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<h1>About Zulip</h1>

<p>
  This server is an installation 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 50,000
  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.  As of
  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.
</p>

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