Who is behind this? The web site mentions a Google Group and and IRC channel, but a few online message forums do not a Foundation make. Do they assert any ownership of the source? The web site bears a copyright notice but to whom does that copyright belong?

An "About Us" page would be nice or some kind of information on how the Foundation is structured...

I keep wondering what they could have become if they didn't get bought.

Maybe the new printing press?

I can't help feeling that using Etherpad for the documentation is a case of using it for the sake of using it - rather than using what works...

Hmm, for those that never looked: http://doc.etherpad.org/ep/tag/

bad...

Very classy move by both the founders of Appjet and Google.

I'm pretty sure Appjet and Google have nothing to do with it.

You're right, it looks like they weren't directly involved. "Nothing" might be an exaggeration, given that they offered the source code free . . .

It does seem likely that they owned Etherpad.org at some point. Does anyone know if they donated it?

I don't see Iba or Greenspan anywhere in the google groups or actively involved in the project on github any more. They're probably working on bigger and better things.

Last I heard they're plenty busy doing Wave stuff at Google's Australia office.

Is it just me who thinks that Wave really isn't "bigger and better" than Etherpad as an idea.

If you can implement Etherpad via Wave, I think that makes it "bigger" by definition. At least in terms of the size of the problem-space.

And "better" doesn't seem fair to determine, either way, until their Google work ships.

Maybe; I can't help thinking, though, that the underwhelming response to Wave compared to that of Etherpad (which was a brilliant idea) is telling.

Obviously I'm eager to see what they've been working on - but Im not sure they can save Wave.

The problem is getting people to use it.

I think etherpad probably had more chance of mainstream adoption than wave has.

Actually, since they were bought by Google their IP probably belongs to Google now. Google could have prevented the licensing under the GPL.