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How many of the top 100 websites are open source? Sure, it's not zero, but large open source production products are rare to begin with.

by rjvir 10y ago

e12e 10y ago
Being websites they're a "view source" away? Sure a few might be obfuscated/minimized - but in general not to the point that they are very hard to learn from and experiment with...
- Sargos 10y ago
  Executables are just a hex editor away as well. Facebook.com's source is about as helpful as looking at Chrome.exe when learning to code or learn about them in any detailed way.
- wingerlang 10y ago
  That's only the source of the generated document you are viewing.
WildUtah 10y ago
Of the top 100 websites (I got tired of counting) in the USA, the obvious open source ones from a quick review are, 4. Wikipedia 6. Reddit 33. Wikia 37. Wordpress 40. Twitch 60. Github 61. Reddit Uploads I'm not counting Craigslist, though its infrastructure is documented and open source, because you can't just download the engine and run it yourself without a lot of glue. Likewise Pirate Bay. There are probably more marginal cases like that among the top. And there are open data projects like Stack Exchange and Stack Overflow that essentially publish all their content on open source licenses and offer free download dumps. Both are top 100 sites. Then there are the news sites available without paywall. Those are just basic blogs with photos, video, and text accessible to the public. They aren't open source; you have to pay to republish their content. But there is essentially no special software you can't match with any open source CMS at CNN or the Washington Post or HuffPo or many, many other top sites. I'd say the solid majority of the top 100 sites don't have any special closed source software, except for the proprietary search engine projects: Google, Bing, Yahoo, their respective mail and document suite projects, and the like.
- Sargos 10y ago
  In what way is Twitch open source? They provide some tools to help you manage uploads and streams, but Twitch is very much closed source.
- alpb 10y ago
  GitHub is also very much closed source.
- igravious 10y ago
  Wow. I never knew that Reddit was open sauce: https://github.com/reddit/reddit https://github.com/reddit/reddit That's an eye-opener! I always assumed Wikia was Mediawiki powered but apparently nope: https://github.com/Wikia https://github.com/Wikia I guess it's a separate entity to Wikipedia. Twitch don't appear to be open source but they do promote open source clients? https://www.twitch.tv/broadcast https://www.twitch.tv/broadcast
  - ihuman 10y ago
    IIRC not all of reddit is open source. The code that is in charge of vote fuzzing/scoring and spam is closed source.

How many of the top 100 websites are open source? Sure, it's not zero, but large open source production products are rare to begin with.

by rjvir 10y ago

How many of the top 100 websites are open source? Sure, it's not zero, but large open source production products are rare to begin with.

e12e 10y ago

Being websites they're a "view source" away? Sure a few might be obfuscated/minimized - but in general not to the point that they are very hard to learn from and experiment with...

Sargos 10y ago
Executables are just a hex editor away as well. Facebook.com's source is about as helpful as looking at Chrome.exe when learning to code or learn about them in any detailed way.
wingerlang 10y ago
That's only the source of the generated document you are viewing.

WildUtah 10y ago

Of the top 100 websites (I got tired of counting) in the USA, the obvious open source ones from a quick review are, 4. Wikipedia 6. Reddit 33. Wikia 37. Wordpress 40. Twitch 60. Github 61. Reddit Uploads I'm not counting Craigslist, though its infrastructure is documented and open source, because you can't just download the engine and run it yourself without a lot of glue. Likewise Pirate Bay. There are probably more marginal cases like that among the top. And there are open data projects like Stack Exchange and Stack Overflow that essentially publish all their content on open source licenses and offer free download dumps. Both are top 100 sites. Then there are the news sites available without paywall. Those are just basic blogs with photos, video, and text accessible to the public. They aren't open source; you have to pay to republish their content. But there is essentially no special software you can't match with any open source CMS at CNN or the Washington Post or HuffPo or many, many other top sites. I'd say the solid majority of the top 100 sites don't have any special closed source software, except for the proprietary search engine projects: Google, Bing, Yahoo, their respective mail and document suite projects, and the like.

Sargos 10y ago
In what way is Twitch open source? They provide some tools to help you manage uploads and streams, but Twitch is very much closed source.
alpb 10y ago
GitHub is also very much closed source.
igravious 10y ago
Wow. I never knew that Reddit was open sauce: https://github.com/reddit/reddit https://github.com/reddit/reddit That's an eye-opener! I always assumed Wikia was Mediawiki powered but apparently nope: https://github.com/Wikia https://github.com/Wikia I guess it's a separate entity to Wikipedia. Twitch don't appear to be open source but they do promote open source clients? https://www.twitch.tv/broadcast https://www.twitch.tv/broadcast
- ihuman 10y ago
  IIRC not all of reddit is open source. The code that is in charge of vote fuzzing/scoring and spam is closed source.