ACBLScore+

[hrothgar]

For anyone who might care, I just sent the following to Richard DeMartion (ACBL Board Member for District 25)

 

 

Dear Mr DeMartino,

 

I am writing you as a concerned (on and off) member of District 25. I have been closely following ACBLScore+ debacle and I am horrified at the way in which matters are unfolding. I understand that the ACBL has appointed a technology committee to try to move this project forward, however, I am of the opinion that more drastic action is necessary.

 

I believe that the way in which these proceedings are unfolding suggests malfeasance on the part of Robert Hartman. I am writing to you as the district 25 representative of the board to request an investigation into Hartman’s conduct over the past three years. In particular, I would like to see an independent assessment of the following issues:

 

1. The ACBL spent approximately $100,000 dollars to create an ACBLSCore+ prototype to evaluate this technology. I believe that it is worth spending additional funds on an independent third party evaluation of the code base to try to get to the bottom of what’s going on

2. I would like to see independent outside counsel evaluate the contract negotiations between Hammond Software and the ACBL with a specific focus on whether the ACBL needs to maintain exclusive copyright over ACBLScore+ cde base.

 

I understand that many people want to try to move beyond the crisis and avoid getting bogged down by assigning blame. I believe that Hartman is engaged in active malfeasance and is continually wasting ACBL resources trying to cover his ass. I can tolerate a screw up (even a screw up that costs $1.5 million dollars). However, an ongoing pattern of deception is a very different story. The membership deserves to understand what is going on.

 

Sincerely,

 

Richard Ellert Willey

Natick MA

[barmar]

AIUI, the purpose of the new technology committee is far broader than just moving the ACBLScore project forward, although that is undeniably going to be a significant part of its agenda (ACBLScore is certainly the most important single piece of technology to the ACBL membership). And perhaps its formation was spurred by the ACBLScore+ debacle, to provide better planning and oversight of future endeavors.

[hrothgar]

AIUI, the purpose of the new technology committee is far broader than just moving the ACBLScore project forward, although that is undeniably going to be a significant part of its agenda (ACBLScore is certainly the most important single piece of technology to the ACBL membership). And perhaps its formation was spurred by the ACBLScore+ debacle, to provide better planning and oversight of future endeavors.

 

True, but the membership of said tech committee precludes them from being able to exercise effective oversight over the CEO.

 

I am very concern that the CEO is playing games and trying to bias the free flow of information.

This can only be dealt with by the BoD...

[PhantomSac]

Hey Richard,

 

If this is not too much to ask can you give a basic rundown of this issue (as in I literally know nothing about it; no ulterior motive).

 

They spent new money on new technology, sounds good. So what's the cover up? (again an honest question, I don't know what is happening). Just something short and to the point would be fine or if you want to be more detailed also fine. I respect your view and am curious about this.

[kenberg]

BridgeWinners has more tha you might want to digest about this. At least more than I am up for.

 

 

 

 

 

http://bridgewinners...andon-acblscore

 

http://bridgewinners...iew/acbl-score/

 

 

 

 

My guess is that this is complex enough that a person needs to either get very involved involved in the details or else should stay out of it. I am choosing the latter.

[barmar]

The controversy arose after they cancelled the ACBLScore+ project last year. The work was about 75% done (my guestimate), and they were already in the stage of doing some live testing, and they abruptly cancelled it, with a very vague explanation of why. That's where the coverup is being claimed.

[hrothgar]

For anyone who might be interested, I posted the following on Bridge Winners

 

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/its-not-the-crime-its-the-cover-up/

[billw55]

It seems to me that writing a new scoring program should not be very difficult. I would think that one good coder could do it in six months. Just contract a suitable software developer and go. Not sure why this is so hard. Certainly, the $2 million figure mentioned in the BW thread linked by Ken seems excessive.

[barmar]

ACBLScore is not just a scoring program. It has hundreds of functions, it's essentially the one-stop shop for club and tournament operations.

 

Anyway, most of the work was already done when ACBL killed the project. Hammond did a public demo at an NABC a year and a half ago.

[helene_t]

this site is funny: http://www.acblscoreplus.com/

[billw55]

ACBLScore is not just a scoring program. It has hundreds of functions, it's essentially the one-stop shop for club and tournament operations.

 

Anyway, most of the work was already done when ACBL killed the project. Hammond did a public demo at an NABC a year and a half ago.

Learning more as I go. So the obvious question is, why was the project terminated?

[barmar]

Learning more as I go. So the obvious question is, why was the project terminated?

That's the $64,000 question. They won't tell us. Their announcement from last summer is here:

 

http://moot.typepad.com/files/scoreupdate2014.pdf

 

The "reason" given was:

A working group consisting of Board members, internal staff and outside

experts determined efforts to develop a completely new system

ACBLScore+ fell short of what was required to work for the League’s

members. The ACBL Board of Directors agreed with this decision at its July

meeting in Las Vegas.

However, many of us believe the real issue was not technical, but who would own the copyright to the resulting code. ACBL wanted to own the copyright, Hammond wasn't willing to give that up.

[billw55]

However, many of us believe the real issue was not technical, but who would own the copyright to the resulting code. ACBL wanted to own the copyright, Hammond wasn't willing to give that up.

Sounds like the sort of thing that should have been defined in the contract before work began.

 

 

[PassedOut]

Sounds like the sort of thing that should have been defined in the contract before work began.

My understanding is that it was.

[billw55]

My understanding is that it was.

OK, this is all very interesting.

 

So far I am not seeing the cause to suspect malfeasance by Robert Hartman? What is that about?

 

 

[hrothgar]

So far I am not seeing the cause to suspect malfeasance by Robert Hartman? What is that about?

