Glitch, Inc.

Last updated

Glitch, Inc.
FormerlyFog Creek Software, Inc.
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Software
Founded2000 (2000)
Founders
[1]
Defunct2022 (2022)
FateAcquired by Fastly
Headquarters New York
Key people
ProductsGlitch, Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange, Trello, FogBugz
Number of employees
14 [2]  (2022)
Website glitch.com

Glitch, Inc. (previously known as Fog Creek Software) is a software company specializing in project management tools. Its products included project management and content management, and code review tools. Fastly acquired the company in 2022. [3]

Contents

History

The company's original name was Fog Creek. Based in New York City, Fog Creek was founded in 2000 as a consulting company by Joel Spolsky and Michael Pryor. As the consulting market started to dry up due to the collapse of the Dot-com bubble, Fog Creek moved to a product-based business. [4] In December 2016 Anil Dash was appointed CEO. [5] Fog Creek's offices are located in the Financial District of Manhattan. [6] [7] On September 25, 2018, the company was officially renamed Glitch after its flagship product. [8] Glitch staff announced intentions to unionize with the Communications Workers of America in early 2020 as part of the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. The company voluntarily recognized their union. [9] Around the same time, the company laid off a third of its staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. [10] In February 2021, Glitch workers signed a collective bargaining agreement with the company. According to the Communications Workers of America (CWA), this is the first agreement signed by white collar tech workers in the United States. [11]

Cloud services Fastly, known for its content delivery network, acquired Glitch, as announced in May 2022. CEO Anil Dash became Fastly's VP of developer experience. Glitch's staff had declined since 2020 from 50 to 14 employees, all of whom joined Fastly. The union dissolved prior to the acquisition when its collective bargaining agreement expired and the union's three remaining members decided not to pursue another agreement. [2]

Products

FogBugz

FogBugz is an integrated web-based project management system featuring bug and issue tracking, discussion forums, wikis, customer relationship management, and evidence-based scheduling developed by Fog Creek Software. It was briefly rebranded as Manuscript in 2017, which was acquired in 2018 and was renamed back to FogBugz. [12] [13]

CityDesk

CityDesk was a website management software package. The backend of the system ran as a desktop application written on Windows in Visual Basic 6.0 with all data stored in a Microsoft Jet database. [14] It was one of FogBugz's first products, first announced in 2001. [15]

Copilot

Fog Creek Copilot was a remote assistance service offered by Fog Creek Software. It launched on August 8, 2005. [16]

Originally known as Project Aardvark, Fog Creek Copilot was developed by a group of summer interns at Fog Creek Software. Fog Creek's founder, Joel Spolsky, wanted to give his interns the experience of taking a project through its entire lifecycle from inception, to mature released product. [17] The interns set up a blog, called Project Aardvark, where they posted updates on the progress of their project, even though at that time the details were still secret.

On July 1, 2005, the Project Aardvark team revealed that they were working on a remote assistance system for consumer use. [18]

Fog Creek Copilot uses a heavily modified version of TightVNC, a variant of Virtual Network Computing (VNC), as its core protocol. [19]

On November 7, 2005, a documentary on the interns' summer, titled Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks, was released. It was produced by Lerone D. Wilson of Boondoggle Films. [20]

In 2014 Fog Creek restructured, spinning Copilot out as a separate company. [21]

In 2022, Copilot announced it was closing and that the domain name had been sold. [22]

Stack Overflow

In 2008, Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky created Stack Overflow, a question-and-answer Web site for computer programming questions, which they described as an alternative to the programmer forum Experts-Exchange.

