Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to OpenForce's commitment to the OpenACS free software community

Ben,

Here is where I think some misunderstanding occured.

Originally the new-portal package was supposed to be part of OpenACS. THe docs (very mininal) specifically said that portlets for new-portal could not rely on dotlrn functionality because they would go back to OpenACS.

The latest code does not have this recommendation (last time I checked, who knows why it is gone.)

You yourself decided that new-portal could not be part of OpenACS, then changed your mind. Again, that is all I know but that much information was posted in the bboard.

Many tcl procs were deprectaed and replaced with a new API with no notice to OpenACS developers. Some of them would be interested in major refactoring of core OpenACS code.

Also, there is a extreme lack of developer documentation on how to implement dotLRN. Right now, OpenForce, if anyone, are the only developers who know how the parts work together.

Now, this is not an attack at all, but understand that these things all happened. I am not accusing OpenForce of any intentional slight or ignoring of the OpenACS community. I just think that many OpenACS developers thought there would be a more transparent development of the parts of dotLRN that affected OpenACS.

Also, I appreciate everything OpenForce has done. I have personally benefitted from dotLRN. I also have had to dig into the code to understand how to build a package that runs with dotLRN.

So Ben, if we can involve the rest of the community in important decisions about OpenACS, not necessarily a vote on the OpenACS bboard, but some notification of developers who are working alongside OpenForce to improve the toolkit would go a long way.