MSI Afterburner Developer Hasn't been Paid for a Year, Product Development in Limbo

[kiriakost]

My graphics card this is MSI OC version, and as such it does a good job all by it self (due advanced quality of parts in use).
Occasionally I did use MSI Afterburner as testing software, mostly as a confirmation, that DC fan this behaves as it should, at different 3D Loads and at GPU cooler temperatures.

About MSI, I bet that their newest president, he did this unreasonable action, so to please western MSI share's holders and or investors.
I am now convinced, that neither ASUS or anyone else will run after so to rescue the "Afterburner project".

My best advice to Mr. Alexey Nicolaychuk, he should start preparing a Plan B.
We are totally unaware of whom holds Copyrights of this software?

If MSI holds the Copyrights? Then the MSI Afterburner = Officially EOL

My afterthought: In case that Mr. Alexey Nicolaychuk, thinks of him self as this be software development business?
An wise manager he would start thinking of a business HQ relocation.

 

[watzupken]

I'd say stop making updates then, let MSI feel it.

We all know the majority of the Russians can't be held responsible for what's going on, MSI is being stupid.

That said, overclocking in 2023 is overrated anyways.

I agree with your second sentence, but the problem is that there is no way to pay them using conventional means. You can't transfer fund because SWIFT is off limits, and most banks would have put any Russian entity in some sort of sanction list.

For me, Afterburner is less about overclocking and more about undervolting. There are a lot of overclocking tools out there for Nvidia cards, but there's little or no option when it comes to easy undervolting.

 

[Kohl Baas]

No it is not, thus we have to end here.

I wonder why he ain't mobilized to serve his nation also. Maybe not yet.

I possibly in the dark here, but AFAIK Russia still handles this as "Special Operations" unwilling to acknowledge it being a war. And that creates some legal nuances. One of those nuances is that they can't mobilize/conscript civilians into the army. They can only mobilize the reservists which they did months ago.

 

[londiste]

the problem is that there is no way to pay them using conventional means. You can't transfer fund because SWIFT is off limits, and most banks would have put any Russian entity in some sort of sanction list.

This. The problem is not that MSI is not willing to pay. It is quite complicated to get the payment to someone in Russia, more so for a big corporation. Banks and transfers are sanctioned by western countries and then counter-sanctioned by Russia itself. Plus, some not so nice rules for Russians receiving money abroad, especially in foreign currencies - involving costs, taxation and other niceties that a country can wield.

 

[stimpy88]

Why can't MSi pay him in product, which he could then sell himself? These Asian companies are always bad when it comes to payments. Personal experience, before people chime in with nasty comments.

And if I were him, I'd give them a deadline, then remove their name and anything belonging to MSi, then relaunch it, release it as open source, call it GFX Afterburner, make the IT press, like this site announce it, and ask for public donations for support, and pray his country comes to its senses, so normal business can resume.

 

[Metroid]

He could develop another app with the same functionality and getting donations for it, there are many devs who do that. What MSI did it here was bad any way you look, people need to get paid if they are doing the work.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

One the one hand I fell bad for this guy, screwed over by both his own government and by MSI, OTOH I will never understand why people ever work past the first missed paycheck. The moment my pay is cut my work flat out STOPS. End of story.

I possibly in the dark here, but AFAIK Russia still handles this as "Special Operations" unwilling to acknowledge it being a war. And that creates some legal nuances. One of those nuances is that they can't mobilize/conscript civilians into the army. They can only mobilize the reservists which they did months ago.

Words dont mean anything anymore. Being a "special operation" didnt stop russia from enacting partial mobilization, which included the disabled and the old, allegedly 350,000 from outside the reservist force.

 

[qubit]

Yet another victim of Putin's psychopathic war in Ukraine. Of course, it pales into insignificance compared to the death and destruction that he continues to rain down on Ukraine for no good reason, but it's still yet another negative from this war.

The fact that MSI could pay this developer in other ways, but chooses not to is secondary, the point is that Putin's war caused this issue. MSI may well have good reasons to severe all ties with someone based in Russia that they don't wanna say.

I'm surmising here, but it could be that they don't trust anyone from Russia not to add malware to the product in case they've been leaned on by the Kremlin. That's millions of computers that could potentially be infected if that happens and they don't wanna be responsible for it.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Yet another victim of Putin's psychopathic war in Ukraine. Of course, it pales into insignificance compared to the death and destruction that he continues to rain down on Ukraine for no good reason, but it's still yet another negative from this war.

The fact that MSI could pay this developer in other ways, but chooses not to is secondary, the point is that Putin's war caused this issue. MSI may well have good reasons to severe all ties with someone based in Russia that they don't wanna say.

I'm surmising here, but it could be that they don't trust anyone from Russia not to add malware to the product in case they've been leaned on by the Kremlin. That's millions of computers that could potentially be infected if that happens and they don't wanna be responsible for it.

OR, or, its just another multi million dollar corporation using a convenient political occurrence to screw over the little guy and steal his work, and nothing to do with Kremlin cyberhacking.

I agree with your second sentence, but the problem is that there is no way to pay them using conventional means. You can't transfer fund because SWIFT is off limits, and most banks would have put any Russian entity in some sort of sanction list.

For me, Afterburner is less about overclocking and more about undervolting. There are a lot of overclocking tools out there for Nvidia cards, but there's little or no option when it comes to easy undervolting.

