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Re:Developers’ side projects by jbrazile on Saturday December 10, 2016 @01:06AM (#13144318)
I am surprised nobody here has yet mentioned the real case of what happened to Evan Brown, the former president of the Dallas Ft Worth Unix Users Group who worked at a telephone switch company as a system administrator and had an idea for a generic code translator.

Maybe the New York Times tells it best:

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/08/business/an-idea-not-yet-b...

Re:Developers’ side projects by zem on Saturday December 10, 2016 @02:57AM (#13144644)
interesting case. the everything2 writeup seems better than the nyt one: http://everything2.com/title/The+Thoughts+of+Evan+Brown
Re:Developers’ side projects by ScottBurson on Sunday December 11, 2016 @02:27AM (#13150014)
Ah, thank you. Yes, that puts quite a different light on it.
Re:Developers’ side projects by Asooka on Saturday December 10, 2016 @04:21AM (#13144846)
That and the e2 article both don't mention what actually happened in the end, does anyone know? Presumably Mr. Brown liquidated everything, ran out of money and died a beggar on the streets.
Re:Developers’ side projects by jbrazile on Saturday December 10, 2016 @08:03AM (#13145464)
I wondered that myself having left DSC and moved away from DFW long before the story concluded.

Some details from 2000... https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.dcom.telecom/Sq...

And a few more from 2004... http://www.law360.com/articles/1899/appeals-court-affirms-ex...

Re:Developers’ side projects by zem on Sunday December 11, 2016 @03:25AM (#13150150)
i wonder too. i spent a good half hour googling and could not find out.