

------
crepes
Reminds me of this similar disaster of a Kickstarter project:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cloud-guys/plug-the-
bra...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cloud-guys/plug-the-brain-of-
your-devices/comments)

It's far too easy for these projects to take the backers for a ride either
through malice or sheer incompetence, with very little scope for
reimbursement.

~~~
bpg_92
You will appreciate this: [http://unmeetlima.com/](http://unmeetlima.com/) :D

------
nautical
Here is the screenshot of the email
[http://imgur.com/b7xousy](http://imgur.com/b7xousy)

------
limexq
remix os x86 seems better than this console os thing, which is free, base on
android x86 as well, but much better UX
[http://www.jide.com/x86](http://www.jide.com/x86)

------
VikingCoder
Anyone have the PDF of the email? Link is dead.

~~~
fgandiya
nautical shared this link with the email
[http://imgur.com/b7xousy](http://imgur.com/b7xousy)

------
bpg_92
The worst part for me is this he said in kickstarter: "These moves also allow
us to ensure Console OS will always be free, via GitHub. When we sell Console
OS, we plan to commit most revenue right back into open-source development.
And sales of Console OS will not be in place of our GitHub distribution - it
will be right alongside them." So he might sell a fork? Wow, well that's
silly.

------
singularity2001
Is there anywhere a list of probable or obvious Kickstarter frauds?

~~~
Joeboy
[https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters](https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters)
isn't quite it, but probable or obvious frauds will probably show up there.

------
Cyph0n
The challenge is on. I'm preparing some popcorn now.

------
BBopUndRawkS
Software projects can fail.

~~~
craftkiller
I think the issue here is not that the project failed, but that no attempt was
even made. Their repo is a clone of an open source project with the name
changed and no other commits.

~~~
xena
sounds like most of the forks of ircd to be honest.

~~~
icebraining
Yeah, but those don't usually ask for $50k to do it, and then badmouth the
ircd project.

