My point, Tracy, is that whether or not you choose to use OpenACS as your code base, your customers should be looking to you first, not the OpenACS community, for support and sustenance.
If you are telling your customers "we will continue to support you, using the OpenACS code base", and they're saying "we are worried because OpenACS isn't a formal entity", then there's something wrong with your customer relationship. Trust is missing, to some degree. They're saying "if Ars Digita doesn't follow through, how can we depend on an informal collection of volunteers?". If Ars Digita does follow through on its commitments to the existing customer base, there should be no problem.
If they trust you, their vendor, to make things right for them then all
you have to say is "well, of course, if the OpenACS project goes south we'll still stand behind our commitment to you. We can always pick up that code base and support it for existing customers if necessary".
You can tell your customers that "Ars Digita will continue to stand behind you, and in addition there's this great community forming around the OpenACS project that's full of folks willing to help with technical issues, which includes other consulting companies who can help you if you become disatisfied with Ars Digita's service".
The community is certainly a form of insurance for your customers, in other words. The fact that there are other companies around that are involved in the project provides additional insurance.
But no matter what structure OpenACS takes on, formal or informal, your existing customers are going to look to Ars Digita for a support commitment. It's got to come from you guys if they're going to remain your customers.
