[Search-l] Wired: Open-Source Guru Jeremie Miller Takes Over At Wikia Search

[Seth Finkelstein]

http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/04/opensource_guru.html

[Disclaimer - an FYI repost, no deeper meaning implied]

Monday, April 30, 2007
Open-Source Guru Jeremie Miller Takes Over At Wikia Search

The Wikia Search project has a new head honcho. And he's a superstar.

Jabber creator Jeremie Miller has joined up with Wikipedia co-founder
Jimmy Wales and Wikia CEO Gil Penchina to spearhead the company's
collaborative open-source search project.

Miller is best known as the brains behind the Jabber open-source
instant messaging platform and the Extensible Messaging and Presence
Protocol (XMPP), two technologies used in the multi-protocol chat
applications created by Google, Apple and Pidgin (nee Gaim). Unlike
chat services from AOL, Yahoo and MSN, a Jabber service can be hosted
in-house, making it the prefered IM platform for security-minded
companies and organizations.

Not much has been heard of Penchina and Wales' open-source search
project since it was first announced near the end of December, 2006.
The fact that the project was still barely off the ground after four
months was a signal that it was time for Wikia Search to call in some
expert help.

"We realized that we need to make this a collaborative effort if it's
going to work," Penchina told Wired News.

Wales and Penchina assembled a short list of "about 20" open-source
innovators they felt would be a good fit. Miller's knowledge of
managing open-source development communities and his commitment to the
so-called "Bazaar" method of software development made him a strong
candidate.

"He views search as something that's object oriented," says Penchina.
"People can work on little projects that plug in independently without
worrying so much about the larger whole. That's actually close to the
Jabber approach."

Our next question: Who else is on that list of 20?

"The usual suspects," says Penchina. "The people who worked on the
LAMP stack are obvious choices. As you can imagine, these guys get
offers left and right... We've really reached out to as many folks
as we could."

--Story by Michael Calore. Photo: Linux Magazine

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php