Who is Opalstack?

etienneh

Totally random meta post, but this is just me as a consumer:

Where does my money go? What sort of company am I supporting?

We can glean some of Opalstack's philosophy from here: https://www.opalstack.com/2019/03/13/its-time-to-switch-to-an-independently-owned-hosting-company/
but there's no "about" page, no other info aside from the mysterious tweet here and there, or Sean's tireless responses to every question, far faster than I'd ever expect!

What about writing an "about" page on the website? Or maybe a blog post about where the team is based, or the size and shape of the company? Do they ever hire? What kind of growth is the company interested in? Did they have offices where everyone went on some silly team building activity? Or is everyone eternally remote and sharing pictures of their cats?
Or, is everything explained by a team of two, one person doing all of the infrastructure, and the other writing the most sophisticated AI ever that replicates the personality of Sean who is actually retired and living in a reclusive hut in the Appalachian Mountains.

Really anything would put a friendlier face on Opalstack than a lot of hosting companies out there 🙂

klynton

Hi,

We planned to have a good about page and a complete site redesign but, well, things happened in the last few weeks and that's kind of been put on hold. At some point we'll get there!

Right now we're a team of 3: John, Me, and Sean. We haven't hired anyone so far but as we grow we'll definitely need to. This doesn't sound smart when I type it out but the writing about WebFaction being shut down was on the wall and rather than going out to find another hosting company like WebFaction we just made one.

We've never had an office. I'm in Utah, John is based in Colorado, and Sean is in New Mexico so having an office wouldn't work out very well.

I'm sure Sean would love to be replaced by an AI so that he just had to correct inputs but I don't think that's very close to happening.

tescher

Awesome klynton Glad that you took this on. You are helping lots of folks who found themselves in quite a bind!

sean

klynton I'm sure Sean would love to be replaced by an AI so that he just had to correct inputs but I don't think that's very close to happening.

I'm not saying that's already happened but I'm also not not saying it.

adam_w

Digging around a bit, you really appreciate the backgrounds of all three of these people who are providing hosting refuge to those of use saddened by the downfall of Webfaction. I'll be looking forward to when the website provides some more spotlight to those who have been supporting (maybe putting up with is a better term) with me for more than a decade.

If Sean is pushing for AI, who's pushing for open development contributions?