mirror of https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git
182 lines
8.4 KiB
HTML
182 lines
8.4 KiB
HTML
{% extends "zerver/portico.html" %}
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{% block title %}
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<title>Zulip history</title>
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{% endblock %}
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{% block customhead %}
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
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{{ bundle('landing-page') }}
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{% endblock %}
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{% block portico_content %}
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{% include 'zerver/landing_nav.html' %}
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<div class="portico-landing why-page no-slide">
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<div class="hero bg-pycon">
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<div class="bg-dimmer"></div>
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<div class="content">
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<h1 class="center">Zulip History</h1>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="main">
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<div class="padded-content">
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<div class="photo-description">
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Zulip at the PyCon Sprints in Portland, Oregon.
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Over seventy-five people sprinted during the four day event.
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</div>
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<div class="inner-content history markdown">
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<h1>Early history</h1>
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<p>
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Zulip was originally developed by Zulip, Inc., a small startup in
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Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zulip, Inc. was founded by the MIT team
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that previously created
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<a href="https://www.ksplice.com">Ksplice</a>, software for
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live-patching a running Linux kernel. Zulip was inspired by
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the <a href="https://barnowl.mit.edu/">Barnowl</a> client for
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the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(protocol)">Zephyr</a>
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protocol, and the incredible community that Zephyr supported at MIT.
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</p>
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<p>
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Zulip, Inc. was acquired by Dropbox in early 2014, while the product
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was still in private beta. Zulip's beta
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users <a href="https://www.recurse.com/blog/90-zulip-supporting-oss-at-the-recurse-center">loved
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Zulip's unique user experience</a> and continued using it, despite
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the fact that the product was not being actively developed. After a
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year and a half, Dropbox generously decided to
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<a href="https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2015/09/open-sourcing-zulip-a-dropbox-hack-week-project/">release Zulip as open source software</a>
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so that Zulip's users could continue enjoying the software.
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</p>
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<p>
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As a result, the first time the public had the opportunity to use
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Zulip was when Dropbox
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<a href="https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2015/09/open-sourcing-zulip-a-dropbox-hack-week-project/">released
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Zulip as open source software</a> in late 2015. The open sourcing
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announcement was very popular, staying at the top of
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both <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10279961">Hacker
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News</a>
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and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3me9qp/dropbox_has_open_sourced_zulip_group_chat_software/">the
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programming subreddit</a> for an entire day.
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</p>
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<p>
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Zulip was open sourced with the complete version control history
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intact because 10 Zulip users visited Dropbox for a full week to
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help with the technical work. The Zulip community is incredibly
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grateful to both Dropbox and those enthusiastic early users for
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making the Zulip open source project possible.
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</p>
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<h1>Success as an open source project</h1>
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<p>
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At first, the Zulip open source project was
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maintained with just a bit of lead developer Tim
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Abbott's nights and weekends. However, the
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community steadily gained new contributors, and
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has now grown to be one of the world's largest and
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most active open source projects. We highlight a
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few milestones below:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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By the end of 2015, the open source project
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was already going strong with a community of
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dozens of developers around the world.
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</li>
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<li>
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At the PyCon Sprints in May 2016, dozens of
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developers got involved in contributing to
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Zulip; a major accomplishment from those
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sprints
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was <a href="https://blog.zulip.org/2016/10/13/static-types-in-python-oh-mypy/">annotating
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Zulip with mypy static types</a>.
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</li>
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<li>
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By late
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2016, <a href="https://github.com/zulip/zulip/graphs/contributors">more
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than 150 people from all over the world</a>
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had contributed almost 1000 pull requests to
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the software, and the Zulip project was moving
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faster than when the original startup employed
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11 full-time engineers.
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</li>
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<li>
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At the PyCon Sprints in May 2017, tens of
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Zulip core developers gathered and led the
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largest PyCon sprint ever, with over 75
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developers contributing to Zulip over course
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of the 4-day event.
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</li>
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<li>
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As of October 2018, the Zulip server project had
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merged <a href="https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pulls">
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6500 pull requests</a> written by over
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<a href="https://github.com/zulip/zulip/graphs/contributors">
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400 developers</a>.
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h1>Commercial (re-)launch</h1>
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<p>
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In 2016, Tim Abbott started a company, Kandra Labs, to
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steward and financially sustain Zulip's development. Kandra
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Labs was soon awarded
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a <a href="https://seedfund.nsf.gov/">large grant</a> from
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the US National Science Foundation, and also acquired
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additional sources of funding.
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</p>
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<p>
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In mid-2017, Kandra Labs launched two products: a hosted
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Zulip service
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at <a href="https://zulipchat.com">zulipchat.com</a>,
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and an enterprise support product for on-premise
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deployments.
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</p>
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<p>
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As of October 2018 the hosted service was seeing 4x year
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over year growth in daily active users, and the
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on-premise product was seeing rapid adoption (fueled
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partly by the sunsetting of HipChat server).
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</p>
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<h1>Support</h1>
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<p>
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Kandra Labs is supported by nearly $1M
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in <a href="https://seedfund.nsf.gov/">SBIR
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grants</a> from the US National Science
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Foundation, and Zulip has benefitted enormously
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from the 30+ developers that started working on
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Zulip
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via <a href="https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/">Google
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Summer of Code</a> and
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<a href="https://codein.withgoogle.com/">Google
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Code-In</a>.
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</p>
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<div class="sponsors">
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<div class="sponsor-picture">
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<a href="https://seedfund.nsf.gov/">
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<img src="/static/images/history/nsf-logo.png" alt="" />
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</a>
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</div>
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<div class="sponsor-picture">
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<a href="https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/">
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<img src="/static/images/history/gsoc-logo.png" alt="" />
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</a>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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{% endblock %}
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