Does Google Open Sourcing Wave Bode Well For Wave’s Future?

Google Wave launched in 2009 to a lukewarm reception. This is the best way to describe it as the reviews were mixed, yet leaned more towards the less favorable side of the spectrum. Despite some cool features, quite a few users expressed that they were uncertain of how they could use the product and fit it into their existing plans. Needless to say, not too many people were surprised when it was announced that development for Wave as a standalone product would be discontinued. The search company is not giving up entirely as it has opened up the source code in hopes of getting developers onboard. What does this mean for the future of Google Wave? Let’s explore the matter a little further.

Over the past year or so, Google open sourced over 200 lines of code for Wave. The company recently expanded on this by giving developers even more code to play with. This is something that could possibly breath new life into the project, but in order to be successful, Wave will need to supported in the following areas:

Volunteer Contributions - With most of Wave now being open source, whether or not it continues to live will largely be based on contributions from the developer community. Developers and other volunteers must give a dedicated effort to both enhance the project and make it more useful than its current state.

Commercial Vendors - Google Wave’s survival could also be extended through support from commercial vendors. Being picked up by other service providers would likely make it far more attractive to users interested in leveraging a fully managed hosted solution, opposed to trying to run it on their own server. Google opening up more of the source code makes this a real  possibility.

Users - If Google Wave is to have any success and continue to exist, it must overcome its biggest hurdle thus far - user adoption. This could prove to be a challenge because even Google, a major corporation, had a tough time marketing the product and getting it to resonate with users. If people are not using it, chances are, developers will lose interest as well. Once that happens, Wave is more than likely a goner.

In a sense, the release of more code is sort of a rebirth for Google Wave. If the developer community is able to extend on its functionality and improve the project, it could turn out to be a worthwhile venture. According to Google, which appears to be very optimistic, response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. On the other hand, even the search king has gone on the record to state that Wave’s survival is dependent on contributions and usage. Time will tell if Wave becomes the great collaboration tool it was made out to be, or a complete wash.