I am no lawyer, but I do not think we have the legal right to the data base. Remember the old rely net lawsuit with dustin and that other guy? It resolved around some of these issues, but they are couched in a lot of legaleze which I don't excel at.
Get written permission for Trevor that we can load the data base as a read only locked forum. And we will start anew with a new forum with proper organization like tomorrow.
Based on your assessment that Trevor is honorable, I wish him no harm. He bought a piranha, thinking it was a pretty fish. But if this sale was $50K we can't swing that and not recoup it. We can't make him whole. We also have no right to destroy his forum. We do have the right to leave. We should understand he is the legal owner of the forum. Legally give us the archive and we will play nice, like my sister treats me...
It is like buying a used car. I think the legal term is caveat emptor or "Let the buyer beware". If there was no warranty, then Trevor owns this mess. I don't like it, but ethics don't matter, it is law. knightmb sold it, if the terms were caveat emptor, then Trevor owns this cat. End of story. Business is full of risks, ask any of us that put up our own money daily, like you do methy.
Let's get firm legal rights to the data archive and move on. Let the traffic go where it may. We may fail and be back. Then I'll buy Trevor a beer.
We may both thrive, which is what I think will happen. He will serve those consumers that are not technology developers. We are technology developers and cannot have a high signal to noise ratio, he can have a lot of noise and prosper. In fact that is what he needs to succeed.
We are deadlocked right now, how you get out of deadlock, is comprimise. Keep our core values (technology, and high signal to noise ratio), he needs to keep a functional forum and monetize it to recoup his investment. We don't get everything, he doesn't get everything. The other solution is Mutual Assured Destruction. We burn the forum to the ground and no one wins. If Trevor will GIVE us legal rights to the data base, we are golden and have our IP; and in return we will not burn the forum to ashes and allow him to operate off the current data base. Basically let him have the archival IP and it will be on both boards. His active, ours read only. If he doesn't agree we purge all our posts on his board, like a few others and myself already did.
Time to move forward... We all have work to do, and want to do.