[sosuke]

You're right we are hearing one side of a story, but we can only go on the information we have. The co-creator wanted all of the product, and wanted to give nothing in return, and never really wanted to be a partner in the project but use the developer for unpaid work since it would be a learning experience.

Anecdotally I've turned down many projects in the past of a similar nature. "Do this X or Y for me for free I'll tell everyone what a great job you did and it will bring you more work!" "The experience and education you get from working on this is payment enough."

I've dealt with actual people in these situations, and this developer isn't the bad guy. There are no bad guys or good guys in business. This is one business partner taking advantage of the other. The developer should have never signed anything, used the project for their class, and not hand over any right to the code since no exchange of value for it was made.

@xarien, I couldn't reply again to you, but I wanted to say you're absolutely right about guilt being very complex, and to thank you for clarifying your thoughts. Guilt and me go way back as I'm sure it does with most folks. (^_^)b

[xarien]

I don't disagree one bit, only pointing out that feelings such as guilt are extremely complicated. I remember the first time I had to let someone go (was a friend too). It was the hardest damn thing to do and I let it drag on for months...