Google acquired AppJet last Friday; once the acquisition took place, Google announced that they would discontinue EtherPad service at the end of March next year. Google has now changed their action in response to the outcry of EtherPad users; now, EtherPad service will not be discontinued until Google releases EtherPad as open source code.
Aaron Iba, CEO of AppJet, wrote:
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.
Iba continued by saying that, although Wave isn’t as mature as EtherPad, he is confident that EtherPad users will be satisfied with Google Wave as development continues.