this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2023
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Lemmy

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Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to [email protected].

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What could Lemmy.ml do to avoid becoming the next Reddit after a decade? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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We all know about how Reddit closed-sourced back in 2017 and will be killing off third-party apps this July, what will Lemmy.ml do to avoid facing the same fate? Reddit started off like this (open, aiming for freedom) and it all went downhill from there.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Lemmy uses a open source license called the AGPL, which is a type of reciprocal license (called copyleft), which basically means you can't close the source without everyone who contribute agreeing to do it or rewriting their contribution (and i don't think it ever happened, i think it can be extremely difficult ).

setting up a non profit that that has a decentralized power structure and is legally obligated to do public good might also provide another protection (but a copyleft license is probably enough).