Reddit has decided to open source their entire code base, allowing developers to see how exactly the social news site works. With the move, Reddit is encouraging developers to submit their own code and extensions for improving the site. Of course, they are also potentially opening up the site to serious gaming, since developers will be able to dissect precisely how Reddit's algorithms determine what is popular and makes it to the homepage.
Much like Facebook's fbOpen, the idea of going open source isn't so much as to encourage developers to build their own Reddit clones. In fact, Reddit is using the same licensing structure as Facebook - CPAL (Common Public Attribution License) – which stipulates that anyone who uses the Reddit code needs to make their changes available to everyone, as well as acknowledge they are using it.