Forum OpenACS Q&A: State of OpenACS. v3.2.4 and v.4.0

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1: State of OpenACS. v3.2.4 and v.4.0
Posted by Ben Adida on 09/07/00 06:49 PM
The deadline we set ourselves for OpenACS 3.2.4 has come and gone. I
know that this is frustrating for many, and I'm very sorry if this has
delayed any deployment plans. I could say that OpenACS is a project
made up entirely of volunteers, but that shouldn't matter. The goal of
the OpenACS project is to be a professional, state-of-the-art,
open-source web toolkit. Deadlines should be set and respected.

So, it's time to reset some reasonable deadlines, because, regardless
of urgency, it is unacceptable to release software that isn't ready.
OpenACS 3.2.4 is coming along *very* well. We have dozens of bug
reports and fixes, and more in the works. We need to freeze the code
and plan for v3.2.5 as a further set of bug fixes to allow us to push
the 3.2.4 release ASAP. Today is September 7th. To be safe, OpenACS
3.2.4 will be released on September 21st, in two weeks. In the
meantime, please test the latest CVS! It is already quite stable.

What's in store for OpenACS? Well, for one, a larger
developer community. We have many interested developers, from many
different fields and companies. Also, we're getting positive
feedback from ArsDigita. Expect more ArsDigita involvement in OpenACS,
and expect that to be a Good Thing (tm). There are a number of
open-source friendly aD developers, and it's time to seriously include
them in the growing OpenACS community.

The big bright future for OpenACS is v4.0. ACS Classic v4.0 is coming
along, and I will soon begin to organize a team of developers for the
port of OpenACS 4.0 core. Remember that 4.0 is modular, which means
that we want to focus experienced developer power on
the core functionality. The advantage is that we can then
distribute the porting effort of individual modules. This is the
perfect opportunity for new developers to get accustomed to OpenACS in
a well-defined manner, dealing with one small module at a time!

I'm excited about the future of OpenACS, and I suspect others in the
community are, too. We've only scratched the surface of what can be
done with a serious, fully open-sourced web toolkit. Get ready, get
psyched, and, of course, post any feedback below.

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2: Response to State of OpenACS. v3.2.4 and v.4.0 (response to 1)
Posted by Randy O'Meara on 09/07/00 07:47 PM
Thank you for sharing your vision of the immediate future of OpenACS.  I have been watching the CVS repository but haven't seen an indication that the present flurry of activity in preparation for release of v3.2.4 is making its way into the repository.  If the repository was updated more frequently, there would be more folks testing, reporting, and assisting in the preparation of the v3.2.4 release.
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3: Response to State of OpenACS. v3.2.4 and v.4.0 (response to 1)
Posted by Chris Hardy on 09/11/00 04:43 PM
This sounds wonderful! Along these lines what is on the current To-Do So that we can get OpenACS 3.2.4 out the door, tested, and looking good?  Is there a list of what needs to be done? Do we have a list of requirements? Etc?  Or should I just continue bug stamping the module I'm working on?