SWIFT is not the only payment system on earth, and you forget russia is a founding member of BRICS. There are surely ways that MSI india/china/brazil ece, for example, could pay him through BRICS without running afoul of sanctions. It happens every day. Both india and china are regularly buying oil and grain from russia and russia is buying chips and metal from india/china without issue.

 

[phanbuey]

This is a tragedy as is everything related to this war.

He needs to get out - there is another mass mobilization coming very soon.

 

[Hakker]

Before anyone starts suggesting donations, patreons, kofis ,etc, note that the dev has licensing agreement with MSI. While MSI has not kept up with the agreement on their side, it doesn't mean the dev can just take the source code, let alone the name MSI Afterburner which is what everyone recognizes, and just start publishing it on his own. Accepting payments from other sources would be against the licensing agreement from his side. That will make him be on the wrong side of the law and will allow MSI to bring him to court. The only thing he could do now is stop developing it.

Considering it's nothing more than a branded version of Rivatuner I expect Rivatuner to be back slapped on the software and being developed independantly again. Unless he made a very bad deal where all the code is all of a sudden belonging to MSI which I doubt since Rivatuner was also bundled with EVGA cards in the past. Then MSI will fall short and be without software. MSI should clap in their hands he would go so far to keep updating it out of his own pocket, but all that said this isn't the first scummy thing MSI has done the past few years.

 

[bug]

OR, or, its just another multi million dollar corporation using a convenient political occurrence to screw over the little guy and steal his work, and nothing to do with Kremlin cyberhacking.


SWIFT is not the only payment system on earth, and you forget russia is a founding member of BRICS. There are surely ways that MSI india/china/brazil ece, for example, could pay him through BRICS without running afoul of sanctions. It happens every day. Both india and china are regularly buying oil and grain from russia and russia is buying chips and metal from india/china without issue.

Of course there are ways. If you were running a multi-million business, would you expose yourself to millions in sanctions to pay one guy? No matter how important that guy was.

 

[trsttte]

Of course there are ways. If you were running a multi-million business, would you expose yourself to millions in sanctions to pay one guy? No matter how important that guy was.

That's one of the secondary ways in which sanctions work, even if you could legally do something without circunventing sanctions things can change very fast with very high cost so it's safer to just cut ties.

 

[Wirko]

This. The problem is not that MSI is not willing to pay. It is quite complicated to get the payment to someone in Russia, more so for a big corporation. Banks and transfers are sanctioned by western countries and then counter-sanctioned by Russia itself. Plus, some not so nice rules for Russians receiving money abroad, especially in foreign currencies - involving costs, taxation and other niceties that a country can wield.

MSI selling their products in Russia means that they have a subsidiary there, or some other kind of legal entity which represents them. (According to this document, it appears to be an "indirect subsidiary".) That company sure has the means, and the funds, to pay Mr. Nicolaychuk.

 

[qubit]

OR, or, its just another multi million dollar corporation using a convenient political occurrence to screw over the little guy and steal his work, and nothing to do with Kremlin cyberhacking.

I don't think so because it lowers their credibility and reputation.

One way or another, this wouldn't have happened if Putin hadn't started this insane war, that's the important part.

 

[bug]

MSI selling their products in Russia means that they have a subsidiary there, or some other kind of legal entity which represents them. (According to this document, it appears to be an "indirect subsidiary".) That company sure has the means, and the funds, to pay Mr. Nicolaychuk.

MSI probably only have a business setup over there. Software is a different animal. I'm pretty sure whatever software MSI offers, is still subject to export regulations/restrictions, so even accepting Unwinder's code may be under fire at this point.

 

[natr0n]

He is a genius and should be compensated for great work he has done.

 

[ir_cow]

Wow MSI really messed up here. That overclock community marking is now gone. Just waiting this guy is picked up by another big brand and it will be called ASRock Afterburner lol.

 

[bug]

Wow MSI really messed up here. That overclock community marking is now gone. Just waiting this guy is picked up by another big brand and it will be called ASRock Afterburner lol.

MSI has sold card way before Afterburner, it will continue to do so without it.

Fwiw, I don't even like MSI. I just don't like companies taking flak just because.

 

[ir_cow]

MSI has sold card way before Afterburner, it will continue to do so without it.

Fwiw, I don't even like MSI. I just don't like companies taking flak just because.

There loss. I known plenty of people who buy MSI cards for MSI afterburner (even though it's universal) same for the eVGA Precision X. If MSI didn't like the software, why was it always promoted on their websites for video cards eh?

 

[bonehead123]

From the movie Goodfellas:

"Business bad? F you, pay me"
"Oh, you had a fire? F you, pay me"
"Place got hit by lightning ? F you, pay me”
"The commies declared war on Ukraine, F you, pay me"

Pss... I added that last one just to make a point

 

[bug]

There loss. I known plenty of people who buy MSI cards for MSI afterburner (even though it's universal) same for the eVGA Precision X. If MSI didn't like the software, why was it always promoted on their websites for video cards eh?

Who said MSI didn't like the software? The software simply comes from a part of the world with which is very difficult to have commercial relations these days. There's nothing complicated or malicious going on here.

Who knows, maybe the fix will come from Mr Putin himself. It's expected he will try to bring another half-million people to arms, maybe this prompts Unwinder to set up camp elsewhere.

 

[ir_cow]

Who said MSI didn't like the software?

You lol

 

[bug]

You lol

Where?

 

[ir_cow]

Nvm. I misread your post earlier.