Stack Overflow serves as a platform for users to ask and answer questions, and, through membership and active participation, to vote questions and answers up or down and edit questions and answers in a fashion similar to a wiki or Digg. [23] Users of Stack Overflow can earn reputation points and "badges" when another user votes up a question or answer they provided. [24]

As of September 2020, Stack Overflow has over 12,000,000 registered users and more than 20,100,000 questions. [25] [26] Based on the type of tags assigned to questions, the top ten most discussed topics on the site are: JavaScript, Java, Python, C#, PHP, Android, HTML, jQuery, C++, and CSS. [27]

Following the success of Stack Overflow they started additional sites in 2009 based on the Stack Overflow model: Server Fault for questions related to system administration and Super User for questions from computer "power users". [28]

In June 2021, Prosus acquired Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion. [29]

Stack Exchange

In September 2009, Fog Creek Software released a beta version of the Stack Exchange 1.0 platform [30] as a way for third parties to create their own communities based on the software behind Stack Overflow, with monthly fees. [31] This white label service was not successful, with few customers and slowly growing communities. [32]

In May 2010, Stack Overflow was spun-off as its own new company, Stack Exchange Inc., and raised $6 million in venture capital from Union Square Ventures and other investors, and it switched its focus to developing new sites for answering questions on specific subjects. [32]

Trello

In 2011, Fog Creek released Trello, a collaborative project management hosted web application that operated under a freemium business model. Trello was cross-subsidized by the company's other products. A basic service is provided free of charge, and a Business Class paid-for service was launched in 2013. [33]

In July 2014, Fog Creek Software spun off Trello as its own company operating under the name of Trello, Inc. [34] Trello Inc. raised $10.3 million in funding from Index Ventures and Spark Capital. [35]

In January 2017, Atlassian announced it was acquiring Trello for $425 million. [36]

Glitch (application)

The Glitch web application launched in the spring of 2017 as a place for people to build simple web applications using JavaScript. [37] While JavaScript is the only supported language, other languages can be unofficially used. Pitched as a "view source" tool that lets users "recombine code in useful ways". [37] Glitch is an online IDE for JavaScript and Node.js with and includes instant hosting and automated deployment and live help from community members. [38] IDE features include live editing, hosting, sharing, automatic source versioning, [39] and Git integration. [40] Glitch focuses on being a friendly, accessible community; since its launch over a million people have used the site to make web applications. [41] The Glitch site is self-hosting (except for the editor and API), [42] allowing users to view or remix the site's source code.

In December 2018, Mozilla announced that it will retire Thimble, Mozilla's browser-based educational code editor, and asked users to migrate all of their projects to Glitch. [43] Thimble was shut down in December 2019 and its projects were migrated to Glitch. [44]

In early 2020, Glitch released a paid plan, known as "boosted apps". [45] Users can pay 8 dollars a month to have projects with more RAM, more storage, and no wake up screen.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joel Spolsky</span> American software engineer and writer

Avram Joel Spolsky is a software engineer and writer. He is the author of Joel on Software, a blog on software development, and the creator of the project management software Trello. He was a Program Manager on the Microsoft Excel team between 1991 and 1994. He later founded Fog Creek Software in 2000 and launched the Joel on Software blog. In 2008, he launched the Stack Overflow programmer Q&A site in collaboration with Jeff Atwood. Using the Stack Exchange software product which powers Stack Overflow, the Stack Exchange Network now hosts over 170 Q&A sites.

A bug tracking system or defect tracking system is a software application that keeps track of reported software bugs in software development projects. It may be regarded as a type of issue tracking system.

The aardvark is an African mammal, Orycteropus afer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercurial</span> Distributed revision-control tool for software developers

Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and other Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD and macOS.

Big design up front (BDUF) is a software development approach in which the program's design is to be completed and perfected before that program's implementation is started. It is often associated with the waterfall model of software development.

Experts Exchange (EE) is a website for people in information technology (IT) related jobs to ask each other for tech help, receive instant help via chat, hire freelancers, and browse tech jobs. Controversy has surrounded their policy of providing answers only via paid subscription.

The Java programming language and Java software platform have been criticized for design choices including the implementation of generics, forced object-oriented programming, the handling of unsigned numbers, the implementation of floating-point arithmetic, and a history of security vulnerabilities in the primary Java VM implementation, HotSpot. Software written in Java, especially its early versions, has been criticized for its performance compared to software written in other programming languages. Developers have also remarked that differences in various Java implementations must be taken into account when writing complex Java programs that must work with all of them.

