this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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Lemmy
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I guess I don't see what the incentive would be for this, or even what it realistically means in this case.
Do you mean like relicensing the backend and frontend with a closed source license? I don't see what the incentive would be for that unless they wanted lemmyml to be the only instance in existence (which runs counter to it's raison d'etre) and to make secret/proprietary/commercial extensions to it that are difficult to develop in the open.
Or I guess unless they wanted to start charging instance admins for the honor and pleasure of running their software, which at least right now would be the quickest way to ensure nobody runs their software.
I was just wondering about the possibility
It's always possible, but it would make no sense for it to do so. Lemmy runs entirely off donations, and it's a free and open source product first (looking at how the code is being written, how the organization is structured, and the fact that the open source community is building it as opposed to employees at a company etc.).
With Lemmy, there are many different groups (and individuals) running their own instances. Lemmy is the program that is running on the server, and when there's an update with new features, everyone downloads the new version. If Lemmy were to go closed source, I'm sure that the open source community would just make a fork and continue working there, and most (if not all) of those instances would just download that version instead.
Thats cool. Thanks for that info