First, the Bottom Line...


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We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
-- Aristotle.
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I personally developed the launcher-scoring-leaderboard system that was used on TGC.
I offered the launcher application free of charge to the golfsim community for several reasons, one of which was to encourage your patience and cooperation with the pitfalls native to custom software developed by a small team. I expressed this idea in at least one early set of docs, that the user community was indeed my entire QA team. This fact carries no legal weight, but there is a fairness in it that transcends law. The legal fact is that
I alone own the software.
The leaderboard system has always run on my server, never on the TGC server. Your golf scores were submitted to my server, processed there into HTML files that my server uploaded to the TGC web server for display. I never let any part of that software nor that process leave my exclusive possession and control, because I feared that with an informal contract, confusions could arise about whose property it really was. In many instances, "possession is 90% of the law" is a true fact. We seldom are able to recover what is stolen from us, so I kept my prized possession under lock and key so there could be no confusion, or at least so that I would not be injured by any confusion that might arise.
I have logged over 1000 hours of development time over the lifespan of TGC, with no hope of recovering a baseline programmer's pay, nor even minimum wage, in return.
My objective was conspicuously something other than earning money, but that is no reason to allow another person to reap the rewards of my efforts on his own terms. By providing a service for less than it is worth, I in no wise forfeited my right to withhold or withdraw that service, nor did I give up my exclusive ownership of the means of production, nor did I ever state nor imply that I was doing so or would ever do so.
It is not my point at all to say "I was not getting a fair deal...I deserved more."
If I felt that way, you would have heard it before now. One reason you are unaware of these facts is that they were not of consequence to me. There were three important objectives that my work allowed me to pursue:


1) I love the very task of producing software, of implementing integrated automated systems that run over the internet.

2) The saddest thing my computer ever says to me is



That is, I value the camaraderie I get out of receiving and responding to messages like "Hey, Rogg, round 4 isnt showing up!?"

3) #1 and #2 I kind of realized by reflecting, but this third objective was clear to me, and I have clearly stated it on a number of occassions, from the very beginning:
I wanted to preserve the Golfcom community because I cherish the debates and other carryings on in the web board.
I feel a brand of involvement there that I have been able to find nowhere else since {Goodbye Blue Monday} shut down in 1996. To that end, I have tried to downplay any appearance of ownership or authority that might cause web fussers to afford me a greater measure of respect or forbearance because it's "my" system. I always asked Warren to NOT call me "Director", but rather "Scorekeeper", and in fact that is how I always referred to myself. I did not become involved in TGC because I wanted to rule the world or get rich or be the boss or win at golf.
I became involved in TGC because I judged quite accurately that if I did not personally perform the task of creating and maintaining a leaderboard system, the web board community I enjoy so much would be lost forever.

So far I have succeeded in my part of preserving that community, and this narrative is above all intended to support and continue that preservation. In fact, I wish most fervently for RESTORATION of some of the many users we have lost.

For my next remarks, you will need two points of reference: Bruce Wallace and Tom Gay.
These are the names of two guys who have been pivotal in my involvement in TGC and Golfcom. Bruce Wallace played a role in 2004 when he emailed me "Do you do any programming?" He broached the subject courteously, explaining that Todd Stewart had indicated he needed help with programming. I read Todd Stewart's post, and what I gathered was that users had challenged him that the board was dying for want of proper upkeep, and Todd had responded in terms of how much work there was and how little time he had to do it. People then volunteered to help, and Todd replied something like he didnt need people to do email and make web pages and stuff like that, the job that was bogging him down was programming. Bruce felt that I might be able to help Todd and thus preserve the community. Because I have a different slant, as a programmer myself, I read Todd's remarks a little differently, maybe something like "I thought that running this site would pay, but it does not. I need to move on. Nobody else would find the situation any different once they really realized what is involved. The operation of this system is nothing you can "pass on" or "hand over" to anybody." I responded to Bruce that I might be willing to give some time to preservation of the community, but that I was not inclined to give my time to Todd.

Tom Gay played a huge role in my involvement some years earlier. I had wandered away from the web board, but only long after I stopped competing at Golfcom. Tom Gay wrote me a private email and invited me back. I felt honored, and I did return, for the conversation, not the golf. Well, maybe I played a LITTLE. Look for my name at the BOTTOM of leaderboards...

Many a person has privately emailed me over the years and said they appreciate some of the things I post on the web board, but they themselves will no longer dare to jump in and speak because of...because they do not like the responses they get from the outspoken conservative contingent. I felt many a sting from some of those guys myself, but maybe the fact that Tom Gay had invited me there, and had never asked me to leave, maybe that made me feel as if even in the throes of bitter debate, he still appreciated my presence, so I could let the barbs roll off. And in my estimation, Tom Gay was the King of them all. (Gary Taylor deserves some kind of all around prize for being "final group on Sunday" in both departments but) Tom Gay is to message provocation what Paul Willey is to Links golf. I enjoy my "enemies" as much as I do my friends! (I will not put the quotes around "enemies" again, but please understand throughout that when I say the word, I mean my opponents in debate, a sort of 19th hole competition that can be more intricate at times than the first 18 holes combined. I do not bear ill will to any of them who remain, and only to two who have departed, their initials being LA in about 1997, and JB in later years, because in these two I found malice. My other enemies have all been well-meaning men who happen to be on the other side of certain issues with me. Yes, I love my web board enemies, because their posts trigger the replies of my most-admired correspondents: The guys who have the sense to know the truth and the penache to stand up and say it! It is hard to call out this cavalry, but boy when they come, they come with guns ablazin'. It is beautiful.

Sorry I have tarried so long on web board life, when maybe you want to hear about golf, but the events and experiences I have recounted are critical to your understanding of when and how the partnership between Warren and me got broken.
Okay, I hope by now I have persuaded you to not read on, but if you must, click here.