Open Portal Systems (OPS) started when Tony (tgo) and Gene (breeze76) inherited the MWPX.com project. MWPX was the culmination of a lot of effort by lots of talented people that took over the original code called Max Web Portal.

Open Portal Systems was formed to help grow and promote what we call "Managed Open Source". Lets face it, open source software has lots of advantages when compared to traditional in house proprietary software. The obvious being open source (which doesn't necessarily mean free) gets reviewed by hundreds or even thousands of developers all over the world. What company could justfiy that cost! However, as with everything in life, it has disadvantages as well, primarily being unmanaged leading to inconsistency and poor quality control.

Open Portal Systems provides the best of both worlds. Yes, we may be more restrictive in same ways, such as requiring all code to meet certain coding standards (which will continually evolve), but the net effect will be one of the most stable, reliable, and secure software products around.

To kick off this new vision, we realized the old portal code needed to have a new architecture that better supports separation of low level functions, like database calls, and high level application logic. We also gave it a new name so starting with version 3 it is now called OPS Center. If you look under the hood (at the code), you will notice extensive use of functions and subroutines providing a framework for other developers to utilize.

So, putting this new architecture in place has been a long time coming, but we feel the time was well spent as it provides the foundation for it to grow in the future.

We also want to thank all those that have come before us and devoted their labor, time, energy, and finances.

We hope you enjoy it!

Tony & Gene

(and all the other contributors!)