The source code for the Spika open source mobile messaging system for iOS and Android is now available to developers. Spika is a fully-fledged social networking app under MIT license.
Spika can be used to develop messaging apps, mobile social networks, or mobility solutions — in fact, any other app that requires live communication feature. The software employs various open source technologies including CouchDB, Silex, and Vagrant and is meant to reduce costs of development.
Creator of Spika Ken Yasue asserts that there isn't a similar complete open source system offering apps for iOS and Android with a backend solution included.
"It is quite hard to start from scratch, so our goal is to enable young developers to learn to code with existing examples while experienced developers don't have to reinvent the wheel but just adjust the existing solution," he said.
With designs to make Spika have a similar effect that Wordpress had on the web development industry, Yasue started his project in-house while working for a mobile development company but then gave it over to the development community, where it benefitted from input from "famous" Japanese PHP developer @yando, who worked on the backend.
