Forum OpenACS Q&A: Goodbye OpenForce

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.

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 ...

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.

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!

Thank you OpenForce for all of the contributions, also good luck to all of OpenForce in their future plans.

Thanks for everything Ben and all the best for the future.

Best wishes for the future and thank you for all the contributions you've made to this community!

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.

You lost. We are about to commit 3001 bytes, discounting #. Sorry dude.

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.