As it happens, anyone knew an Etherpad replacement or alternative?
Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
71–80 of 103 posts
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
try Gobby. gnu/linux only, iirc
Gobby is a free collaborative editor supporting multiple documents in one session and a multi-user chat. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix-like platforms. http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/
There's also an extension for emacs that implements this:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rudel
It says it even works with Gobby.
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#73Well, that sucks. I was psyched when I first read the subject, since I figured they'd be lending Google Docs their awesome text editor. Instead they're going to Google Wave, where the interface blows. Etherpad's lightyears more useful, more flexible, and more valuable. Blah.
Yeah, as someone who used Etherpad every week or two (as well as Wave), I'm really annoyed that Google has shut this down. Shame on Google and Etherpad.
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#74There's no better tool for text collaboration right now. I've been using it for my interview transcripts. With Etherpad, I can let 12 people on Mechanical Turk each transcribe a 5-minute section of my interview. And they can all be on at once and none of them needs and account. I can even hit the play button and see how they work: http://mixergy.etherpad.com/ep/pad/view/23/latest
Does anyone know of a similar tool that provides the "replay" feature for text editing? I don't actually need collaboration, just screencast-like replay.
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#75I don't understand all the negativity about etherpad being killed in this thread. Sounds like an opportunity to me...if you reckon it's so useful, and google are going to kill it, then go build etherpadv2 and charge for it. :)
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#76What's the point in shutting it down? Will Google buy every company that creates an editor like that? That can't work well forever.
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#77Does anyone have any theories on why appjet never took off as a product? Everytime I think about it, it seems like the perfect idea; save people the pain of setting up a server, hosting it, etc every time they want to make a web app. Was it a bad implementation of this idea? Or was the idea just ahead of its time? Or was it something else?
I used AppJet myself for small personal projects, and liked it a lot. However, it wasn't complete enough for commercial use, perhaps as a platform for another startup to build their web app on. For example they didn't support development outside their web IDE, multiple code files in a project, a storage system with known scalability properties, or paid accounts with higher resource constraints.
I know they were working on at least two of the four features I mentioned above before they decided to abandon AppJet in favor of EtherPad. Building their own app to prove their platform was a good idea, but I guess they just didn't have enough resources to work on the app and the platform at the same time.
I'm not sure what the AppJet guys would have considered success to be, but if they expected other companies to build commercial apps on top of their stuff I think they gave up too early.
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
try Gobby. gnu/linux only, iirc
Gobby is a free collaborative editor supporting multiple documents in one session and a multi-user chat. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix-like platforms. http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/
Runs on OS X is a bit of an exaggeration though. It can supposedly be installed through MacPorts, but the two times I ever tried, MacPorts installed about half of normal Linux distro, before failing on some broken dependency.
If you want to go through several hours of compiling and several hundred megabytes of dependencies, with your fingers crossed that things won’t inexplicably break 3 hours in, feel free to try to install Gobby on a Mac. Personally, I’ll stick to SubEthaEdit, or whatever web-based editor, if I need collaboration.
* * *
I really think desktop collaborative editors should try to provide a web-based alternative front-end, for just this reason, that it’s nice for everyone to be able to contribute, and there’s no better way to ensure that than through the web.
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's awesome for them that they're getting a big check from Google, but that has no relevance to me as an etherpad user.
I think the benefits of having a successful peer far outweigh your ability to use a free online text editor. Whatever loss in productivity is caused by the absence of Etherpad (or god forbid, having to use a G-branded version, or another service) can be made up for with the rush and motivation you should get from seeing one of your own get off the Ramen diet at last (or at least not have to worry if their effort will…
Saying that everyone could have obsoleted EtherPad is like saying Intuit could have obsoleted Mint - Hard to argue with except by pointing out the facts on the ground don't support that version of reality.
Etherpad ROCKED - I've spent a couple weeks now with Wave, used it for a bunch of projects, and every time I use it, I did so grudgingly, realizing that Etherpad was lighter, cleaner, and more elegant compared to Wave's all-in-one platform approach. Yes, it's true that I can insert YouTube Videos, Polling Systems, and even a freaking ChatServer into my WaveDocuments - but it always felt like more of a technology exercise than a useful use of an application.
Let's hope that the EtherPads can do for Wave, what the Mint Team will (hopefully) do for Intuit.
Re: Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad
#80This seems to me like a classic case of a company buying another company just for it's patents. I'd be willing to bet that the main reason Google is buying Etherpad is their synchronization patent and any other patents Etherpad owns that cover the functionality of Google Wave. Google probably won't use any of the Etherpad code in Wave.