I’d been waiting for this! (N.b.: had inside information it was coming.) The code behind my favorite RSS reader, feedbin.me, has been open sourced. See the announcement, or grab the code from github.com/feedbin/feedbin.

Feedbin is the RSS reader I use every day now. The minimal design is a pleasure: nothing gets between me and the articles I’m trying to read, but at the same time the knobs I need are there when & where I need them. It supports import/export, and has a documented API.

I don’t host my own Feedbin instance, of course. I just use the service run by Feedbin’s author, Ben Ubois, at feedbin.me. At the eminently reasonable price of $3/month, it’s well worth it for me not to have to worry about configuration and hosting administrivia. At the same time, knowing that the code is open source is important: that means it can never be taken away from its users. It means that the investment I make as a user can’t be suddenly rendered obsolete by one party’s decision to yank the rug out from under everyone.

If for some reason Ben Ubois ever shut down his Feedbin commercial service (unlikely), that still wouldn’t mean I’d have to set up my own instance. Someone else would probably do so, and I’d just pay them instead. Or if no one did so immediately, well, that’s a market gap I might be interested in stepping into… but then many others would be having the same thought. Open source is not about doing it yourself; it’s about removing barries to people doing things for each other.

That’s why it’s important for commercial services like Feedbin to also be open source.

Congratulations to Ben! I hope he gets many new users from among those who feel that commerce and freedom taste better together.

Here’s a screenshot of Feedbin’s three-column layout (feeds, [un]read articles, then the current article in the rightmost large pane):

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