> After I announced that Kojitsu was shutting down a lot of people asked if I would open source the codebase. I decided not to. Not because I’m possessive over the code, but because I don’t have the time to maintain it.
> I don’t want to just throw some code over a wall, then turn my back and head off into the sunset. Open source projects are only successful if they have a healthy community around them. Open sourcing the codebase so that it can rot out in the open wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Sometimes it’s better to just let things die.
I strenuously disagree. Software is not a piece of fruit; it doesn't rot. If no-one ends up using it, it doesn't stink up the room; it just doesn't get used. But if it is not released, then it is dead, and the world is a slightly worse place.
If you really don't intend to use your code again, what's the harm in dumping it in a public repo? Maybe someone will pick it up; maybe someone won't. Macht's nichts.
Unfortunately this was not the case. For ranking purposes Kojitsu had to crawl every unique link it found which ended up being very resource intensive. There were multiple servers dedicated to crawling, in addition to the app and db servers.
Running Kojitsu taught me a lot about building up technical infrastructure.
> I don’t want to just throw some code over a wall, then turn my back and head off into the sunset. Open source projects are only successful if they have a healthy community around them. Open sourcing the codebase so that it can rot out in the open wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Sometimes it’s better to just let things die.
I strenuously disagree. Software is not a piece of fruit; it doesn't rot. If no-one ends up using it, it doesn't stink up the room; it just doesn't get used. But if it is not released, then it is dead, and the world is a slightly worse place.
If you really don't intend to use your code again, what's the harm in dumping it in a public repo? Maybe someone will pick it up; maybe someone won't. Macht's nichts.