I joined several open-source projects since 2005. It was a fascinating experience to me, thus I liked to add some ingredients (codes) to interesting projects from that time. In 2006, people including me tried to start a community to change the future better with open-source project in Korea. And here is the short story about it.
Tattertools
'Tattertools' was a most famous open-source weblog (blog) program in Korea. In march 2006, Tattertools 1.0 became open-sourced with GPL (General Public License). People who was interested in Tattertools tried to develop and enhance more.
Tatter Network Foundation (TNF)
Tatter Network Foundation had begun with the users who wanted to participate development of GPL-ized Tattertools and related works, at April 14, 2006. (Objectives description here) Since we develop Tattertools, TNC(Tatter and Company) which developed original Tattertools source started a weblog service 'Tistory' with Daum communication, and we also joined to develop 'Tistory' from the beginning. (And in three years, Tistory became the top 1 weblog service in Korea with multi-million blogs, according to ranky.com)
After a year, we found that someone should take responsibility to maintain TNF and related projects. We also decided to expand its activities, not only creating Tattertools but starting campaigns and related projects. Tattertools became the project name, not the name of blog software anymore.
Thus, 'Needlworks' begun.
Needlworks
Needlworks is the executive task-force group in TNF which had been planned from 2007 January, and started working at April 14, 2007. Needlworks develops 'Textcube' which is distributed with GPL and a part of Project Tattertools, and does diverse activities related to it. We will also organize various projects for 'data independency'.
This is simple description about Needlworks on official webpage. (I still remember how I feel during writing these words to express our goal.)
The World-Wide-Web has come into our daily lives. The speed of changes are getting faster. The gap which dreams of the past make the present has become too short. Flowing information applies pressure to people to move faster. The capitals prevent the web to pursue its original objectives. People cannot be as fast as the change. The joy of our lives is not in the speed, but in the valuable memories. The web becomes broader and broader. But the direction is not what everybody wants. Information is confined by capitals, and creators are losing their rights. Needlworks works for the world that your experiences and thoughts are not calculated as somebody's money.
Project Tattertools and Textcube
TNF started the 'project S2' as a descendant of Tattertools weblog program in april 2007, and it was named as 'Textcube' by Y.J.Park. We released first Textcube at August 16, 2007.
Project Tattertools is for 'data independency' of publishing tools. Each program/service can import / export and migrate their data with others in project tattertools. Many program / services support project tattertools and TTXML specification, including 'Textcube' and 'Tistory'. More than 10 million blogs are built under the umbralla of Project Tattertools.
Textcube.com
In 2008, TNC planned to develop Textcube.com blog service independently from Tistory. In spite of stirring public confusion possibility by the name (Textcube.org as TNF project and Textcube.com as blog service), TNF permit to use same product name to TNC. It is hard to install PHP-based program on the server to use Textcube. However TNF did (and does) not have capacity to maintain service. It was a good alternative to cooperate with company that has enough experiences and 'same code gene' for the objective.
During developing, Google Inc. acquired TNC in Sep. 2008 and soon launched Textcube.com service. After migration procedure for 2 years, 'Textcube.com' merged to and became the new 'blogger.com'. (The user interface of blogger.com is almost the same as textcube.)
Next
From 2011, I studied at various location including research centers and hospitals to finish my statistical physics / neuroscience Ph.D., It was very time-consuming, so the version up speed became slow. After I got my Ph.D. in 2013, I re-started working on Textcube code. From late 2013, I worked on brain healthcare device development project and soon moved to automobile security field.
In spring 2015, I, J.Kim and J. Park founded Lablup Inc., accelerating research / education process by combining publish, research and code sharing. In parallel, I (and needlworks) am working on the desktop version of Textcube and note taking software variant in order to meet the users' need.
We're still working with Textcube and project tattertools with joy! :-)
Visit http://github.com/needlworks/textcube for our program and http://www.needlworks.org for our dream.