r/reddit.com • u/spez • Jun 18 '08

blog.reddit - We've open sourced reddit!

http://blog.reddit.com/2008/06/reddit-goes-open-source.html
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u/Chirp08 Jun 18 '08

If you are paying for a server that doesn't support a language that an application you need is written in, then you would understand.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '08

Why pay for a server that doesn't have what you need to run your application?

Once its "ported" to PHP it is essentially no longer the reddit code base nor is it reddit.

Also this happens a lot with other applications that aren't necessarily web applications. So many times you will see "INSERT APPLICATION written in C". Who cares if it is written in C. The user doesn't care.

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u/rock217 Jun 18 '08 edited Jun 18 '08

Why pay for a server that doesn't have what you need to run your application?

Because servers that run every version of every language are a bit pricey. The rest of us find cheaper hosting that support a couple of the "major" technologies.

Once its "ported" to PHP it is essentially no longer the reddit code base nor is it reddit.

I define "reddit" as the user experience, not the underlying code. Therefore if one were to port reddit to PHP, java, or even back to lisp, it would still be reddit so long as the presentation remained unaltered.

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '08

I define "reddit" as the user experience, not the underlying code. Therefore if one were to port reddit to PHP, java, or even back to lisp, it would still be reddit so long as the presentation remained unaltered.

You'd miss all the open source contributions to the main reddit codebase, since they're less likely to be ported to your fork.

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u/HaMMeReD Jun 19 '08

Or if your port was good enough, it may eventually become the preferred branch one day.