MacHeistGate just keeps rolling.

I wrote recently about my opinion of MacHeist. I wasn’t outraged or anything. I just pointed out that if someone crunches the available numbers, it appears that the developers get screwed. Indeed, if you look at what was offered to Gus Mueller, you understand his annoyance with MacHeist. It did gangbuster business. If he’d taken the $5000 offered to him, he’d have been hosed.

And that’s pretty much where the problem started. A few people crunched the numbers and found a discrepancy. MacHeist goons came back, over the top, and misrepresented the argument. No, really. People weren’t hating on MacHeist or the concept of marketing software. People were criticizing MacHeist on the exclusivity and the potential disproportionate distribution of profits. Both are fair criticisms based on the available information.

Quickly on the exclusivity bit: it wasn’t the week of independent Mac developers. MacSanta has ushered in a week of independent Mac developers. Any developer can hop in on it. That’s incredible. What’s even more incredible is the sheer number of awesome icons on the page. Big ups for digital artists.

Allow just one more bit of number crunching and pissing into the wind, though. Gruber posted the information he had on MacHeist. Based on anonymous sources that have not been disputed, the developers shared about $66,500. Phil Ryu claims that the number was at least double that figure. That’s a lot better but if you work it all out, MacHeist still makes 3 times more than all the developers combined. That’s still a disparity.

Phil also claims that the estimations that Gruber gives are “wildly inaccurate.” Prove it, Phil. That’s all anyone is asking. Gruber, like many people, are working with information from second hand sources. My number crunching is based on information that Gus Mueller posted about what he was offered. Gruber apparently has at least one source. If Phil wanted this argument to end, he could simply share some of the numbers. Estimates may be wildly inaccurate, but then, it’s not like any of the real numbers have ever been shared or offered publicly. People are reacting to Phil’s black box. It is asinine to attack someone for making a guess when you’re the person holding the answers.