layout: post title: Jaiku is going open source on Google App Engine created: 1232013556 categories:
- Jaiku
- Jaiku Engine
- microblogging
- Google App Engine
- OAuth
- Presently
- Identi.ca
- Montreal Startup Fund
- Yammer
- Stowe Boyd
- Open Source
- Web 2.0 cre.html">Stowe Boyd's write up of Presently is what made me go try it, plus we had a need for shared / private groups for Bootup Labs.
So, the open sourcing of Jaiku is one thing. The BIG thing is that this allows turn key public / private microblogging on a scalable infrastructure. No fail whale, you just get more resources via the underlying Google App Engine. And by turnkey, I mean anyone with a Google Apps for Domains account can follow a few steps to run their own instance, on their own domain.
Oh right, and by the BIG thing, I mean that this instantly catapults microblogging into a fully federated system: I set up jaiku.bootuplabs.com, which can federate with all the other Jaiku instances on Google App Engine. It's open source, so allowing one to map identities to Twitter, Identi.ca, or other systems is certainly possible as well. Or, as Presently does it, by pre-pending a special tag for posts you want to show up on other systems.
OK, I don't know if that last bit is true, I'm just hoping it is: will federation be turned on out of the box? Or an option? In any case, it's open source, so it would definitely be possible to add this feature.
One final question I have is where the centralized discussion of future features / development / etc. for Jaiku Engine?
I guess a code.google.com site will be going up, in the meantime there is the Get Satisfaction site. If we can, it might be useful to start a new "product" there called Jaiku Engine to differentiate it from jaiku.com (which theoretically will stay up).