Due to a long-running dispute with its former web host (Gisol), the OpenDocument Fellowship has been unable to gain control of its .org domain name, which has now expired and has been taken over by a cybersquatter.

The website itself was moved to a new hosting service (at Linode) around a year ago. Since then, we have been redirecting the .org domain name fromm the Gisol server to the Linode one. We have also bought (and are the registered owners of) the name http://opendocumentfellowship.com. The site and all its mailing lists are working under this name. Anyone who links to us should urgently change their links from the .org name to the .com name.

Background:
Two years ago when Jean Weber bought the .org name (on behalf of the Fellowship) through Gisol, it did not occur to her that the Fellowship would not be the owner of the name. (Her previous hosting service always registered domain names for her in her name.) We have since learned that not only was Gisol listed in AllDomains as the owner, but Gisol refuses to turn the name over to us, saying they are only "leasing" it to us while we have an account with them. AllDomains says they can do nothing; it's between us and Gisol. And no, it was not the "free" name provided with the hosting account; this name was paid for.

A websearch revealed that a lot of people are having the same problem with Gisol. Apparently the company was sold 18 months or so ago and the new owner has changed its policies. Their main problems previously appeared to be incompetence; now they are acting like crooks. If you're interested, this page has details. There are other places to look, all of which have much the same info.

We had a choice of continuing to pay Gisol to renew the domain name, but they will not redirect it unless we continue to pay for hosting at Gisol. The hosting account will expire in December, and we have decided not to bow to Gisol's attempts at extortion, despite the potential for cybersquatting on the .org domain name.