OpenPlans is getting a new name: Coactivate!

This is an important announcement to let you know that one week from today, on June 17, 2009, openplans.org wil be moving to a new home at coactivate.org. All accounts, projects, and content that are currently on the OpenPlans site will be moved to the new location. Nothing will change from a user perspective except for the URLs that you use to access the site. Links and redirects will be set up at the openplans.org domain to make sure that people find the content in its new location. Mailing list messages sent to lists.openplans.org will be transparently forwarded to the lists' new addresses at lists.coactivate.org.

Why the change?

As you may know, openplans.org and the OpenPlans software that powers it have been developed and maintained by The Open Planning Project (TOPP). TOPP does much more than just openplans.org, however; you can learn more about our various initiatives at http://theopenplanningproject.org/ .

Unfortunately, the similarity between the name of the organization ("The Open Planning Project") and the name of the OpenPlans project has led to a considerable amount of confusion. Some people who are familiar with OpenPlans and openplans.org think that this project is the entire focus of our organization. Furthermore, often when someone hears about TOPP and performs a web search for "The Open Planning Project" in order to learn more, they end up at the openplans.org site instead of our main organizational site. This is very confusing to people who are trying to find information about our open source geographical software (OpenGeo) or our transportation and urban planning advocacy efforts (the Livable Streets Initiative). To minimize confusion, and to make it easier for people who are interested in TOPP's other initiatives, we are moving the public collaboration tools to a new location, and we'll be repurposing openplans.org as the home of TOPP's main website.

How will the transition work?

Our target for transitioning the site is June 17, 2009. No action will be necessary; at the aforementioned date, the website and mailing lists will start showing up at coactivate.org, all you'll have to do is start using the new URLs and mailing list addresses and everything will work exactly as before.

Thanks for your time and your support.

- The Open Planning Project