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Show HN: Workout.cool – Open-source fitness coaching platform

(github.com)
827 points surgomat | 4 comments | 18 Jun 25 12:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.306s | source

I was the main contributor to workout.lol, an open-source fitness app to easily build a workout routine. The project had traction (1.4k GitHub stars, 95 forks, ~20K visits/month), but was eventually sold due to video licensing hurdles. The new owner stopped maintaining it, and the repo went abandoned.

Over the next 9 months, I sent 15 emails to try to save it : no replies. Feature requests & issues were ignored. The community was left with a "broken" tool let's say.

I couldn't just let it die So I built the new version from scratch with the same open-source spirit, but a better architecture long-term vision, more features and no license problems.

It's called : Workout.cool (https://workout.cool). What it offers: 100% open-source, MIT-licensed - 1200+ exercises (with videos, attributes, translations) - Progress tracking - Multilingual-ready - Self-hostable

I'm not doing this for money. I'm doing it because I believe in open fitness tools, and I’ve been passionate about strength training for 15+ years.

If this resonates with you, feel free to: - Star the repo - Share with fitness/tech friends - Suggest features - Contribute code/design/docs

Together, we can build the open-source fitness platform we all wanted to easily build a workout routine and get in shape

Website: https://workout.cool GitHub: https://github.com/Snouzy/workout-cool

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abtinf ◴[18 Jun 25 14:34 UTC] No.44310264[source]▶
Just out of curiosity: if the original project was open source, why did you decide to restart from scratch?
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1. KPGv2 ◴[18 Jun 25 14:50 UTC] No.44310415[source]▶
Open source just means the source code is available. It doesn't mean you can legally use it. That is, in fact, the whole point behind the most famous open source license, GPLv3: code is open source, but there are still restrictions on how you can use the code. I don't know about now (most projects I work on are MIT-licensed, these days), but there was rancor around the move from v2 to v3 because v3 was more restrictive.
replies(2): >>44310524 #>>44310567 #
2. bramhaag ◴[18 Jun 25 15:02 UTC] No.44310524[source]▶
'source available' means the source code is available. Open source comes with a whole set of guarantees [1] about free redistribution and derived works.

Copyleft licenses like the GPL come with extra guarantees that do not violate the core guarantees of open source software. Instead, they make them stronger. The 'restrictions' GPL imposes essentially boil down to this: "if you use (parts of) GPL software, you must give your users the same freedoms the GPL guarantees." GPLv3 and AGPL closed up loopholes that allowed people to bypass those clauses.

[1] https://opensource.org/osd

replies(1): >>44334779 #
3. thayne ◴[18 Jun 25 15:07 UTC] No.44310567[source]▶
Even if it was licensed under GPL, which it isn't, forking the project to create another open source project is allowed, as long as the fork is also GPL licensed.

But in this case the original project used the MIT license, so the only requirement is that it the form includes attribution to the original project.

4. KPGv2 ◴[21 Jun 25 05:30 UTC] No.44334779[source]▶
Your link is to a politicized advocacy group, the OSI. Are you above, say, forty years old? You should remember, then, the arguments over introducing "libre" as a term because "open source" didn't describe those free redistribution rights.