• Web 2.0 Asia: We've been Googled!
• TechnoKimchi.com: Breaking News: Google buys TNC (and Tattertools/Textcube)

I'm going to add some details to this big news. Textcube¹ itself is an open-source blogging software developed by TNF² and Needlworks³, and sponsored by TNC. Some of TNC members also have been contributed to the project. (Note: We haven't finished i18n of our websites.)

Google didn't buy or acquire Textcube and its developer's community TNF/Needlworks, but Textcube.com which is a blogging service based on Textcube and developed/operated by TNC. So mentioning "dot com" is very important to distinguish these two different projects although one is derived from the other. To avoid confusion, I recommend adding "dot org" after Textcube when you mention the open-source project.

Textcube was formerly known as Tattertools. It was developed by Jaehoon Jeong, and was not open-source at first. Chestor Roh established TNC and made Tattertools open-source, and I began to contribute from then. TNC has been developing commercial services dervied from Tattertools/Textcube. Tistory based on old Tattertools was sold to Daum, and Textcube.com based on new Textcube was sold to Google with Eolin and their owner TNC at this time.

Now Tattertools means "Project Tattertools", and the software was renamed to "Textcube". Project Tattertools includes all softwares which have data compatility and portability via TTXML⁴. Currently there are no software that actually support this outside the derivatives of original Tattertools, but we hope so in the future.

TNC also has been provided a superb anti-spam filtering API as a plugin of Textcube, "Eolin Antispam Service". This can be compared to Akismet of Wordpress.

Well, Needlworks and I have very close relationship with TNC, but I don't know details of this acquisition (because it's confidential, it's not exposed to us of course). The event may cause some changes of our works, such as standardization of TTXML/TTSKIN and sponsorhsip, but TNF/Needlworks and Textcube will remain non-profit open-source organization and product, so don't worry. :)