Forum OpenACS Q&A: Goodbye OpenForce

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Posted by Ben Adida on
All,

In the past few weeks, you've probably noticed the obvious silence from me and other members of the OpenForce team. We've been struggling hard, and today this struggle comes to an end: OpenForce is shutting down.

I want to thank Gerald, Josh, Arjun, Yon, and Eric (in order of start date) for making OpenForce an amazing place and for contributing in incredible and numerous ways to the OpenACS world and more generally to the open-source world. I want to thank Roberto and Dan Chak who interned for us. I want to thank the clients who stuck with us and trusted us even back when "free software" was just another synonym for "poor software" in the business mind. I've learned a lot from all, and OpenForce wouldn't be the same without them.

And so we come to practical matters: OpenForce can only continue hosting the OpenACS site for so long. We will donate the existing machine (including the new RAM) that runs OpenACS.org and dotLRN.openforce.net to whomever the community leadership chooses. This must happen at the very latest by April 15th: sadly we cannot afford to keep our hosting going past that date.

I wish everyone, volunteers and OpenACS companies alike, the very best in all current and future endeavors. I hope OpenForce's contributions to the community will live on in useful ways. The beauty of free software is that the creation or passing of a single company has little impact on the long-term viability of the platform.

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2: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Jonathan Ellis on
damn, that sucks. :(

good luck.

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3: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Marc Fournier on
Am willing to step up to the plate, as far as providing hosting space is concerned ... whomever 'the leadership' happens to be, if you are interested, please just pop me off an email and we can get things sorted out and moving forward ...
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4: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Jerry Asher on
Best wishes Ben, I hope you'll let us know of your (all) future plans.
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5: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Don Baccus on
Thanks for the offer, Marc, but we already have a couple of options with OpenACS companies that host and manage as well as develop sites.  If those fall through we'll get back to you.
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6: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Tom Jackson on

Can anyone provide bandwidth requirements for OpenACS.org?

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7: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Rocael Hernández Rizzardini on
Thanks for all what you and OpenForce have contributed to openacs Ben.
And you know, sometimes the end something is the begining of some other thing better!
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8: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Bart Teeuwisse on
Ben,

I'm sad to hear that OpenForce is closing down. I whish you all the best for the future and hope to see you around at OpenACS.org.

/Bart

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9: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Jun Yamog on
Thank you OpenForce for all of the contributions, also good luck to all of OpenForce in their future plans.
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10: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Rafael Calvo on
Ben

I am really saddened to hear that. Anyway I hope that you keep comming to openacs.org. You have already contributed a lot to the community and open source in general, thanks for that.

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11: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Brian Fenton on
Thanks for everything Ben and all the best for the future.
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12: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by xx xx on
Thanks for everything. I'm sure "OpenForce's contributions to the community will live on in useful ways". I would like to see you all back someday...

Good luck.

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13: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Jade Rubick on
Best wishes for the future and thank you for all the contributions you've made to this community!
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14: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Roberto Mello on
Darn,

I'm sorry to hear that Ben. Best of luck to you and all at OpenForce. We are all grateful for openforce's contributions to OpenACS and the community.

-Roberto

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15: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Erik Rogneby on
I am sorry to hear this bad news.

It stirs up mixed memories of closing up shop on civilution.

It is a strange thing, a company where the core value is stored in the minds of the individuals who run it.

I wish you all well in your future endevors.

Thanks.

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16: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by G Ravedigga on
Just a little over a year ago, everyone here was dancing on ArsDigita's grave. Well now it is clear how much smarter they were than ArsDigita.  The disintegration of OpenACS is more ignominious -- no one even cares.

The heat is really on Asher et. al. now...  No more distractions of 'policy committees' and endless AD-trashing email threads and other excuses for coding-avoidance.  JERRY AT THE HELM!  DON ON THE CONN!

Anyone want to start making bets on how how much the OpenACS code repository is going to grow in the next six months?  flat bid, 3000 byte offer, #'s don't count.

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17: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 16)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on
You lost. We are about to commit 3001 bytes, discounting #. Sorry dude.
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18: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 17)
Posted by Jeff Davis on
Lest someone think the troll above is insightful in any way, 974 of the 3709 commits on openacs-4 have come in the 4 months since the last commit by OpenForce. I don't want to diminish at all the contributions Ben and others at OpenForce made, but by almost any sensible metric you look at, openacs is getting better faster than at any point in the past.
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19: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by carl garland on
I hate responding to trolls but this one needs a little response. I was always grateful to AD for all their work and was extremly bummed when things didn't work out for them. I feel the majority of the OpenACS community feels the same way even if there were a few bumps in the relationship between OpenACS and AD. For such a trollish post though I would like some proof of your "dancing on the grave" and "how they were smarter" and "AD trashing email threads" If the coward who posts these statements actually posts some proof maybe he can change my mind but from my perspective OpenACS has only accelerated in development.

As a side note what is OpenACS's opinion on deleting obvious trollish anonymous posts that only that offer nothing of importance. I don't normally agree with censorship but that post offended me and I am only a fringe OpenACSer.
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20: Re: Goodbye OpenForce (response to 1)
Posted by Talli Somekh on
I don't, Carl, we haven't had a troll in a while and this one was so good.

I mean it was so barely comprehensible that it was probably written by the aD core team member who designed the user permissioning UI for acs4.2.

talli