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A L S O_ T O D A Y 21st Log Senate to nation -- get serious about Y2K   T A B L E__T A L K What are the guidelines for opening up to strangers? Hash out chat room ethics in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk   Search for technology books, software and more at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author     ____________________ Technology news from HP goes whole hog for Linux ____________________   R E C E N T L Y Hotline to the underground By Janelle Brown It was invented by a teenager. It's simple to use. And it can turn anyone's computer into a server of legal or illegal files. First of two parts (02/24/99) The Drudge dynasty By Janelle Brown Matt isn't the only member of his family to stake out a place on the Web (02/23/99) Yay for Yahoo By Andrew Leonard How do I love thee? Let me count the pages (02/22/99) Boo for Yahoo By Aaron Weiss How did the people's champ of the Net get so corporate and lazy? (02/22/99) When candidates spam By Deborah Scoblionkov A mass e-mailing by a New Jersey Republican stirs up an online hornet's nest (02/19/99) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST FEATURES ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - -

HOTLINE'S CIVIL WAR The company behind a hot program takes its teenage inventor to court -- while devoted users stew. Editor's note: This is the second of two articles on Hotline -- you can read the first part here. BY JANELLE BROWN "Liars." "Rapists of the company." "A thief in the night." These are just some of the phrases that Hotline Communications Limited is now using to describe the company's founder, 20-year-old Adam Hinkley, and his father, according to the Australian newspaper the Age. It's a bitter end for a group of software enthusiasts who first came together with utopian visions of online community. While Hotline users around the globe have assembled around this piece of shareware -- a server system that enables them to swap everything from warez to ideas -- the founders of Hotline Communications Limited have become embroiled in a lawsuit over who, exactly, is the rightful owner of Hotline's program code. Lawyers for Hinkley describe their client as a young prodigy who was manipulated by cynical businessmen. Lawyers for Hotline call Hinkley a dishonest larcenist. It's an ugly battle fought over increasingly important Internet-age questions of intellectual property. And while it rages, the Hotline community is drifting away. Adam Hinkley, affectionately known among Hotline users as "Hinks," was just 17 years old when he began developing Hotline in 1996. He aimed to bypass the slow, kludgy Web and find a quicker, easier way to transfer files and chat -- hence Hotline's motto, "There is more than the Web." Hinkley's sleek set of applications quickly grew popular via word of mouth. By early 1997, he had been convinced by a few of the regulars in the Hotline chat rooms -- including Jason Roks, who would become Hotline's dynamic vice president of business development -- to try to turn his baby into a software company. The Hotline Company Overview describes in almost reverential terms how a group of roughly half a dozen international devotees, intent on spreading the word about Hotline, formed "The Evangelistic Hotline Public Relations and Marketing Team." This team formally became a company in July 1997, debuting the company as Hotline Communications Limited at MacWorld Boston in August 1997. The company was based in Toronto. Adam Hinkley moved there from Australia, along with his father, Paul (also a programmer), and assumed a position in the company as lead engineer and majority shareholder. He also signed his rights to his code over to the new company. Explains Roks, "We all met on Hotline, we had never met in any way on the Net before. I saw a bunch of kids out there making some interesting software, with talent, and I thought I knew a lot of people in the industry and could help out. Some people took it more seriously than others; some people just did it as a side project, writing press releases and stuff. But it ended up growing into something a lot larger." By late 1997 Hotline Communications Limited had acquired an official investor, venture capitalist Austin Page, who had promised $500,000 in capital. The company was frantically working on a Windows version of its Macintosh software, and was developing other types of applications -- such as NetScrawl, a tool that allows designers to collaborate remotely on creating images. But just six months later, in March 1998, Hotline fell into chaos when Adam Hinkley suddenly shut down the company's Web site and bolted from Vancouver -- taking the code for Hotline (a toolkit known as "AppWarrior") with him and encrypting everything that he left behind. Now, Hotline is suing Hinkley for removing the intellectual property of the company -- arguing that although Hinkley may have written the code, it now belongs to Hotline Communications. In September 1998, authorities raided Hinkley's home in Australia in search of the source code, threatening jail time and seizing boxes of floppy disks. Why did Hinkley bolt? The Hinkleys, father and son, are both under court-mandated gag orders and can't talk to journalists. Adam Hinkley's mother, Meg Lehmann, has in the past spoken to the press and maintained a pointed Web site, but after she was threatened with contempt of court, she removed most of the site's content. Hotline officials are reticent to speak about the case. Still, there is plenty of material online to piece together the Hinkley story. N E X T_ P A G E .|. Mother says, "His dream turned to nightmare" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.