KGS was started in 2000 by Bill Shubert; and during that time it’s become the largest Western-based international go server in the world and an invaluable part of the Go community. In order to ensure the continuation of this legacy, Bill has ceded control to the new team and reached out to the American Go Foundation to assume stewardship of the server, stabilize it financially, and support the upgrades needed to make KGS even more accessible and more usable to the Go world.
KGS operations will be led by Lee Schumacher (KGS lelliot) and development handled by Oren Laskin (KGS oren). KGS Admins will continue as before under the head Administrator Akane Negishi (KGS sweety). Bill will continue to advise and assist with the service. We plan to continue providing the KGS Plus service as well as improve and expand the choice of clients to play with.
We’d like to thank Bill for his contribution to the game of Go and the Go community in the years he’s dedicated to this service. We hope to continue to uphold his high standards and continue to make KGS the best go server.
From Bill, "Building and running KGS was incredibly exciting, and I'm very proud of how popular it is and how many people enjoy and use it every day. But in recent years I haven't been able to give KGS the attention and effort that it deserves. I'm thrilled that the AGF and the new KGS management team are ready to take it over! With their resources and skills we can all expect great changes for KGS."
"On behalf of the Admin team, we are grateful to Bill for helping us build the KGS community and are looking forward to working with Lee and Oren in the next step of KGS's development. We'll continue to do our best to serve our Go community" - Akane Negishi (sweety).
"This is a big moyo move for the AGF." says AGF President Terry Benson. "To reach more kids and more players we need to build the community of online players into a force to spread the game."
Thanks for playing on KGS, and we look forward to seeing you online -- Akane, Oren, and Lee