about.html

{% extends "zerver/portico.html" %}
{% block portico_content %}

<h1>About Zulip</h1>

<p>
    This server is an installation of version {{ zulip_version }} of
    the <a href="https://zulip.org">Zulip open source group chat
    software</a>.  Written in Python and using the Django web framework,
    Zulip has an extensive real-time messaging featureset, including
    both group and private messaging, conversation streams, powerful
    search, drag-and-drop file uploads, image previews, audible
    notifications, missed-message emails, markdown formatting, desktop
    and mobile apps, dozens of integrations, and much, much more.
</p>

<p>
    Zulip was designed from the ground up to optimize the productivity
    of discussions and real-time decision-making.  Zulip's unique model
    for threading topics, together with its system for tracking unread
    messages, make it easy to have multiple simultaneous conversations
    in the same stream.  As a result, Zulip is more efficient than any
    other chat product for catching up on conversations you missed while
    you were away from your devices.  You can read exactly the threads
    that are important to you, and it feels natural to follow up on
    conversations that happened while you were away.
</p>

<p>
    Zulip's vision is to create the world's best group chat software,
    completely open source, so that everyone has the freedom to
    customize, improve, and run their own copy of this essential piece
    of collaboration infrastructure.
</p>

<p>
    Further information on the Zulip project and <a href="/features">its
    features</a> can be found on
    the <a href="https://www.zulip.org">Zulip open source project's
    website</a> and
    the <a href="http://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/">Zulip
    documentation</a>.
</p>

<h2>Zulip Community</h2>

<p>
    Zulip is developed by a vibrant community of developers from around
    the world.  Every month, dozens of people contribute code to it, and
    dozens more contribute bug reports, feedback, and translations.  The
    Zulip community welcomes new contributors from any background.  The
    project has an easy to install development environment, an extensive
    test suite,
    and <a href="http://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/">over 90,000
    words of developer documentation</a> to make it easy for new
    contributors to contribute effectively to the project.
</p>

<h3>Contributing to Zulip</h3>

<p>
    If you'd like to join the Zulip community, we'd love to have you!
    Please
    visit <a href="https://github.com/zulip/zulip/#zulip-overview">the
    main Zulip project on GitHub</a> for details on how to get involved!
</p>

<h2>Zulip history</h2>

<p>
    Zulip was originally developed by Zulip, Inc., a small startup in
    Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Zulip, Inc. was founded by the MIT team
    that previously created
    <a href="https://www.ksplice.com">Ksplice</a>, software for
    live-patching a running Linux kernel.  Zulip was inspired by
    the <a href="https://barnowl.mit.edu/">Barnowl</a> client for
    the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(protocol)">Zephyr</a>
    protocol, and the incredible community that Zephyr supported at MIT.
</p>

<p>
    Zulip, Inc. was acquired by Dropbox in early 2014, while the product
    was still in private beta.  Zulip's beta
    users <a href="https://www.recurse.com/blog/90-zulip-supporting-oss-at-the-recurse-center">loved
    Zulip's unique user experience</a> and continued using it, despite
    the fact that the product was not being actively developed.  After a
    year and a half, Dropbox generously decided to release Zulip as open
    source software so that Zulip's users could continue enjoying the
    software.
</p>

<p>
    As a result, the first time the public had the opportunity to use
    Zulip was when Dropbox
    <a href="https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2015/09/open-sourcing-zulip-a-dropbox-hack-week-project/">released
    Zulip as open source software</a> in late 2015.  The open sourcing
    announcement was very popular, staying at the top of
    both <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10279961">Hacker
    News</a>
    and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3me9qp/dropbox_has_open_sourced_zulip_group_chat_software/">the
    programming subreddit</a> for an entire day.
</p>

<p>
    Zulip was open sourced with the complete version control history
    intact because 10 Zulip users visited Dropbox for a full week to
    help with the technical work.  The Zulip community is incredibly
    grateful to both Dropbox and those enthusiastic early users for
    making the Zulip open source project possible.
</p>

<p>
    By the end of 2015, the open source project was already going strong
    with a community of dozens of developers around the world.  By
    late 2016, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(protocol)">more
    than 150 people from all over the world</a> have contributed
    <a href="https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pulls">almost 1000
    improvements</a> to the software, and the Zulip project is moving
    faster than when the original startup employed 11 full-time
    engineers.  As of mid-2017, those numbers have ballooned to almost
    3000 pull requests written by nearly 300 developers.
</p>

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