Should Blogger be Open Source

[BigBear]

So I use blogger and it has not been updated since September 27, 2011.


I know that Google is likely in the process of merging blogger with Google Docs (or Google Drive now?).

Would it be worth it for Blogger to be open source, not in the fact that you can use it any differently (like on a local internal server) but just so that people can contribute code and make it better.

[ProgrammingFun]

I personally see no reason for it to be open source. Blogger is Google's own platform and even if it was open-source, external contributions would not necessarily be used to update the actual product. I think it would be more like the relationship between Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com in which Wordpress.com does not necessarily contain the same features as the publicly available version and runs on a modified back-end of the same program (Wordpress).
There are plenty of open-source blogging platforms available that can be used for those who do not wish to use Blogger.

[BigBear]

I don't mean let anyone use it anywhere. You would still have to use Blogger through Google's hosting etc.

Also WordPress is a free and open source product from WordPress.org so it is publicly available.

WordPress.com is hosting for WordPress the product, and yes WordPress.com has different features than WordPress the product.

[Tony]

I think you are underestimating the amount of review effort that would have to take place to accept any outside-of-google patches into the code base.

There are few other places where you would find the same level of scale and outright targeted attacks aimed at exposing the identity of a specific blog author.