In software development, a leaky abstraction is an abstraction that leaks details that it is supposed to abstract away.

FogBugz is an integrated web-based project management system featuring bug and issue tracking, discussion forums, wikis, customer relationship management, and evidence-based scheduling originally developed by Fog Creek Software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stack Overflow</span> Question-and-answer website for computer programmers

Stack Overflow is a question-and-answer website for computer programmers. It is the flagship site of the Stack Exchange Network. It was created in 2008 by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky. It features questions and answers on certain computer programming topics. It was created to be a more open alternative to earlier question and answer websites such as Experts-Exchange. Stack Overflow was sold to Prosus, a Netherlands-based consumer internet conglomerate, on 2 June 2021 for $1.8 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Atwood</span> American software developer and entrepreneur (born 1970)

Jeff Atwood is an American software developer, author, blogger, and entrepreneur. He co-founded the question-and-answer network Stack Exchange, which most notably contains the Stack Overflow website for computer programming questions. He is the owner and writer of the computer programming blog Coding Horror, focused on programming and human factors. As of 2012, Jeff Atwood's most recent project was Discourse, an open source Internet discussion platform.

MathOverflow is a mathematics question-and-answer (Q&A) website, which serves as an online community of mathematicians. It allows users to ask questions, submit answers, and rate both, all while getting merit points for their activities. It is a part of the Stack Exchange Network, but distinct from math.stackexchange.com.

Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer (Q&A) websites on topics in diverse fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. The reputation system allows the sites to be self-moderating. As of March 2023, the three most actively-viewed sites in the network are Stack Overflow, Unix & Linux, and Mathematics.

<i>Aardvarkd: 12 Weeks with Geeks</i> 2005 American film

Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks is a 2005 documentary film about the development of Fog Creek Copilot, a remote assistance software tool. Conceptualization of the film began when Fog Creek Software CEO Joel Spolsky announced on his blog that he was seeking a filmmaker to document the development of the product, then called Project Aardvark.

Trello is a web-based, kanban-style, list-making application and is developed by Trello Enterprise, a subsidiary of Atlassian. Created in 2011 by Fog Creek Software, it was spun out to form the basis of a separate company in New York City in 2014 and sold to Atlassian in January 2017.

UserVoice is a San Francisco–based Software-as-a-Service company that develops customer engagement tools.

freeCodeCamp is a non-profit educational organization that consists of an interactive learning web platform, an online community forum, chat rooms, online publications and local organizations that intend to make learning software development accessible to anyone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyndsey Scott</span> American model and iOS mobile app software developer

Lyndsey Scott is an American supermodel and software developer. She was the first African American to sign an exclusive runway contract with Calvin Klein, and has worked for Gucci, Prada, and Victoria's Secret. She writes mobile apps for iOS devices.

GitHub Copilot is a code completion tool developed by GitHub and OpenAI that assists users of Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Neovim, and JetBrains integrated development environments (IDEs) by autocompleting code. Currently available by subscription to individual developers and to businesses, the generative artificial intelligence software was first announced by GitHub on 29 June 2021, and works best for users coding in Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, and Go. In March 2023 GitHub announced plans for "Copilot X", which will incorporate a chatbot based on GPT-4, as well as support for voice commands, into Copilot.

