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My company is looking to build a marketplace for peer to peer services. You could think Thumbtack type setup. We have identified two to three open-source platforms we could use as a base, but each have features the others don't have.

How difficult would it be to combine different elements from different platforms into one? Would this save time and make development easier, or would it be easier to build the other features from scratch?

Is this allowed under different open-source licenses?

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    I'm not sure this question can be easily answered. The first part seems to boil down to "how skilled are developers", and the second part depends entirely on the licence(s) in question. If you could link to the three platforms you refer to, we might have a chance. – MadHatter♦ Jul 20 '20 at 20:06
  • I appreciate the response. The two we are most interested in are: Cocorico and Sharetribe, though we have also looked into OxWall. cocolabs.com/en sharetribe.com oxwall.com – Michael Adams Jul 20 '20 at 20:52
  • I'm finding it difficult to find the actual open source code from those services you've linked it. Could you edit your question to add specific links to the actual code? Thanks. – Philip Kendall Jul 21 '20 at 8:23
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License wise, you can combine code from multiple platforms into one if the licenses are compatible with each other.

Two licenses are compatible if

  • Neither license contains a restriction on what license must apply to other code in the project
  • The restrictions/requirements that a license imposes on the rest of the codebase is not forbidden by the license governing that part of the codebase

As I don't know the licenses on the platforms you mention, I can't tell if those licenses would be compatible.

As for the technical feasibility of porting features from one platform into another platform, that depends entirely on the architectures of the involved platforms and the skill of the developers involved in the process. That can't be answered by a random poster on the internet.

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  • +1 from me. I'd add that, of the three packages the OP links to, two appear to be proprietary, and only Cocolabs has an obvious free software version. – MadHatter♦ Jul 21 '20 at 10:09
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    The second point is incomplete. A license does not have to explicitely allow combining. They can be implicitly compatible, as long as none of the licenses requires something that the other one contradicts. And in the result usally the requirements from both licenses apply. This can become more complicated, but in practice it often becomes easier, as you most the time combine a license with weak copyleft that does not require much at all with a license with strong copyleft or proprietary code. – allo Jul 21 '20 at 10:50
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    @allo, I rephrased the second bullet – Bart van Ingen Schenau Jul 21 '20 at 11:16
  • Thank you @BartvanIngenSchenau, allo, and MadHatter. I really appreciate you taking the time, this has all helped immensely. I'm also shocked people will answer questions for strangers on the internet, so thank you! – Michael Adams Jul 22 '20 at 12:40

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