Solarspin, do you know that you're making a fool of yourself? I planned to write a post to help you understand this matter but it isn't necessary anymore. Just keep your head up and read those previous posts of eclayef (a normal user) and Joe (a core team member). If you don't have enough patience to peruse such many words, I can summarize them here :

       1. Nothing lasts forever. People come and go all the time, that's one of the most natural things on this planet. Soon or late, someone will be found unsuitable to continue his (her) current work. When that happens, the best solution is to remove that person from the list. You do understand that, don't you? By the way, I don't think that you have the right to criticize DNN corp for what you are not involved with or for whom you hardly knows. Things are always far more complicated than what they appear to be.

       2. About the matter of DNN going commercial, who cares? The only thing I know is that DNN's developers have contributed a great deal of strength to this project. If you can't imagine how "big" it is, you can try creating your own CMS . So, you should thank them for keeping DNN an open-source project instead of censure them. Even if DNN really becomes a chargeable product, well, everyone who participated in it deserves this credit, especially after all those hard-working years.

   However, you did make a good point when saying that DNN corp should not oblige people to tell lies. Although having a good purpose, the words in that letter should be more comfortable and less offensive.

    In short, Solarspin, if you still don't get it, you shouldn't continue using this product. Especially when your posts are becoming more and more silly.

 And rhferguso, it is great that you fell fine because no one told you to shush or anything like that. Would you feel the same if you got the letters that DID tell you to shush  and to make up reasons about that?

I'm sorry it bothers some members that I must appear the fool in order to bring attention to this. That I appear to nit pick in my attempt to help. It is not about who comes and goes. It is not about money. It is about the slippery slope written in black and white fact that DNN corp should not oblige people to tell lies.

Constructive crit 1) Why not send those folks an apology for the offensive statements?

Constructive crit 2) Why not please be repectful and allow people to speak instead of telling them to stop using DNN?

>. and you won't because they were TOLD to BE QUIET about it. That is the crux of my comment.

standard practice for non disclosure agreements to be made no matter if the person simply decides to leave or is let go. Hopefully the non disclosure agreement is signed when they join the group - 'let go' people tend to not want to sign any thing before they pack up their goodies.

Dotnetnuke is a corporation it only has responsibilities to its shareholders and the corporations law. It may have a social responsibility to its DNN user base but that is not a legal responsibility. Who it employs or contracts with is its business not ours.

As to DNN going commercial - I have always said that at some stage it will but may be not as you expect - DNN has already started to go commercial via its benefactors program.  A search on Dotnetnuke the company appears to show an interest by a venture capital concern - if they are in there then yep they expect some future returns so as sure as God made little apples - there will be some form of commercialization. If say V5 is packaged as acommercial package then Dotnetnuke the company is not really interested in selling it to the run of the mill DNN user they would be looking at the Business world. This may upset some of the consultants already selling in this market but would make little difference to the run of the mill user base.

Will it affect the so called 'open source' user base - basically no currently there are 3 workable versions V2 and3 on asp.net 1 and Version 4 on asp.net 2 that are still protected by the open source licence. If say V5 comes out as a commercial package then it is really not going to make a big difference to those already using DNN.

As to forks - a fork is not just a customised version of an existing version but is one that starts a new open source project - basically there are no real forks of DNN out there - if V5 was commercal and the team decided not to continue with V4 then no doubt there would be some out there that would start up a new group to continue with V4 as open source but why would you. If you are running your business on DNN then most probably you have a in house customised versions already - not much of this customisation is shared across the user base in most cases it was never meant to be.

So you will still have 3 versions of DNN to use without laying out any cash. The only way that the 'open source' user base can be upset in any way is via the use of the term DotNetNuke. The logistic problems and cost of getting every user of DNN to pay a licence fee for the use of the term really makes this a no goer.

As to corporations lying - hey read the newspapers they do it every day.