The purpose of this blog post is two fold: 1. To be clear on what and how we plan to address issues with the current system. 2. To address where the service is going.The service has a bright and promising future ahead as an open source platform that will serve people well and give people a chance to learn through contribution. The service will remain free and will be community sponsored.

Before I begin, I want to start with an acknowledgement. I’m totally in awe over how far ahead of it’s time the SimplyTest service was and this is a testament to PatrickD’s efforts throughout the years. As an example, the service is based on LXC, which appears to be the precursor to technology like Docker. Patrick also created an entire library of DevOps scripts that was created and running well before DevOps was mainstream. All this time, the community was benefiting from a really cool and innovative product. The goal is for the tool to get back to that same level of prominence with the upcoming work.

Thanks to several members of the community, there is some further clarity on the longer-term objectives. And, community members have been reporting several issues. I hope this blog post communicates how we plan to address “all the things.” Special thanks to Greg Boggs, as he has been helping ensure both the current SimplyTest.me service has been evolving and has been instrumental in helping define a vision for the future. His systems administration help is vital, as my expertise primarily resides in the development/DevOps space.