Contrary to popular belief, Google Wave is not quite dead. Google plans to expand upon the open source code it has already released to form a more complete, standalone application known as "Wave in a Box." Wave will work (or not work, depending on how you look at it) as it always has, but with the new app, developers can run their own wave servers and host waves from their own machines.

"Since the beginning, it has been our vision that the Google Wave protocols could support a new generation of communication and collaboration tools," wrote Wave software engineer Alex North on the Google Wave Developer Blog. "The response from the developer community to date has been amazing and rewarding. Even more so now, we believe that developers and other projects are a critical part of this story."

North says the project will include an app bundle with both a Wave server and client, a "fast and fully-featured" wave panel in the Web client, persistent wave store and search for the server, and the ability to import wave data from the Web. Additionally, it will have gadget, robot, and data API support, as well as the ability to federate across other Wave in a Box instances. Even more details are available in Google's Wave Protocol Forum.

Google announced earlier this week that the Web version of Wave would remain online through "at least" the end of the year, and that users would be able to export their waves during that time. It was a blip of good news to those few lamenting Wave's short lifespan, but Wave in a Box should be a major step toward helping the project live on.