Google backtracks on EtherPad closure
Following Google's acquisition on Friday of AppJet, the company behind the Etherpad collaborative online editor, Aaron Iba, ex-CEO of AppJet, has announced that contrary to the initial announcement the service won't be closed down but will be maintained until it is open-sourced.
The original plan was to delete existing documents or 'pads' in March. with no new creations or user registrations allowed. Existing users would be given a chance to export their data and given invitations for the Google Wave preview.
However, many EtherPad users were unhappy at these plans. On Saturday, Iba posted an update to the AppJet blog:
"Many of you were not super thrilled with the transition plan we announced in our last blog post, which I guess is really quite flattering. We have worked with Google and the Google Wave team to make the following changes to the plan, which I think you will appreciate:
* We have re-enabled pad creation from the EtherPad home page. * We have begun planning how to open source the code to EtherPad and the underlying AppJet Web Framework. We will continue maintaining new pad creation from the EtherPad home page at least until we have open sourced the code, and work hard to make sure there will be no or minimal service disruption in the future. * We are working with the Google Wave team to get all EtherPad users a chance to try out the Google Wave preview within the next couple of weeks..."
He said that he and the AppJet team was still convinced that Google Wave would be a better collaborative editing system than EtherPad - "that's why we decided to join them!" - but that he and the Wave team agreed that Wave wasn't ready to take over that job yet.