the concept behind osimo arose when i was trying to help a friend customize a popular open-source forum system for his own personal project. after trying to manipulate the code and insert my own customizations, to no avail, i became so frustrated that i decided to take matters into my own hands. i wanted to build a forum system that is, first and foremost, easy to customize, but is also easy to use, theme, administer and extend to your hearts content. the other thing i wanted to be able to promise users is that osimo would remain free and open-source forever.
development of osimo began in august of 2008, and within merely 5 days, an initial prototype was up and running that contained very basic forum functionality such as the ability to create threads and reply to them. now, about four months later, osimo is much more complete and robust. it contains many features users are used to seeing in a forum system, and is under almost constant development and improvement. it has undergone vigorous testing by many users who are always giving suggestions for improvement and additional features they want to see.
since osimo is open-source, i would like to encourage you to look at the source code and contribute whatever knowledge you can bring to the table. if you have any knowledge with html, php, javascript, mysql, or css, then there is probably something you can do to help out! just follow the link below for subversion checkout instructions so you can get your nose deep into the inner workings of osimo!