"Starting today, tr.im will begin its migration into the public domain, becoming 100% community-owned, operated and developed," said Eric Woodward, the president of Nambu, in a Monday.

Woodward promised that Nambu would renounce ownership of the tr.im domain and release the service's source code by Sept. 15. It's not clear where the domain will end up, however.

"I would prefer to donate the domain name to an organization that already exists, rather than form a new one, but I am still investigating the options here," Woodward said in an e-mail today. "We will work out the legalities over the coming weeks, but it will ensure no one is ever able to hijack tr.im URLs in the future. They will always exist, period."

The source code for tr.im will be released under the MIT open-source license.

Tr.im will also offer all link-map data associated with its URLs to "anyone that wants it in real-time," added Woodward, who pledged to personally guarantee any shortfall in tr.im's operating expenses.