15 Years old! Founded as Notes Open Source Software and renamed to OpenNTF, OpenNTF.org has become 15 years old. I think the founders of OpenNTF - Bruce Elgort and Nathan T. Freeman, and also Vince Shuurman who was involved in the early years of OpenNTF - did not imagine how important OpenNTF would become after all these years. OpenNTF, the home of the Extension Library, the home of over 850 projects, and the place where IBM ICS learned how to reintegrate open source code in to a core product. While people with a strong charisma like Bruce have made OpenNTF popular and advocates like Niklas Heidloff have demonstrated the enormous value and power of Open Source and OpenNTF, there was another man involved in the success of OpenNTF like no other.

The formal title was IP Manager, but Peter Tanner was more. He was the conscience of OpenNTF. He gave OpenNTF everything that an open source community needs. His knowledge about intellectual property rights, licences, and how to build an organisation that has clear processes on how to publish software is more valuable than gold. But now the time has come for his second retirement. We had the pleasure and also the financial power to hire the services of Peter for one last year, but this year ends now. He will pass his duty to a young brilliant mind with the name Jesse Gallagher and we wish Jesse all the best for this important position.

And Peter, I want to thank you personally for all the time you spent on OpenNTF, for all the work and discussions we had together, and for introducing the idea of open source to me and connecting me to the big world of open source community. Yes, we will miss you, for sure, but all good things comes to a end, and I wish you all the best in your second retirement. Enjoy travelling around the world!

Christian
OpenNTF Chairman



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