Gadget Software: the final chapter?

Gadget Software is gone. Good riddance! We reported earlier this week that several of Gadget Software's programs were actually based on code stolen from other programs. Their Web page now states: "We sold our domain name to a corporation named Ready Software. They will support our software and sell it - they invented Faster! and Loaded!. So Gadget Software is dead." (Thanks, Adam Kay.) They continue to mislead even to the end. We received a letter from Ready Software that offers their account of what happened. Here is an edited excerpt of what they wrote: I would like to tell you about Gadget Software's incredible piracy of our software. We own a very little software company called Ready Software. Gadget's Loaded! and Faster! software were stolen from us; their real names are FormulaOne and Hare, respectively. And one version of Magic Power Menu was also pirated, not the AutoMenusPro one, but an older version 2.1. They stole all our code and sold it illegally. We were ready, after beta-testing, to launch our products on the market and what do we see? The software already exists under another name, pirated by one of our beta-testers. We have never seen anything like this in the entire history of the Macintosh. We will be asking them to close their illegal business and shut down their Web page. Otherwise, we will be seeing them in court. Finally, another reader claims that Gadget's SuperSherlock was actually illegally based on a freeware program called Arriba! (although we cannot confirm this). By our count, this means that every single one of Gadget's programs was stolen. Hard to believe. In any case, we hope these latest events spell the end to this sordid incident. A postscript: We could not find any Web site for Ready Software and know nothing more about them. [As pointed out by several readers, there is a Ready Software site, but it does not look anything like the company described in the email we received.] The message we received from them did not include the last name of the person who sent it. The email address was a Hotmail address (I would have thought a software company would have their own domain address). And the language syntax of the letter was reminiscent of email we received from Gadget. We can't help but wonder whether this may yet be another mutation of Gadget's deception. We hope not. Update: For the record, we received a reply from Ready Software. They contend that they are indeed for real: "We can give a locked source code to prove to you that we wrote the software." We were also given a full name and address: "John Vollet; c/o Ready Software; Combes-Longues; 83440 Seillans;< var; France." Update: Several readers have pointed out that Gadget Software is also located in Seillans France (see this page). Draw your own conclusions.