Nine years after going open source, Reddit is archiving the source code for its website and mobile apps. The source code will still be accessible, but will no longer be updated — Reddit cites concerns about competition as one of the reasons for the change in direction.
Nine years after going open source, Reddit is archiving the source code for its website and mobile apps. The source code will still be accessible, but will no longer be updated — Reddit cites concerns about competition as one of the reasons for the change in direction.
But Reddit is not completely turning its back on open source. While it will no longer be possible to access the full source code, it will still be possible to access a limited number of small codebases — such as baseplate, rollingpin and mcsauna. The site says, « those who have been paying attention will realize that this isn’t really a change to how we’re doing anything but rather making explicit what’s already been going on, » but users are not convinced by the explanation.
Reddit explains that the initial thinking behind open sourcing the project was to ensure the site would stay alive no matter what happened to the company itself. Nine years on, Reddit has evolved into a gigantic online beast and the company points out that it has done a terrible job of keeping its open source project repos updated. But the first reason Reddit points out for the change of heart relates to competition:
In a post explaining the changes, founding coder Christopher Slowe says:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reaction from Reddit users has been divided, and a large number of commenters complain that the « reasoning is pretty poor. » Others voice suspicion about what’s really going on:
What do you make of the change?
