
An update on the state of the Reddit repositories - talklittle
https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/6xfyfg/an_update_on_the_state_of_the_redditreddit_and/
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cwmma
For many of my apps, the main reason the core isn't open source is simply
because there is too much stuff specific to how we deploy, our deploy target,
and specific workflows in the app to be generally useful.

It's pretty understandable that reddit as it scales would have to start making
choices between making reddit the site better and making reddit the app
usable.

~~~
openinternet123
The thing is, it was wholly possible to run your own Reddit clone before.
Albeit missing some features like anti-spam.

With this, Reddit is announcing that they are no longer supporting that. Even
if you cloned every public Reddit repository, there would be missing pieces
preventing you from running your own clone.

One thing they don't mention for obvious reasons, is that they're afraid of
the community being able to fork off a new site in the case of majorly
unpopular decisions. Understandable given the recent 100 million from VCs.

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Palomides
>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.

I'm curious what harm they are afraid of? Like, what happens if outsiders know
what reddit is working on next?

~~~
notamy
Perhaps something like

> Start making feature

> People hype it up

> Feature gets scrapped

> Angry mob

~~~
derimagia
You can solve that by having feature branches and not promises repos to be up
to date. I mean saying it trails even 6 months or more behind is a lot better
than nothing.

~~~
spicyj
They say they did that and it turned out to be a pain.

~~~
msq
Developing every busy application with multiple branches is a pain. Sounds
like a cheap excuse.

As summarized on r/programming:

> Translation: We needed you guys back then. We don't now.

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kuschku
This is a sad end.

So many companies are showing how to do Open Source right, and make a profit
(be they Citus with postgres, GitLab, JetBrains, RedHat, Automattic with
Wordpress, etc).

Reddit followed the Wordpress/GitLab model – code is open source, some minor
plugins are closed and only available on the hosted solution – for many years,
but now stopped that.

This is a sad day. Just like Google killed the open source nature of Android,
Reddit killed the open source nature of Reddit. Yes, some tiny minor parts
that are used as libraries are still open, but the actual product is not
anymore.

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
It's definitely frustrating to see products start to get locked down.

On Android I've been happily using F-droid as my primary marketplace. There's
lots of high quality apps that are completely open source. But I think some of
the more complicated apps end up having maintenance issues. It can be hard for
developers to justify spending lots of time fixing bugs and providing support
if they're not getting paid.

One option for solving this is to charge for the precompiled version, while
freely providing the source. This way users retain source access and the
project gets funded. That's what Textual [0] does, which played a big role in
convincing me to buy a license.

[0] [https://github.com/Codeux-Software/Textual](https://github.com/Codeux-
Software/Textual)

~~~
kuschku
There's a few more issues with that.

I'm a developer of open source apps on Android. Thousands of people use them
daily.

But to test with new Android versions before release, I will now need a Google
Pixel (because Google stopped supporting my Nexus 5X), and Pixels are
$900-1300 where I live. Unaffordable.

It all wouldn't be an issue if Android wouldn't have dozens of tiny
undocumented API breaks with every release, and the AOSP source that one could
check for those only coming out weeks after release.

------
ProAm
Reddit and Twitter should merge or one acquire the other. Both kind of the
same web property, with the same problems and same audience.

~~~
Gaelan
Uhh, what? Reddit and Twitter have completely different models. Twitter is
very person-oriented ("what is this person saying") while Reddit is very
topic-oriented ("what are people saying about this topic"). They have
completely different use cases.

~~~
JosephLark
Reddit is actually showing some movement towards a person-oriented interface
with their new profile page design [0],[1].

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/60i60u/tomorrow_we...](https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/60i60u/tomorrow_well_be_launching_a_new_posttoprofile/)

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/21/15009388/reddit-
profile-p...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/21/15009388/reddit-profile-
pages-social-network-facebook-twitter)

------
minimaxir
I recommend reading the comments by other users on that post as well. This
change isn't as nefarious as it sounds.

------
rdslw
Interesting third argument. Based on work by google and published papers,
monorepos have some advantages. Of course not always and not everywhere.

But here, reddit connects it with service oriented architecture. Somehow i
dont get it.

~~~
pbiggar
I think google might be the only people to do monorepo (and even they don't -
for example, Android and Chrome are different repos), but they have built
massive internal tooling to support this. For everyone else, once you get past
a certain size, it's much much easier to do multi-repo than monorepo.

~~~
ameliaquining
Facebook also has a monorepo.

~~~
ipsi
As does Microsoft: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/05/24/the-
large...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/05/24/the-largest-git-
repo-on-the-planet/)

~~~
ameliaquining
I think that repo is just for Windows, not for everything Microsoft develops.

~~~
vosper
"just for Windows" probably still makes it one of the biggest repos in the
world. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's actually the biggest.

~~~
ameliaquining
It's definitely smaller than the Google monorepo.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Every time I see Reddit again it's always for something depressing like this.
What will be the next service to explode and die a slow, pitiful death?

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ketralnis
Title is clickbaited from target page's "An update on the state of the
reddit/reddit and reddit/reddit-mobile repositories" [edit: it's been fixed
now]

~~~
d23
Specifically, 2 out of 100+ repos are no longer open source.

[https://github.com/reddit?q=type:sources&type=public](https://github.com/reddit?q=type:sources&type=public)

~~~
kuschku
Which also happen to be the entire actual application.

Try self-hosting reddit with these repos, and without these two. Good luck.

