In the short term, AD's decision to close some of their code only
matters if you're thinking about moving to ACS Java. If so, then
you have to decide whether whatever licensing deal they come
up with works for you.
In the long term, this could be bad for the OpenACS community
because it potentially forecloses the idea of sharing datamodel
plus pageflow with ACS Java--at least on these new modules.
How serious a problem turns out to be will depend on (1) how
much truly cool and innovative stuff AD develops, (2) how much
creative and independent development we get going on
OpenACS after the port is complete, and (3) the degree to which
the ACS and OpenACS communities continue to overlap.
As for whether AD's idea is a good one or how we should feel
about it personally, we seem to expend an awful lot of energy on
these sorts of questions. For me, getting worked up over this
feels like a waste of my time right now. YMMV, though.
