From: announce-admin@opennms.org To: <announce@opennms.org> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 06:35:21 -0400 Subject: [opennms-announce] OpenNMS Funding Search Completed To: Contributors, Partners, and Members of the OpenNMS Community From: The Members of the OpenNMS Core Team Re: Project Funding While we have been busy building an open source alternative to proprietary enterprise management platforms, we've also been looking for a funding source. We are excited to announce that we've received the necessary funding to not only bring the Bluebird software to market, but to augment the core team with additional developers and continue toward our goal of building a world-class support organization to support Bluebird deployments. The funding comes by way of an acquisition of the corporate entity that the founders of the OpenNMS movement established as funding mechanism, by the Atipa Corporation, a leading supplier of Linux workstations, servers, and clusters, as well as open source services and solutions. The details of the funding are pretty straightforward, but as with anything that involves lawyers, they become murky if you get lost in the details. The key points of the funding process are as follows: - Early on, in building the Bluebird design and architecture, it became apparent that we needed some legal entity through which to track expenses and treat as our "employer". This entity was legally known as "PlatformWorks". - The funding comes as an acquisition of PlatformWorks by the Atipa Corporation. - When we made the decision to allow the acquisition to move forward, we had several funding options on the table. The Atipa Corporation proposal tracked most closely with our original goals, allowing us to focus on building the software without the burden of seeking venture capital and adding investors that may attempt to influence the development process and cloud our dedication to open source. - Atipa's goals are quite clear and have been proven out in our involvement to date: Provide funding to build the Bluebird software and a corresponding support organization, allowing the core team to operate autonomously throughout the process. - Atipa has a proven track record of supporting open source efforts, and doing so very successfully. We've had several opportunities to meet with management and staff from Atipa and we are very excited about the possibilities moving forward. One of our biggest hurdles for OpenNMS has been the prospect of competing against "the big boys". It becomes a far less daunting proposition when we have a well-funded, well-managed corporation backing us in the process. We thank Atipa for their support and belief in our vision and look forward to a long, profitable relationship. Shane O. ======== Shane O'Donnell Open Source Coordinator OpenNMS ====================== It's Revolution, not Evolution at http://www.opennms.org ! ====================== _______________________________________________ announce mailing list (announce@opennms.org) To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your list options, go to: http://www.opennms.org/mailman/listinfo/announce