Jun 18, 2008
Reddit goes open source with CPAL license, probably caused major LOL in Diggnation
Reddit is releasing source code of it's news voting engine. Light weight voting utility was already available in the form of Pligg, Written in Python, this can at best be a launch pad for developers to get onto Google App Engine.
Second motivation, important one, is to let publishers run their own news voting site. This may appeal to many big news organizations who have passive distrust with Digg like rating sites. News rating engines are prone to manipulation. Digg is famous for it's community activism. Also there are organized (Digg-gangs) attempts to game the system. This is where Reddit's open source card (CPAL license is a open source play NOT AN OPEN SOURCE CODE) can be very interesting.
CPAL is a motivation killer for any serious code adventure. It's works great for marketing purpose and can even get your company into all the important open source events.
With computing model increasingly going to cloud and SaaS, it's annoying to see interesting companies creating more confusion in the market by choosing CPAL license.
How many attribution links can you handle in your footer? This is a license to spam your website footer. If you are thinking of distributing code in open source, stick to Mozilla, BSD, or GPL v2. Even GPL v3 is pretty exhaustive in protecting all parties.
Overall it's a positive move by Reddit and will create sufficient knowledge base for interesting apps.
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[...] goes open source with CPAL license, probably caused major LOL in Diggnation Reddit is releasin http://www.onemoreidea.org/reddit-goes-open-source-with-cpal-license-probably-ca…; at 06/18/2008 07:33 [...]
Thanks for sharing this experience. Your reflections piece was inspiring!
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good things about cpal
1. It's one of only 3 OSS licenses that take the “network” into account (CPAL, OSL, AGPL) whereby usage can be considered distribution.
2. It doesn't require that code be given back
3. It enforces the brand of the developer (in this case Reddit) which actually has some benefits.
Now I know that Facebook has been using CPAL. Thanks for sharing it.
Wow very good information i think now a days all these social networking websites such as Facebook, mySpace, digg all these websites using CPAL .
competition will always be stiff in this department. thank you for sharing. now lets try it.
The Common Public Attribution License (”CPAL”) is a free software license approved by the Open Source Initiative in 2007. Its purpose is to be a general license for software distributed over a network. It is based on the Mozilla Public License. Thanks for using CPAL.
Thanks
Facebook really never stops at thinking of innovative ways of providing the best to its users. This is a very informative article. Now that Facebook is using CPAL, the social networking industry now has very stiff competition among its users. Thanks for the info!
I could know that very important info about the CPAL which is very help to me. Now I know that Face book has been using CPAL. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for sharing. I know we will have fun using it.