Those of you who are interested in the broader aspects of USGenWeb and
Rootsweb, the server which hosts the Decatur County GenWeb pages and most
other county pages, may wish to know about recent developments. Yesterday
Ancestry.com, a commercial organisation with its own genealogy websites,
announced its acquisition of Rootsweb which has, until now, been free for
public access. The announcement and its most general provisions are
available at
www.ancestry.com/home/celebrate/rootsrelease.htm (but I've
been unable to get into
ancestry.com for the past 12 hours).
I've sent the following message to other Indiana County Co-ordinators on
our CC discussion list:
Since most of us have our sites based at Rootsweb, the effect of its
acquisition by
Ancestry.com on USGenWeb and on our sites needs to be
assessed. I've been following the initial discussions on USGW-CC-L and the
most useful contribution so far seems to be the following. It might be
helpful for us to engage in our own exercise of thinking through the
implications.
One option that we might wish to consider again is incorporation of
INGenWeb on the KS model. Tom and Carolyn Ward are CCs in both states and
might be able to inform us on the relative costs and benefits.
John
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:13:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: merope <merope(a)Radix.Net>
Subject: USGW-CC-L: How this affects us
Dear fellow project members,
I've been reading the various press releases concerning the recent buyout
of
Rootsweb.com, Inc. by
Ancestry.com/MyFamily.com, as well as all the
various member comments concerning the acquisition. It occurs to me that
we simply do not know how this affects the USGenWeb Project, since the
terms of the buyout are not public.
Folks, this is why we have a Board and a National Coordinator. It would,
at this time, behoove our NC to contact both the heads of
MyFamily.com and
RootsWeb.com, Inc. and ask them to spell out specifically how this buyout
will affect the USGenWeb Project now and in the future. And then he
should share that information with the rest of us so that those of us that
house our pages on RW/Ancestry [and this includes the national level
pages] may make an informed decision as to whether or not we wish to
remain there.
Some things he might want to ask:
Did
Ancestry.com/MyFamily.com acquire _any_ of the USGW domains?
Will USGW members ever be required to put advertisements on their pages?
Will the Archives be required to post ads on its pages?
Does this buyout affect ownership of any material on any USGW pages,
including county pages, state pages, the archives?
Is USGW and/or any of its components and members free to leave
RW/Ancestry at any time?
I am sure that most of us would like to know the answer to these and many
other questions quickly.
Sincerely,
- -Teresa Lindquist
merope(a)radix.net