Forum OpenACS Q&A: What does this mean for the future of OpenACS?

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Posted by Don Baccus on
Not much, probably.  We were going great guns before GB was formed because the PG developers were going great guns.  This will probably slow the pace of 7.2 development - I was hoping GB would last until that version, with its replication and good backup facilities, was complete.

The MySQL crowd will probably crow over this, at least in part because they've been feeling bad that their world's been filled with bitter lawsuits recently.  This will make them feel better :)

I would say not a whole lot.  Customers that need commercial postgresql support can still go with Red Hat, arguably a bigger name than Great Bridge ever was.
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Posted by Ben Adida on
News travels fast :)

OpenACS is alive and well. RedHat has endorsed PostgreSQL and isn't
about to go away anytime soon. Furthermore, PostgreSQL and OpenACS
existed before GreatBridge came around.

That said, it makes me very sad to see GreatBridge go away. They meant
well, and I think they had a long-term viable business opportunity. At the
end of the day, though, today's economy simply doesn't seem to support the
innovative, risky, venture-backed deals.

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Posted by Ben Adida on
There seems to be a few comments already about "how is this going to
hurt PG and OpenACS." Let me squash these comments right away. This is
open-source! GB came in and started supporting PG because the product
was already cool before they came in. Now that GB is gone, others will
step up. This is what open-source is about! We appreciate all the
great work that GB has done, but we understand that the product must
not depend on GB's financial stability.

And so now, instead of worrying, it's time to cheer for the
open-source model. We have many other companies, (RedHat, PostgreSQL
inc) ready to provide support and enhancements for PostgreSQL. Think
about what would have happened if, say, GB was pushing a closed-source
database product....

The open-source model allowed GB to make an innovative attempt in an
area of software that could never have sustained a new closed-source
competitor. GB helped PG push the envelope. GB's contributions are
*not lost*, because the code they funded remains available to all. Now
*that* is a productive way to run a business and to contribute value
to the world. Go open-source!

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Posted by David Cohen on
Given Red Hat's investment in the Postgresql database, is it likely that they will continue developing Postgresql? Perhaps we'll get replication, etc. from them? The article says that Great Bridge is working with Red Hat and other companies to find jobs for its people--perhaps some of the developers will get to pick up where they left off?
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Posted by Don Baccus on
I would think this is a good bet, yes.