My question is simple and has an objective yes/no answer. Prior to this, has any open source app [0] ever been the #1 app in the US App Store "Top Free Apps" category?
[0] For the sake of this post, let's pretend that an open source app is one where the code is freely available, forkable, and under MIT license.
The app is built using React/React Native as well as a variety of other open source tools. We maintain multiple React Native libraries as well that are open source.
The network is open, and anyone has access to the firehose. Third parties are free to run labelers that integrate with the application as well as build feeds which can be used by yourself or others inside the app. Anyone is free to use the open source SDKs to build their own third-party Bluesky apps or entirely unique applications using atprotocol.
To be frank, "it's just an app that happens to be open source" seems to be a pretty bad faith take on what Bluesky is.
The apps being open source is great of course, but the standards for openness are very high for (something aiming to be) internet-level infrastructure.
A single company having a lot of control would be a bit of a red flag in this context. The rug pull incentives are huge (that said I am a proponent of commercial interests in open ecosystems, provided they don’t get too much control).
You can run most of the Bluesky infrastructure and make it part of Bluesky network https://alice.bsky.sh/post/3laega7icmi2q
Sure, it would be better if it was an open source app for an open source protocol, but it is still something.
> Bluesky is building infrastructure you can fully self-host or mirror. Alice did a great job in this blogpost capturing what is doable now, and how to do it.
> This network should live long past Bluesky PBC. Let's work together to make this network more resilient!