EtherPad Back Online Until Open Sourced

http://etherpad.com/ep/blog/posts/etherpad-back-online-until-open-sourced

by aaroniba • 17 years ago

276 68 17 years ago

etherpad.com

pibefision• 17 years ago

Thanks!

jcapote• 17 years ago

Bravo.

yan• 17 years ago

The news of open sourcing of the platform and etherpad has seriously made my day.

jsomers• 17 years ago

This is one of those stories I'll tell the next time someone asks me what's so special about the "hacker" community.

dschobel• 17 years ago

And what it says about Google. +5 years into their life as a big public company and they still "get it".

I'm thinking of how many desks such a decision would cross at my company (publicly traded, ~1500 people) and it's amazing that Google turned it around in two days.

jackowayed3• 17 years ago

A weekend day, too. At most companies you probably wouldn't even get your no until Monday at best.

zitterbewegung• 17 years ago

Maybe it has to do with the fact that engineers aren't second class citizens in google? I bet it has all to do with corporate culture.

vaksel• 17 years ago

if they "got it" they wouldn't have done it in the first place. It's just damage control for them,

Sure the fact that they actually try to damage control gives them lots of points, but let's not kid ourselves, without the outrage, nothing would have happened.

tel• 17 years ago

Best acquisition ever.

Sukotto• 17 years ago

Good damage control from Google. It's nice to see a big company that can reverse these sorts of mistakes quickly.

ashu• 17 years ago

You've gotta be kidding me. Damage control? They had absolutely no need to take this step; the fact that they did is just a nice thing.

prakash• 17 years ago

It's all relative isn't it :-)

sachinag• 17 years ago

You know, I feel a little bad for the Etherpads. They were gonna go off and work on a totally new project as big shots and now they have to spend time supporting a software product that they've already EOL'd.

eli• 17 years ago

Yeah, but up until last week that EOL'd project was the whole company

jackowayed3• 17 years ago

I'd imagine they'll still get some good wave time in. They'll have to spend some time on support and such, but it's not like they'll be working on new features, looking for acquisition, or doing any of that.

Also, if support becomes too much of a burden, I could see google having them train 1 or 2 google employees to do a lot of it.

These guys are some of the best real-time web programmers in the world. Google just spend "low eight figures" and tried to kill their product immediately. They clearly want them to spend as much time on wave as possible, so they'll find a way to make that happen.

bumblebird5• 17 years ago

>> "These guys are some of the best real-time web programmers in the world."

WHAT? Come on. Do you not think other programmers do real-time web things, and have been for years? sigh

Psyonic• 17 years ago

If they are going to open source most/all of the code, isn't that even a stronger indicator that this was a talent acquisition?

pavs4• 17 years ago

I don't think there was much doubt this was a talent acquisition. Google wave is fully open source too.

jshen3• 17 years ago

the client isn't open source is it?

netcan• 17 years ago

Such an interesting relationship between those two sentences.

cmelbye2• 17 years ago

I instantly became incredibly happy when I read the title of this link. I'm so glad that Google and AppJet were actually listening to us and addressed our complaints in just a day.

pavs4• 17 years ago

Kudos to Etherpad && Google. Lets just take a moment and acknowledge that fact that if etherpad was taken over by any other company they would never release the source, or feel compelled to continue the service after the acquisition.

As much as some of us love to hate Google, you have to agree they deserve some kudos too.

andreyf• 17 years ago

you have to agree they deserve some kudos too

Assuming Google acquired all of the IP in etherpad, they deserve quite a few kudos :-P

jurjenh• 17 years ago

I hope it's a trend other companies will be prepared to follow. Value the work methodology - not just the end product.

In this case, the initial end product may not be needed by google, as it will most likely require a significant restructure to fit in with Wave, but this shows that they appreciate the original idea to the point where they are prepared to let it stand on it's own merit.

The greatest gain to google (as with most of their acquisitions) is the talent. Its a new form of hiring - you get to see the quality and end results of the team, taking much of the guesswork out of the hiring process.

So I wish the guys from AppJet all the best, thanks for your work so far, may you go on to do great things from your new positions! And thanks for etherpad too!

jodrellblank3• 17 years ago

If you like what an architect can do, and you hire them for a lot of money, you don't automatically get rights to all the buildings they have designed and power to shut the buildings down and kick the tenants out.

This sort of thing is one reason why desktop software is still superior - our helpdesk software company sold out and closed down years ago and it didn't affect us, for instance.

mcantelon• 17 years ago

Quite a contrast between how Google handles developer outrage and how Apple does (or, rather, doesn't).

cdibona3• 17 years ago

The hardest part is not knee-jerk reacting to the vitriol and trying to get to the root of the complaint. So instead of saying "Some jerk wants us to open source project x" we try (and sometimes it is harder than you think!) to say "Okay, should we open source project X." and go from there.

From what I've seen in companies large and small: Outrage works against the outraged, most of the time.

ct• 17 years ago

w00t!

gfodor• 17 years ago

Awesome -- glad few hours were wasted building Etherpad clones, too :)

PStamatiou• 17 years ago

Thank you. Tonight I was beginning my transition - downloading my pads (zip, thanks!) and moving up to Bespin. Glad I don't have to worry about that now.

mlinsey2• 17 years ago

All the hullabaloo the past couple days has inspired me to try EtherPad for the first time. Death has long been a great career move for artists, but I never thought it would be that way for web applications.

jodrellblank3• 17 years ago

Has the hullabaloo left you feeling better or worse about Google?

I would hate it to start a precedent where every takeover goes:

Takeover with intent to open source site, but announce site closure. Lots of fuss and free marketing profile raising. Pretend reversal of intentions and announce site can stay, appear benevolent and wonderful.

spicyj• 17 years ago

Although Google's behavior has indeed painted a better picture of them in my mind, I would argue that I would have the same impression had they just agreed to open-source it from the beginning.

mlinsey2• 17 years ago

It's left me feeling a bit better about Google. My reaction isn't that strong because the route they have chosen obviously makes the most sense for them, especially given that Wave itself is open-source so it's not like they would gain a lot by keeping whatever technology in EtherPad they may adopt secret.

gry• 17 years ago

This afternoon, I installed node.js, started reading papers on operational transformation and sketched ideas based on the Jef Raskin's humane interface.

This is great news.

And yet, I learned something.

dpcan• 17 years ago

Possibly a lame theory, but after they shut it down, clone talk was spreading pretty heavily. By open-sourcing, did they just take away the biggest player AND stop the competition in one swoop?

antirez• 17 years ago

This is great. Big "stupid" (at least from some specific point of view indeed) companies are well known, when they do a mistake, to take huge time before to realize it.

Google is Big, but apparently does not suffer from this problem, so I can only conclude is NOT "stupid".

EtherPad Back Online Until Open Sourced

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