The promise I made back when I started Appulous was that, if the site were ever to get shut down by me or anyone else, I would release the source code. I also promised, on a few different occasions to a few different people, to provide the database (without user data -- I have folks' privacy to protect). Note that these are for educational purposes only. If you try to use it, the consequences are on you.

Requirements to run AppDB code:

If you're wigging out right now, do me one last favor and let me explain. I figure that the only folks who might hate the fact that I'm releasing this source are iPhone App developers scared that this will breed more piracy, or owners/supporters of a different link sharing site that dread having more competition.

The initial reaction I expect those groups to have is an immediate fear that a million Appulouses will pop up because of this. That's not going to happen, and here's why: I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but the number of people in this scene will the technical ability to meet the above requirements -- in addition to doing it all on a publicly accessible server powerful enough to handle the traffic -- is next to none. Toss in that none of the images they need to make use of the database are there and it makes it even harder. Even if there's one shining soul capable of putting something together with that, they'd have to become more popular than the current leader, and that's just ridiculous. No new clone sites have a chance of getting anywhere with this unless something happens to what's already out there.

With that said, I'd like to speak to one other point. A lot of folks have pointed out that, in the beginning, my ideal was to have one, single website to aggregate all app links in our community. That was a key point behind Appulous when it started. Everything in our community was disorganized and split between a million different forums, and we needed to bring it all together. The scene has changed since then. Appulous became the de facto link index, with a million blogs and smaller AppDB clones around its feet. Now that Appulous is gone, another site is on top -- SOLELY because that site had obtained a copy of the Appulous database. If Appulous were to shut down without that having happened, far too much would be lost. Having smaller sites ready to step in is something that's crucial for a community like this, and I will fully admit that the popularity of this site had my ego far too inflated to admit that a few months ago. Backup plans are good for everyone.

So if you're still cursing my name, all I can ask is that you consider that not releasing my source code would have meant going back on my word and breaking a very important promise. If you know me at all, you know that's not even an option. My values inside our community have earned me a measure of respect, and I refuse to go out betraying those values.

--Kyek