Apache will catch the Wave left by Google

PICKING UP where Google washed out, The Apache Foundation has proposed to continue development of Google Wave.

The collaboration software was originally released by Google last year. However it represented something of a failure for the outfit as, despite the hype, it never took off. This caused Google to can the whole operation earlier this year and release the source code under the Apache License.

Now the Apache Foundation wants to pick up the pieces and produce Wave in a Box (WIAB), essentially a Wave server.

The Apache Foundation says that even though Google was unable to make a go of Wave, there is sufficient interest in the product. "Wave has shown it excels at small group collaboration when hosted by Google. Although Wave will not continue as a standalone Google product, there is a lot of interest from many organizations in both running Wave and building upon the technology for new products," was the rationale given in the proposal.

It is pitching WIAB as a "mail server with a web client" that can compete against Microsoft's own collaboration software, which includes a mix of Sharepoint, Exchange and Lync. The Foundation's initial goals are a little less ambitious, however, and include porting the code over to the Apache infrastructure and adding new developers to the project to allow it to grow in what the Foundation calls "The Apache Way".

The idea of packaging up Google's Wave into a software product that can be deployed by firms on their own equipment will be particularly worrying for companies like Microsoft and 37Signals, which have made a lot of money by flogging similar software.

With the source code available under a fairly liberal licensing agreement, the Apache Foundation might not be the only group that picks up Google's gift to the open source community. µ