After three and a half years at The Open Planning Project, my time there is done.
For a while TOPP has been trying to find itself, to determine what it is that it can do best, and how to do that. I think TOPP has finally started really figuring that out, focusing on civic participation, revisiting "planning", and though it’s not fully developed there seems to be a strong potential for TOPP to serve as a point of collaboration for other more ad hoc open source government efforts: government workers and volunteers can provide substantial and well-informed development efforts, but the long-term shepherding of a project is difficult, and TOPP has the potential to provide that kind of long-term neutral guidance. At the same time, communities of people have been developing around these issues; people have gotten past simply calling for government to be inclusive or transparent and have started to do the real work of making that happen.
But… unfortunately I won’t be able to figure out their next steps with them. Mark Gorton has been very generous in his support of TOPP, and helped us get started. But while he has been patient, and even at times seemingly immune from the economic trends… well, he’s not immune, and he has had to cut back his support for TOPP before we were able to become self-sufficient. And so there have been layoffs, myself among them.
I suspect what I’ll do next will have a very different focus. This feels a bit weird, a kind of lost identity. Overall I’m feeling pretty optimistic about finding something new and interesting to do, but I’m still a bit melancholy about leaving things behind. That TOPP and the people I’ve worked with are far away in New York makes it feel like more of a loss because I don’t know when I’ll be back next. But onward and upward! Now to find out what is next…
No related posts.
On a related note, I guess I’ll be renaming toppcloud, as I’ll be continuing the development separately from TOPP. And “cloud” is only maybe 15% of what toppcloud is anyway, so it’s a double-misnomer. Name ideas?
I’ve been thinking that “cloudtop” might be a much nicer name, and much more whimsy, before anything employment might have suggested a name change.
If you’re looking for a new name and need a domain for it, you can try a tool that I built: [shameless plug](http://www.nxdom.com/?left=cloud “NXdom”). For example, the following names were all available when I checked: discloud.com, alticloud.com, sturdycloud.com, cloudwheel.com, cloudberg.com, cloudcoil.com, as well as .net .org etc. for each, and hundreds of other short readable domain names that start or end with cloud. Hope this helps, and good luck for your future after TOPP.
Cloud Engine?
Megacloud, Nucloud, WayCloud, CloudSquared, CloudControl, Cumulo, UberCloud, the possibilities abound. Personally I like Cumulo. ~G~
nullifi (domain is available)
Unfortunately many cool names containing ‘cloud’ are already taken in terms of projects, tools or companies using them. How about cloud2go?
Well… the concept of “cloud” maybe could be extended. Aspirator? Something about a drop in the ocean…
How about ‘Cirrus’, as a literal interpretation of ‘top cloud’?
There are lots of other things called ‘Cirrus’, but not software AFAICS.
I like it. And Cirrus is the most whimsical of all cloud names.
Sorry to hear this news, Ian. Feel free to give me a call if you want a sympathetic ear.
Bad news, I’d like to see TOPP inspiring other communities. Especially in countries where big companies are still in a very strong position and open source solutions discarded because it doesn’t cost enough money (maybe).
Cheers from MS-Switzerland[¹](http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/red-hat-sues-switzerland-over-microsoft-monopoly-965)
I’m really sorry to hear that. I know you enjoyed your time with them. That said I know you will get a ton of proposals and you will find something that makes you enjoy things, perhaps even more than topp?
Now that’s interesting. I assumed toppcloud was from “top” as in “on top of the cloud” with the double p for fun and profit.
PS: I’m terrible with names but anywhere it goes i’ll follow toppcloud. Perhaps go with something more technical? it is still a very geeky package. Maybe along the lines of venv, pip, I like the recursive acronym thing. Maybe something that way.
Sorry, man. You’ll find something, of course.
Sorry about that… But I am not worried about you getting hundreds of proposals :)
For the renaming, what about a touch of french ;) “JoliNuage” which means “beautiful cloud”. Now I don’t know how that sounds in English..
How about “reinmaker”? It sounds like “rain maker”, which is a result of seeding a cloud (get it?). And it makes reins, as in the item used to direct an animal, as you would steer a horse.
Names:
Firehose
Upchuck
Tossup
Skyshot
Wooshie
Flying Circus
Dr Flying
Unexpectedly
Baloonz
Up Ploy
Space Elevator
Space Monkey
Rocket Booster
I like where you’re going with these names. “Tossup” would sound a lot better if you hadn’t put “upchuck” just before it in the list ;)
Good Luck Ian! As for the toppcloud rename, how about just changing TOPP to “top”, e.g. topcloud: the “The top tool for one click deployment of Python web applications to the cloud” ;-) (Who cares if it’s not just for the cloud, this is marketing! ;-))
Yes, it’s always scary to go through something like this, but as Tarek wrote, I am not too worried about you. It is sad about TOPP but it was bound to happen as TOPP was always more interested in its mission than in its business model. It is good news for someone there… I would’ve hired you right now if I could. Maybe I (we would… There’s a bunch of very interesting initiatives we’re taking part in right now. If the budgets roll in I think I will not be the only one at ShiftSpace to want to have your fingers coding for us.
You can check out the Knight News Challenge application we submitted. It’s called NewsShift and I think you will find it very relevant to the things you’ve been working on lately.
Let’s touch base sometime soon. Excited to see what you’ll be up to next…
Convection – it’s what carries the water vapor to the cloud