Wikimedia CTO Departs for Open-Source Microblogging Startup
Brion Vibber, CTO of Wikimedia and lead developer for Wikipedia and MediaWiki, announced today that he's leaving the company to work for StatusNet (formerly Laconica) as their chief architect.
StatusNet is the open-source microblogging platform that powers sites such as identi.ca, which impressed us from its inception as a "framework for a distributed network of federated microblogging services." Read on for more details on what Vibber will be doing there.
In a post today on the Wikimedia technical blog, Vibber wrote that he had been involved with StatusNet "as a user, bug reporter, and patch submitter since 2008," and that his being hired coincided with StatusNet's ramping up for "a 1.0 release, hosted services, and support offerings."
Vibber hard at work at the Wikimedia Foundation office.
And according to this StatusNet announcement, Vibber's job description will revolve around "architecture and development of the core StatusNet microblogging software, as well as ancillary services to support the status.net platform." And in addition to launching a first release and public signup over the next few months, it is hoped by StatusNet leadership that Vibber's "natural skills as a mentor and leader will help build our Open Source developer and user community."
Although Vibber's new duties will commence on October 12, he will continue to be involved in Wikimedia development and will remain in the Wikimedia office until the end of 2009 "to make sure all our tech staff has a chance to pick my brain as we smooth out the code review processes and make sure things are as well documented as I like to think they are," he wrote.
In an interesting study in open-source, free-as-in-freedom/free-as-in-beer cross-pollination, StatusNet founder Evan Prodromou is also known for his work in the wiki community, launching Wikitravel and helping with MediaWiki development.
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Everyone had so much fun with the web browser faceoff though. So it’s time to take two of the web’s most popular apps, put them in the ring, and see which one is the people’s choice. Got a great tech team here at Wikimedia, and we’ve done so much with so little over the last few years. A lot of really good work is going on now, modernizing both our infrastructure and our user interface… I have every confidence that Wikipedia and friends will continue to thrive! The episode after that, we’ll have on Brion Vibber, CTO of the Wikimedia Foundation, to talk about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Wikipedia is probably the most popular Free Network Service on the Web, and we’ll talk about Brion’s dedication to using 100% Free Software for this massive Web site. Dont let payday loans be the hindrance to feel the madness of this CTo Wikimedia.
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Well done sir