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.<p>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.
>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.<p>I'm curious what harm they are afraid of? Like, what happens if outsiders know what reddit is working on next?
This is a sad end.<p>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).<p>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.<p>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.
Interesting third argument.
Based on work by google and published papers, monorepos have some advantages. Of course not always and not everywhere.<p>But here, reddit connects it with service oriented architecture. Somehow i dont get it.
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?
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]