Press Release, The State of the Onion

[lightman]

Following the sad and untimely death of the COINSoft Technologies Inc. lead developer (cantex), I am sure some of you are wondering what the future of the phpCOIN project holds.

The shareholders of COINSoft Technologies Inc. have, reluctantly, decided to close the company, but were determined that the phpCOIN project should not just be left to die.

As a consequence, the Ownership, Title, Intellectual property rights, Copyright and Usage of the phpCOIN code, domain names, websites and trade names have all been acquired by the (British owned) company in Spain for whom I (lightman) work as a consultant, and which has been supporting phpCOIN since version 1.2.1b, and have been hosting and managing all the phpCOIN websites for the last 5 years.

With the backing of the new owners, I shall endeavor to continue to support the phpCOIN community and users as best I can. I should like to extent my thanks to azcappy and demostenes who have pledged their continuing, and invaluable, assistance to the project.

The main, demo, docs, bugs and forum websites should all be fully functional again, and, over the coming weeks, will all be updated to reflect the new owners of phpCOIN. The CVS server site has been dropped for the time being, and no decision has been made, as yet, as to whether it will be re-instated, and, in what format.

The software package itself will be upgraded to v1.6.6 to reflect the new ownership, and will contain whatever bugs and security fixs that have been addressed since the release of the v1.6.5 version. With everything that needs to be done following the acquisition of the project, I am sure you will understand that we are unable to give a firm date for the v1.6.6 release, so do check back for updates ! In the meantime, any reference you might find to COINSoft Technologies Inc. should be interpreted as referring to the new operators of the project.

With respect to the phpCOINv2 project, I am disappointed to have to announce that we have been completely unsuccessful in our attempts to access the development code for this project. Regrettably, we must write off this project for the conceivable future.

Regarding the future of the open source phpCOIN project, we should be interested in corresponding with any developer that might be interested in establishing a long-term relationship with the project. Anyone that is interested, and believes they are in a position to contribute to, and support the project, should contact us on support<at>phpcoin<dot>com.

We are enormously grateful to all the past contributors of modules, themes, languages, button sets, add-ons and documentation that has been made available to the project. If, however, you wish that your contribution be removed from the phpCOIN downloads page for any reason, please don't hesitate to contact us.

The new operators of the phpCOIN project will honor and respect any license to remove the 'Powered by phpCOIN' footer line that was purchased prior to this announcement. Unfortunately, we are unable to process licenses or donations at this time, but we hope to reinstate the license program, in one form or another, once we have a clearer idea of future policies.

Do please to feel free to ask questions or make comments

lightman

[webmist49]

Hi Lightman, thanks for posting this, which I have just read (a bit late).

Was glad to hear the project is not going to die and trust you will have the support already promised and more to come, people who really have the time and the committment (as well as the expertise!) to take this on to further levels. It is too good a programme to lose.

What a shame that you are not able to access all the work Steve had done on the v.2 code. But am glad that the company you work for has taken it on now and that you will be able to continue to support the project.

Thanks for all you do!
Judy

[Peekay]

Thats good news.

[pmateus]

I am in shock at what I just know.
I have been using phpCOIN for several years, had active role in the forum (the old one) for about two years (2004-2006), having enough contact with Steve during this time.
It was thanks to him, and lightman, that I could implement the phpCOIN which helped grow my business.
I always thought his admirable effort in bringing this project forward and later with the excellent help of Lightman.

His death is a huge loss for the project and to all who have followed the development of phpCOIN.
I'm really no words to express my sorrow and I can only offer my condolences to the relatives and close friends of Steve.

In Portuguese: As minhas condolências para a família do Steve e para os amigos mais próximos.