If I had known that the there was a secret partner and who it was, I would have never delegated 3K to the effort. After the split and discovering the who that person was, I stuck with it because at least they were not partners anymore.

I think there would have been a severe lack of support if the secret partnership would have been known and would have doomed the project anyway. Hence the reason for the secrecy.

For this reason, I highly doubt that dcommerce will stand much of a chance. I would expect that they would have to primarily fund the project themselves without the support of the community.