Reddit Closing Doors to Open Source
The peanut gallery of the Internet is closing its open source repository.
Reddit, the peanut gallery of the Internet, reported in a blog post that it is shutting down their open source repository on GitHub: “We're archiving reddit/reddit and reddit/reddit-mobile which are playing an increasingly small role in day to day development at Reddit. We'd like to thank everyone who has been involved in this over the years.”
Reddit was open source in 2008, roughly 10 years ago, when it was a new company, because they wanted the source code of their product to be available as open source.
However, as the company grew, they found it difficult to keep up with their open source code, and their GitHub repo had not been updated for a long time. The company provided many reasons behind “doing a bad job of keeping their open-source product repos up to date.”
Some reasons are legit and many others not. One such reason given by the company is that “Open-source makes it hard for us to develop some features ‘in the clear’ (like our recent video launch) without leaking our plans too far in advance. As Reddit is now a larger player on the web, it is hard for us to be strategic in our planning when everyone can see what code we are committing.”
Companies like Red Hat, SUSE, Google, CoreOS, Docker, and others continue to innovate, yet all of their code is available as open source. The company has given many other reasons, but all fall flat compared with the way the larger open source world functions. Reddit will continue to open source some of their tools.
The good news is that Reddit is not a platform that’s used by others to build their Reddit-like services, so Reddit source code might not be missed by the larger open source communities.
Issue 272/2023
Buy this issue as a PDF
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
News
-
KDE Plasma 6 Looks to Bring Basic HDR Support
The KWin piece of KDE Plasma now has HDR support and color management geared for the 6.0 release.
-
Bodhi Linux 7.0 Beta Ready for Testing
The latest iteration of the Bohdi Linux distribution is now available for those who want to experience what's in store and for testing purposes.
-
Changes Coming to Ubuntu PPA Usage
The way you manage Personal Package Archives will be changing with the release of Ubuntu 23.10.
-
AlmaLinux 9.2 Now Available for Download
AlmaLinux has been released and provides a free alternative to upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
-
An Immutable Version of Fedora Is Under Consideration
For anyone who's a fan of using immutable versions of Linux, the Fedora team is currently considering adding a new spin called Fedora Onyx.
-
New Release of Br OS Includes ChatGPT Integration
Br OS 23.04 is now available and is geared specifically toward web content creation.
-
Command-Line Only Peropesis 2.1 Available Now
The latest iteration of Peropesis has been released with plenty of updates and introduces new software development tools.
-
TUXEDO Computers Announces InfinityBook Pro 14
With the new generation of their popular InfinityBook Pro 14, TUXEDO upgrades its ultra-mobile, powerful business laptop with some impressive specs.
-
Linux Kernel 6.3 Release Includes Interesting Features
Although it's not a Long Term Release candidate, Linux 6.3 includes features that will benefit end users.
-
Arch-Based blendOS Features Cool Trick
If you're looking for a Linux distribution that blends Linux, Android, and web apps together, blendOS might be what you're looking for.