Etherpad to go open source

As many of you know, I recommended Etherpad as a tool to consider for 2010 (if you weren't already using it of course!)

However, a couple of days ago, on December 4th, there was an Etherpad blog posting that stated

"AppJet Inc. has been acquired by Google. The EtherPad team will continue its work on realtime collaboration by joining the Google Wave team."

and more ... that the service would close in March 2010 and that no further accounts could be opened.

I, like many others, was not too happy!

But, I have just read another posting on the Etherpad blog that explains that due to the fact that many people "were not super thrilled with the transition plan" they are making a few changes:

1. They have re-enabled pad creation
2. They have begun planning how to open source the code to EtherPad and the underlying AppJet Web Framework

I am glad to see they have been so responsive to their users' outcry, and look forward to seeing the OS version of Etherpad.

Comments

[Prasanna Sankaranarayanan]

I'm one of the early users of etherpad who loved the service.
I'm hosting and maintaining it here: www.ietherpad.com