Question 1

What was TextDrive?

Accepted Answer

TextDrive was a hosting company for people who love publishing on the web. Dean Allen and Jason Hoffman founded it in May 2004. Before crowdfunding had a name, two hundred people paid $200 each to make it real.

Question 2

Who was Dean Allen?

Accepted Answer

Dean Cameron Allen (June 2, 1966 – January 13, 2018) was a Canadian typographer and programmer. He created Textile, a lightweight markup language, and Textpattern, an open-source CMS. He lived in Avignon, France, in his later years and died in London in 2018.

Question 3

What was the VC200?

Accepted Answer

Two hundred people paid $200 each in 2004, raising $40,000 to purchase hardware. In return they received lifetime hosting. Allen and Hoffman were subscribers one and two. The promise: 'As long as we exist.'

Question 4

What happened when TextDrive merged with Joyent?

Accepted Answer

In November 2005, TextDrive merged with Joyent, then a recently launched groupware company. Hoffman became CTO of the combined entity and moved it toward cloud computing. Allen became president of Joyent Europe and left in 2007.

Question 5

Why were lifetime accounts cancelled?

Accepted Answer

In August 2012, Joyent cancelled all lifetime hosting accounts. The customers who had funded TextDrive a decade earlier considered this a breach of the founding promise. Allen relaunched TextDrive independently to honor the agreements. He was unable to sustain it, and TextDrive closed in March 2014.

Question 6

What is Textile?

Accepted Answer

Textile is a markup language created by Dean Allen in 2002. It lets writers format text for the web without learning HTML. Textile remains in active use.

Question 7

Why does this site still exist?

Accepted Answer

This site is maintained by wet (Robert Wetzlmayr), a member of the Textpattern community. It is a memorial to TextDrive and to Dean Allen, who died in January 2018.

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