"Google's newly-acquired startup AppJet released the source code
to its popular EtherPad web editor recently, making good on a
promise to EtherPad's users who were previously faced with a
service shutdown following the acquisition. The source is under the
Apache 2.0 license, which is GPL-compatible, making the code
potentially useful to a wide array of free software projects. The
release has the community debating the impact on similar and
related software, and revisiting the contentious question of how
free software in general can and should transition to the
web-hosted environment.
"Pad timing
"EtherPad is a collaborative in-browser text editor. AppJet
launched the product in the fall of 2008 with both commercial and
free (limited to eight concurrent editors) versions, and it quickly
gained popularity in the first half of 2009. When Google unveiled
its own real-time collaboration system Wave in June, comparisons
were inevitable. Many users found EtherPad's interface simpler to
use and easier to understand, however, so it was no great surprise
when Google announced that it had purchased AppJet and EtherPad on
December 4. The AppJet engineers would work on Wave, ostensibly
making it as easy to use as EtherPad itself."
