OpenMPE hearing: fresh note, or last verse
May 9, 2011
Tomorrow the OpenMPE volunteer group gets its second and perhaps ultimate day in court. On April 19 the group's lawyer appeared before a Bexar County district court judge to offer four motions against the lawsuit filed by former treasurer Matt Perdue. The judge has been patient in the matter, because Perdue represents himself in the suit he filed on Nov. 23.
But reports from those on the scene show that three of the four motions filed by OpenMPE to quash the suit were granted. Only the final motion, to dismiss the matter entirely, remains to be decided. The OpenMPE attorney and Perdue present to the judge late in the afternoon.
OpenMPE chairman Jack Connor has been removed from the suit, because he doesn't live and work in Texas. The lawsuit Perdue drew up doesn't give the matter jurisdiction over an individual outside the state. Perdue's arguments didn't persuade the judge, who gave him a few weeks longer to come up with reasons why the matter shouldn't be ousted -- just like Perdue was removed from the OpenMPE board last November, a few weeks before he sued the group.
Plus there's the offer of HP subsystem software for sale at 50 percent off HP's list price. The programs are resold via Client Systems, which is extending a discount to OpenMPE so the volunteers can earn revenues on the sales. Sales of COBOL compilers or DEBUG would net the group somewhere between $400 to $1,600 per purchase, according to prices that Connor has forwarded.
This is more significant revenue than OpenMPE has ever seen; at the moment it's begun to attempt to collect $99 yearly for accounts on the Invent3K server.
Little of the above will move forward if there's a setback in the 407th District courtroom tomorrow afternoon. The volunteers now have director insurance and industry-standard treasury practices in place, plus a disaster recovery mirror of the Invent3K server.