open.mp (Open Multiplayer, OMP) is a substitute multiplayer mod for San Andreas, initiated in response to the unfortunate increase in problems with updates and management of SA:MP. The initial release will be a drop-in replacement for the server only. Existing SA:MP clients will be able to connect to this server. In the future, a new open.mp client will become available, allowing more interesting updates to be released.

No. This is a complete rewrite, taking advantage of decades of knowledge and experience. There have been attempts to fork SA:MP before, but we believe these had two major problems:

1. They were based on leaked SA:MP source code. The authors of these mods had no legal right to this code, and were thus always on the back foot, both morally and legally. We outright refuse to use this code. This slightly hampers development speed, but is the right move in the long-run.
2. They tried to reinvent too much at once. Either replacing all the scripting engine, or removing features while adding new ones, or just tweaking things in incompatible ways. This prevents existing servers with huge codebases and playerbases from moving over, as they would have to rewrite some, if not all, of their code - a potentially massive undertaking. We fully intend to add features, and tweak things, over time, but we are also focussed on supporting existing servers, allowing them to use our code without changing theirs.

Despite numerous attempts to push SA:MP development forward officially, in the form of suggestions, chivvying, and offers of help from the beta team; alongside a community crying out for anything new at all; no progress was seen at all. This was widely believed to be simply down to a lack of interest on the part of the mod leadership, which is not a problem in itself, but there was no line of succession. Rather than handing development reigns over to those interested in continuing to work on the mod, the founder simply wanted to bring everything down with himself, while apparently stringing things along as long as possible for minimal effort. Some claim this is for passive income reasons, but there is no evidence of that. Despite huge interest, and a strong and familial community, he believed there was only 1-2 years left in the mod, and that the community that had worked so hard to make SA:MP what it is today did not deserve a continuation.

We disagree.

We love SA:MP, that's why we're here in the first place - and we owe creating that to Kalcor. He has done a huge amount for the mod over the years, and that contribution should not be forgotten or ignored. The actions leading to open.mp were taken because we disagreed with several recent decisions, and despite repeated attempts to guide the mod in a different direction, no solution was seen to be forthcoming. Thus we were forced to make the unfortunate decision to try and continue SA:MP in spirit without Kalcor. This is not an action taken against him personally, and should not be seen as an attack on him personally. We will not tolerate any personal insults against anyone - regardless of where they stand on the open.mp issue; we should be able to have a reasonable debate without resorting to ad-hominem attacks.

That is not our intention. Ideally no split would be required at all, but splitting off some and saving that part is better than watching the whole thing wither away. In fact, since this mod was announced a large number of non-English communities have re-engaged with the English community. These communities were slowly pushed out and side-lined previously, so their re-inclusion is actually bringing a split community back together. A large number of people have been banned from the official SA:MP forums (and in some cases, their entire post history purged), but Kalcor himself has pointed out that the official forums are not SA:MP, merely a part of SA:MP. Many players and server owners have never posted on, or even joined those forums; so talking to these people again is unifying yet more parts of the community.

Eventually that is the plan, yes. For now we are trying to make the development open in terms of communication and transparency (which in itself is an improvement), and will move towards open-sourcing as and when we can, once things are all sorted and settled down.

This is the age-old question, unfortunately it has the age-old answer: when it's done. There is simply no way to know how long a project like this will take. It has been quietly running for a while now, and has already seen a few fluctuations in activity level, depending on how busy people are. But rest-assured it is well on the way, and progressing fast thanks to some fundamental design decisions (we'll say more about the architecture later).

Keep your eyes on the forums. We have a topic for exactly this, and will keep it updated as more work becomes available. While the project was revealed a little earlier than intended, we are already well on the way to an initial release, but that doesn't mean more help is not always massively appreciated. Thank you in advance for taking an interest, and believing in the project:

The Open Multi-Processing project is "OpenMP", we are "open.mp". Totally different.