References

  1. ↑ "About Glitch - the Company". Glitch. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  2. 1 2 Kastrenakes, Jacob (May 19, 2022). "Glitch acquired by cloud service provider Fastly". The Verge . Retrieved January 17, 2024.
  3. ↑ "An Exciting Leap Forward for Glitch". Glitch Blog. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  4. ↑ Livingston, Jessica (January 22, 2007). "Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days". Apress . Retrieved February 27, 2008.
  5. ↑ "A New Product Name, and a New CEO". Fog Creek Software Company Blog. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 8, 2016.
  6. ↑ Spolsky, Joel (December 29, 2008). "The New Fog Creek Office" . Retrieved January 7, 2009.
  7. ↑ Wilson, Claire (February 7, 2009). "A Software Designer Knows His Office Space, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved March 2, 2009.
  8. ↑ Dash, Anil (September 25, 2018). "Fog Creek is now Glitch!". Medium. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Online code collaboration tool Glitch votes to unionize". March 13, 2020.
  10. ↑ Kastrenakes, Jacob (May 22, 2020). "Glitch lays off 'substantial number of employees' to cut costs". The Verge . Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  11. ↑ Schiffer, Zoe (March 2, 2021). "Glitch workers sign tech's first collective bargaining agreement". The Verge. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
  12. ↑ "Virtual User Conference sheets" (PDF). Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  13. ↑ Ravera, Alexia (January 2, 2019). "Manuscript is now FogBugz". FogBugz. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  14. ↑ Spolsky, Joel (December 9, 2016). "RIP CityDesk" . Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  15. ↑ Spolsky, Joel (October 12, 2001). "What Does CityDesk Do?" . Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  16. ↑ Spolsky, Joel (August 8, 2005). "Project Aardvark Ships" . Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  17. ↑ Spolsky, Joel (May 10, 2005). "First Post" . Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  18. ↑ Guez, Yaron (July 1, 2005). "Full Disclosure" . Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  19. ↑ "Fog Creek Copilot - Technical Information" . Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  20. ↑ Spolsky, Joel (November 7, 2005). "Aardvark'd DVD Goes on Sale" . Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  21. ↑ "About Copilot". Copilot.com. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
  22. ↑ "Copilot.com on Twitter".
  23. ↑ Atwood, Jeff (September 21, 2008). "The Gamification". Coding Horror Blog. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
  24. ↑ "What is reputation? How do I earn (and lose) it?". Stack Overflow. Retrieved August 14, 2010.
  25. ↑ "Users". Stack Overflow. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  26. ↑ "Questions". Stack Overflow. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  27. ↑ "Tags". Stack Overflow. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  28. ↑ Clarke, Jason (August 20, 2009). "Super User - question and answer site for power users". DownloadSquad. AOL. Archived from the original on September 5, 2013. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
  29. ↑ Dummett, Ben (June 2, 2021). "WSJ News Exclusive | Stack Overflow Sold to Tech Giant Prosus for $1.8 Billion". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved June 29, 2021.
  30. ↑ Mager, Andrew (September 27, 2009). "Find the answer to anything with StackExchange". The Web Life. ZDNet. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
  31. ↑ Oshiro, Dana (October 12, 2009). "StackOverflow Shares its Mojo: White Label Q&A for All". ReadWriteWeb. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved January 1, 2011.
  32. 1 2 Kirkpatrick, Marshall (May 4, 2010). "All-Star Team Backs StackOverflow to Go Beyond Programming Questions". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
  33. ↑ "Trello How much does it cost?". Archived from the original on April 3, 2014. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  34. ↑ Pryor, Michael. "A Special Announcement: Trello is now part of Trello, Inc". Trello Blog. Retrieved September 29, 2014.
  35. ↑ "Digital Whiteboard Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M". The Wall Street Journal. July 24, 2014.
  36. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (January 9, 2017). "Atlassian acquires Trello for $425M". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
  37. 1 2 Thompson, Clive (July 11, 2017). "It's Time to Make Code More Tinker-Friendly". WIRED. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
  38. ↑ "How Glitch works". How it works. Glitch, Inc. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  39. ↑ "Glitch". ThoughtWorks Technology Radar - Platforms. ThoughtWorks, Inc. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  40. ↑ "Can I import code in a Git repository from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or elsewhere?". Glitch Help Center. Glitch, Inc. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  41. ↑ Dash, Anil (March 23, 2018). "What is Glitch?". Medium. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
  42. ↑ "View Source". Glitch. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
  43. ↑ Mozilla (December 18, 2018). "A Note About Thimble". Medium. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  44. ↑ Glitch (November 13, 2019). "Welcoming Thimble to Glitch". Medium. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  45. ↑ "Pricing". glitch.com.
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