Everything already mentioned plus production tools like the die cast aluminum moulds. The immaterial assets also include a patent, the trademarks and webdomains.
Thnx for the addition!
Any information on the timelines involved for the insolvency? Just to have some perspective on this process and what the âstakeholdersâ need to look out for.
Tbh I would love to know that as well after these weeks of extreme uncertainty. But it is not in our hands. The key point of this stage is that the shareholders are expropriated and the court appointed admin fully takes over with the mission to minimize damage to creditors.
Due to dependencies with the various stakeholders plus the court involvement, there is no clear answer at this point in time also for the admin. I guess itâs some weeks, but it could be a slow death in slices if no buyer for the whole asset package is found.
Will keep you updated. Iâm in close contact with the administration since we filed and learn details about it every day - after all itâs my 1st insolvency.
Yes, understand. This thing is anything but trivial and there are many moving parts.
Hope to hear more details as they become available!
@friedsilence, due this situation, is there the moment to us thinking about backup of forum messages and Wiki pages?
(My impression is that in any moment, someone can decide to close these portals.)
The forum will be hosted by @gianfranco privately soon. For the wiki thatâs possible also. Both donât contain undisclosed tech or content, so this is not infringing any insolvency regulation. Backups are also not needed, I think the data is pretty safe while the current hosting is not.
Hello Fellow Travellers,
First thing to say is:
If you only do
what you always do
Youâll only get
What you always got
so itâs time to do something different.
I bought into this Project and was furious when it became obvious that the Project was out of control, even more so when the âCommercial peopleâ started playing games like shipping units promised to the original stakeholders to Distributors instead. In business integrity is everything, sadly you fell at the first hurdle.
So whats the real problem here?
Pretty simple
-
an Open Source project can move mountains as there are many talented and bored programmers out there willing to donate their time, and perhaps some of their employerâs time, to the cause of polishing the software - a never ending process.
-
But the Hardware site of the project immediately requires hard business skills. Itâs about budgets, cash flows, planning, reworking, logistics, sourcing etc. i.e. a specialist business requiring dedicated tangible assets focused entirely on a series of achievable deliverables. Thatâs why hardware is âhardâ and software is âsoftâ
-
the problem was made worse by trying to please all the people all the time.
The following quote is attributed to the poet John Lydgate
and later adapted by President Lincoln :
âYou can please some of the people all of the time,
you can please all of the people some of the time,
but you canât please all of the people all of the timeâ.
So what happened is typical of an under-resourced project run by real enthusiasts - nothing wrong with that in principal unless promises that canât he upheld are made at the beginning.
And then the goal posts are moved by Covid, economics, reality âŚ
Whatâs your best hope of rescuing the current situation?
I would recommend you seek a hardware partner, even a Product Development Partner.
The one that comes to mind is Steinberger / Yamaha in Germany. Steinberger have the right mindset to do things properly and get things right. Yamaha are always looking for innovation and quick ways to âstay modernâ and âengage with their communityâ. Another possibility might be Line6 which looks a bit dated these days.
If that seems to be a sell out âtoo bigâ to bear then go to a well funded boutique pedal company. The deal would need to keep the Open Source alive because thats where the sounds are created and the innovation is. What you have to sell here is Product that has been researched and developed to the point of knowing it would be a credible Product. Thats exactly what Companies are looking for. So donât sell the sausage, sell the sizzle!!!
Its better that this great product survives rather than pride gets in the way and it becomes just another crowd funded damp squib.
Be bold, be brave, think a lot bigger!!!
All the best
BlueJazz42
There is one more thing that concerns me quite a lot (besides the plugin store is not working) - who will repair my modx unit when it gets broken? Hopefully it works well at this moment but shit happens.
Line 6 is owned by yamaha these days I think
Any chance to at least keep the Plugin Store online for us to download all the plugins for a few more days? 
No, the insolvency company has control over all assets of the company. We are lucky that the forum and wiki are still online.
one practical question regarding the remaining backers: i think i saw an image of the already (or almost?) finished special enclosures. They belong to the insolvency estate, right? Is there any chance to get my personal enclosure - for sentimental reasons?
Not sure Werner, but I think yes.
I took a risk and crowd funded a potentially great product. You f**led us when you went to retail before honouring your initial backers. You knew it was a cynical last ditch attempt to stave off inevitable insolvency. Youâve paraded a lot of âcommunityâ rhetoric when you should have been more hard nosed business focused. There is a reason Roland/Boss has been around so long. They are a business first and philosophical dreamers a very very distant second. Grow up. Be honest about when in your bones you knew everything was going to shit. It was when you went to retail before you fulfilled the backersâ units. You should have folded then. I know the risk I took and can write off the investment without bitterness. You on the other have a lot more to absorb about the brutal nature of real business. Go and look after your family and get a safer job. Abandon changing the âbusiness modelâ. It wonât work. Leave business to the hard nosed profit machine. It might be more exploitative but it puts products in the hands of consumers. You need to understand this before you dip your toe back in this water.
Are you sure? Your writing suggests otherwise.
So I now got my brand new Dwarf from Thomann and it came with 1.11.4
Independent of the current situation I am happy to finally have a Dwarf in my hands and be able to start playing and tinkering!
And what a nice package it is! The hardware really looks solid (never hand one in my hand previously) and also the case is really nice for moving it around. Great product!
Letâs rock a bit⌠
Essentially, anything we buy is obsolete almost immediately, not just MOD devices.
The best example i can give is my 2018 KIA NIRO that i bought new because i wanted an affordable vehicle with the latest safety features AND Android Auto. FFW to 2021 and guess what, Android Auto is no longer supported. I spent $35k on a car that i now need to squint at maps on my phone again with in 2022. I bet that cheap Android head unit i put in my previous car is still running Android Auto. One more time.
Technology changes, VERY FAST.
Iâm assuming that my Positive Grid gear will also go the same way as MOD soon. They keep making new products because once theyâre sold, thatâs it. Thereâs no more money in them for the manufacturer, so sorry but support ends. Remember DigiTech anyone? All my RPs are still working fine. No stinking networks, maybe a defunct Yahoo Group! Welcome to cRapitalism. Roland seems to know this well and stays away from SW for the most part, except for Zen now. Iâm sure thatâs also temporary. They just wanted a piece of the subscription business too. There ya go, maybe MOD needs a subscription model for plugins?
That said, I do love my MOD Dwarfâs design and features, as long as they keep working, Iâm happy. Wish it had a few more synths tho and used VSTs It would be nice if it had some future life, but why kid myself? Nothing else with updatable code in it does.
If the PiMOD path works, that might be the future. I like that concept, open source SW, paid & free plugins, seems like a good landscape.
Fully encapsulated corporate SW? Yuk.
Some of us are learning the hard way, from our wallets.
Finally, Iâve been following this thread, but I see little about Thoman, who seem like the obvious buyer for MOD Inc/GmbH.
Also, what about a temporary plugin tax to refund the undelivered unit buyers? They could decide to buy a Thoman unit if they want or not.
Finally, finally⌠What about starting a Go Fund Me page to purchase the assets for eventual open sourcing the IP? Anyone interested could pitch in and it could be refunded if not met. Plausible?
Just brain farting⌠One guyâs opinion⌠Peace, Music People!