Two days ago the online world was surprised by the announcement that Google add acquired a small company called Appjet,Inc. to make its team part of the Google Wave project.
For many, this was the first time that they were hearing about AppJet’s main product Etherpad, a web based application that allows multiple users, on different locations, to edit a text in real time.
The industry took this as a natural step but for millions of users that used Etherpad on a daily basis this was nothing but bad news: one of the first measures implemented by Google was to immediately cancel the ability to create new free etherpads or open new accounts. Etherpad was shutdown for new and current free users and existing clients were to be shutdown, as well by, March 2010.
Etherpad was one of the most loved resources by online groups of activists to prepare documents, among them Telecomix, that used the application to produce content in several languages to be sent to European MPs regarding Net neutrality and other relevant on-going discussions.
As soon as the announcement was made at AppJet’s official blog the comments section got filled with negative comments towards Google and AppJet alike and Telecomix started to raid Twitter, using #faxpad, asking for programmers to join the Telecomix team in order to think about alternatives to Etherpad.
In the meanwhile the comments box at the official Etherpad blog was getting more traffic than ever and not good traffic at all.
The answer from Google came 24h later and , surprisingly, has escaped the radar of the big online sites: In the form of a new blog post, Etherpad’s ex-CEO Aaron Iba, announced the following:
Dear EtherPad Users,
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. We do realize (as does the Google Wave team) that Wave doesn’t yet have all the functionality you rely on, and isn’t yet as mature as EtherPad. We are confident that in the long term you will be really happy with Google Wave, though. That’s why we decided to join them!
The team we are joining already gets open souce, and we hope that by releasing the code to EtherPad we will not only help you transition your existing workflow, but also contribute to the broader advancement of realtime collaboration technology.
I am sorry for disrupting your productivity, and I hope that this new transition plan helps you out.
The blog post, made on a Saturday, is a huge setback to Google’s original intentions of shutting down the service to new and current free users. It is also interesting that, if confirmed in the future, Google has bought a company to acquire technology that will available as open source. I don’t want to speculate regarding the reasons that were behind this decision and what talks went on during the hours between the first announcement and the second.
What I can say, without a doubt, is that a group of passionate users have put social media to a good use and made Google reverse on a decision that it had made. What I can also say, in defense of Google, is that the company is listening and is humble enough to recognize when a decision that was taken was wrong.
** Full disculosure: I am a active member of Telecomix. The views expressed on this post are mine and mine alone.
Picture Credits: MargoLove under a CC License
Strategist, Sound Designer, Electronic Music Producer, New Media Artist, Activist, Blogger, A&R of the 