 

Here is one (possible) narrative that describes the course of events

 

1. The ACBL negotiated a poor contract with Nic Hammond and exercised remarkable poor oversight over the project. (For example, there was no requirements document)

2. The ACBL's legal team decided that it needed to change the terms of the contract in order to secure the copyright to the code. Hammond and the ACBL came to an inpasse. Hammond delivered an incomplete set code, but was able to keep the $1.9 million dollars

3. The ACBL placed a gag order on members of the Board, preventing them from speaking about questions related to copyright

4. The ACBL announced that it was spinning up a new $600K project to update the existing ACBLScore code

5. Hartman recognized that this turn of events reflected very poorly on his stewardship and determined that his best course of action was to make it appear as if the code that Hartman delivered was unusable. Hartman spent $100K on an evaluation of Hammon's code that determined that it would not work

 

Please note: I'm not sure that this is what happened, however, in my mind this is the best explanation for what's going on.

 

I am very interested in understanding the specifics of the process that was used to evaluate Hammond's code.

If there was a deliberate attempt to spike the evaluation (for example, running the code on an underpowered machine or using obsolete versions), this rises to the level of malfeasance.

[cherdano]

Here is one (possible) narrative that describes the course of events

 

1. The ACBL negotiated a poor contract with Nic Hammond

How so?

 

For a while, I spent quite a bit of time working on some Free Software. I like to think that this made me quite sensitive to copyright issues around code.

 

I still haven't been able to figure out why the ACBL cared about the copyright to the code - it did have all the rights to create derivative works and use them.

 

I think the correct statement is that ACBL got told by hired legal counsel that they had negotiated a poor contract. But to be honest, I am not sure I can imagine the ACBL management (or anyone who doesn't have good prior knowledge about the issues) hiring an outside lawyer who knows enough about software. In fact, I am not sure they could afford one.

[blackshoe]

Nobody's sure what happened. Nobody that's willing to talk, anyway.

[uday]

No reason to think anything nefarious occurred, from my point of view.

 

ACBL hired a contractor (Hammond Software) to do some work. The contract ended. ACBL decided the work as it stood was not close enough to completion to make it worth its while to finish off the project. It spent a lot of energy/time/$ trying to do its best to make the right decision in this regard.

 

ACBL then spawned a committee comprised of 3 staff, 3 ACBL BOD members, 3 external techs ( myself, Ralph Lipe, Greg Humphreys ) to advise on this and other matters (we held an open Q&A session in New Orleans during the NABC)

 

This is an advisory committee. The external techs are volunteers, trying to help. We have no raw power, but many of the people at ACBL HQ who matter are involved (including the CEO) and we discuss things. In principle more than just this one 800-lb gorilla.

The committee exists to noodle on various matters with the IT group at ACBL.

 

There is a second non-advisory committee that is similar but made up only of BOD members and *this* one has power, but I don't really know what they're up to, for the most part. The two committees intersect, bec. some of the BOD (like Jay Whipple) are on both committees.

 

The anguish and indignation some feel is bec. of the $ that were spent on the contract, for seemingly no return. Well, sure. That part sucked.

 

"What now?" isn't an easy problem to solve, for anyone involved . I still believe (and, in New Orleans, we said so publicly, I think) that the ACBL probably did the right thing at the time that it had to make that decision. There are/were plenty of opinions to digest.

Of the 3 outsiders, Greg has had the most exposure to the ACBLScore+ code. We're all still meeting, and talking, and emailing. It is slow going sometimes.

 

I did sign an NDA ( Non Disclosure Agreement ) but I doubt I'm violating that by saying that AFAICT there isn't much to non-disclose except the gory details of contracts and emails and staff and such.

There are no gag orders on the outside techs, other than our NDA which isn't really specific to ACBLScore, IIRC; I'd have signed a similar NDA as a contractor/volunteer entrusted with anything that might be sensitive ( source code, contracts, salary information, whatever ). It's just a generic NDA.

 

I don't think this is a situation where no one is willing to talk. There are crazy-long-threads at bridgewinners on this stuff for the masochistic. And there is a video of the Q&A session for the terminally bored.

The contractor, Nicolas Hammond , has posted many times with many details for those who are interested.

 

From my POV, this is a story with no villains. I'm acquainted with most of the cast in real life, including Nicolas. You just have to trust that greg/ralph/uday and the BOD members are not deliberately participating in "ScoreGate".

 

 

U

[mike777]

I do not know any of the details.

 

 

When you embark on an ambitious million dollar program there will often be failure.

 

It seems the problem here is when there is failure we also expect the top will be replaced. We want the very top to take big chances and expect them to go if they fail. If the top refuses to take big chances they also are expected to go. IN other words life at the top is short, often short.

 

this entire thread is about failure, failure which people do not want to admit is common at the top.

 

In government it is almost impossible to remove based on failure, hopefully at the ACBL it is not.

[helene_t]

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/bw-investigates-why-did-the-acbl-abandon-acblscore

 

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/acbl-score/

Fixed a typo in the first link

[kenberg]

Fixed a typo in the first link

 

Thank you!

[hrothgar]

I think the correct statement is that ACBL got told by hired legal counsel that they had negotiated a poor contract. But to be honest, I am not sure I can imagine the ACBL management (or anyone who doesn't have good prior knowledge about the issues) hiring an outside lawyer who knows enough about software. In fact, I am not sure they could afford one.

 

Arguably, any contract that you don't understand is a poor one. More significant, the ACBL reached a point where they wanted to renegotiate elements of the contract and discovered that they had zero leverage. (Moreover, I don't think that they understood this either)