I feel like the best of both worlds would be to open up the Lemmy interaction code, so it can stay in sync (ha!) with the fast moving development of the fediverse (and maybe allow for community-developed kbin support or whatever else down the line), while keeping the UI and whatnot proprietary (as that’s the real secret sauce of an app like Sync, and I imagine there would be code shared between Sync for Reddit and Sync for Lemmy)

Of course it’s LJ’s decision, but this is just my 2 cents.

I mentioned elsewhere but Lemmy should implement the Reddit API so we can use RedReader on it. I don’t understand what is so great about Sync. I thought the idea of Lemmy was to be CEO-proof, to use someone’s term from another thread. That fails if people rely on a closed source program to access it.

That’s unlikely, seeing that Sync for Reddit is not.

I do how @ljdawson will make it open source.

For Reddit he have been on and off with updates and maintenance, with long periods of inactivity.

While I am strongly in favor of this, I suspect going fully open source might be ‘too much, too soon’ for ljdawson, as I’m not sure how used they are to open source practices.

As a gentler stepping stone that doesn’t feel like giving all control away, I would suggest sharing the source code under the PolyForm Noncommercial license: https://polyformproject.org/licenses/noncommercial/1.0.0/

In other words, a ‘shared-source’ license that makes the code available for review, contributions and even copying, but disallows unauthorized commercial use. This provides a middle road between the fully proprietary protections Sync is used to, and the new open landscape of Lemmy & friends that it is venturing into.

For Redditors coming here who are unfamiliar with open source, here’s a comprehensive introduction for those who care to find out: https://blog.erlend.sh/open-source-explained

In short, it is an essential antidote to enshittification.