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Open Source Readlang

Now that you are working for Duolingo (congrats by the way!) and have declared Readlang has been declared "feature complete", have you considered open sourcing Readlang? I understand that you don't have the time to devote to new features, but I'm sure there are developers out there in your user base (like me) who would be more than happy to contribute to the project (even if you get the money for operating the service). There's so many good feature requests on here that I'd love to see implemented, and I think open sourcing and embracing community contributions would be a great way to see them made a reality.

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Ryan Brainard shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Hugo commented  ·   ·  Report

    Wait... so now that it was bought by DuoLingo it will not be improved?

    That's a big big big problem for ReadLang...
    It's amazing for an amateur program, but it's very far away from being complete.

    It's lacking so many BASIC features...

    * I can't even order my library by number of words...
    * Or by order of CEFR level
    * Or by % read
    * Or by number of words!!!!
    * OR BY DATE ADDED!!!

    * If I scroll to a random page in a book to see what it looks like... ReadLang will tell me I read a big % of the book and there is no way to set it back to unread.

    * If I share a copyrighted book by mistake, I haven't found a way to set it back to private... it stays shared forever.

    These are not high end features. It's app design 101 that should have been solved years ago.

    Knowing that ReadLang isn't going to improve I am definitely not renewing my subscription when it expires!

  • Masum commented  ·   ·  Report

    Update: Steve has informed me that Duolingo has indeed bought Readlang (so open-sourcing is unlikely), and they are letting him keep it running smoothly ... but that they are unlikely to give him time to expand the feature set unless the number of active users increases.

    If you want to see Readlang improve, spread the word about it and try and recruit more users!

  • Masum commented  ·   ·  Report

    Obviously open-sourcing would be the best (for us) solution, but I don't mind how new development gets done as long as the software continues to grow.

    Any chance Duolingo would buy this product? I went premium on ReadLang after a day of using it; I haven't yet found any reason to spend a single penny on Duolingo -- so I'm sure there's a potential revenue stream here.

  • gtaus commented  ·   ·  Report

    I am sorry to hear that Readlang has been declared "feature complete." It's not, as evidenced by all the great suggestions here. If Readlang is no longer supported, then why keep these forums open? Is it only to keep the appearance of a viable program so they get new subscriptions? Readlang is a good program, but without further development it will quickly be deprecated, as all software does that loses development. +1 on the suggestion for the developer to consider contributing the project to open source for future enhancements. Maybe a problem with any current revenue stream, but at least the program stands a chance to survive if development continues.

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