When I was trying to make a go of freelancing last year, I directed my clients to Discourse, which is far and away the best community platform available. A great feature is that it’s open source, which means it will survive the company that built it.
I admire that company quite a bit. Unfortunately, they had to lay some people off today. (I originally noticed on LinkedIn.) The blog post explains the situation. It’s a cost-cutting measure to get profitable and build a sustainable business. From what I can tell, the people who run the company are straight shooters so even though the decision comes at the cost of people’s jobs, I suspect it was a good choice.
Having been unemployed for over a year I feel for the new job seekers. Hopefully they will have severance to cover the holidays and a bit more. It’s a hard environment to find work, though. Might be getting a lot worse soon. I wish I had a job to offer.
Discourse, the software, should be fine. It already does most everything my clients needed and I’m happy to keep using it for my personal projects too. It’s one of the true strengths of an open culture.