As far as branding goes, I think it's valuable to OpenACS to have .LRN branded as a vertical application built on top of OpenACS. If we merge brands/governance etc then OpenACS risks being pigeon-holed as an e-learning solution inappropriately being applied into non-e-learning spaces. That's not good.
Much better for the project as a whole, IMO, is if OpenACS becomes known as the base technology for a suite of successful vertical applications ... .LRN and (gee it would be nice :) .WRK being our two existing examples. Alternative configurations of OpenACS ... sure ... that's the whole point. We want to continue to push forth to where alternative configurations packaged nicely, perhaps integrated with a slick install process, are the norm for people looking for canned solutions that only need theming (by the upcoming theme-manager) and perhaps minor customization to meet their needs.
In fact Jeff has made some considerable enhancements to the install.xml customization process I wrote to make possible the automated installation of .LRN as simply a configuration of OpenACS. He's done this because his client projects are installed/delivered using this mechanism. I suspect the value of this has been somewhat hidden due to all of our angst regarding the initial install headaches involving AOLserver, PG, Tcl-threaded etc etc.
