Talk:OpenCola (drink)

Anyone made a batch?
Has anyone here actually made a batch of OpenCola? I've tried to find the ingredients but have gad no luck. If anyone knows where to find them, post it here or leave me a comment on my talk page--Roofus 17:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * There must be a wholesale market for these product. I use phosphoric acid as a fertilizer in my acuarium, and ordered it through a farmacy, 1kg cost about 10USD. You can imagine where I get the water from :-).Cgonzalezdelhoyo 09:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd love to see an "open" Dr Pepper taste-alike recipe - NoSnooz 19:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate warnings
I don't think warnings like "DO NOT USE art-grade gum arabic" are appropriate. This is not an encyclopedia, not an instruction manual. I would go so far as to say that no sentence should be in the imperative mood. —Keenan Pepper 00:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've removed it.--Roofus 02:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not make a wiki book with proper instructions to OpenCola and link to it? JayKeaton 18:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the presence of the actual recipe here is verging on ridiculous. I've had similar simple recipes removed for this reason from the Master Cleanse page.  I say just link to it, don't reproduce it. Mugwumpjism (talk) 03:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I've done a batch... it's great... although I went a little heavy on the lime and the citric acid... tastes very much like cola candies (gummy bottles). I live in the middle of greenwhich village NYC so essential oils are available everywhere. I recommand the shop Aphrodisia on Bleecker St, they have every oil you can think of, phosphoric and citric acid and food grade arabic gum. Price is okay, I made it to break-even with coke bottles sold in stores.

A pedant writes
Can we even put GPL recipes on a GFDL wiki? Pseudomonas 18:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I doubt it'll be a problem. -Roofus 22:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Do you mean you think it's not a license violation or you think that no one cares enough to make an issue of it? As is, I can copy the recipe off the (GFDL) Wikipedia and release a derivative under a proprietary license, AIUI. Pseudomonas 02:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What? You can't distribute a derivative of a GFDL document under a proprietary license. The relevant quote is "provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License". —Keenan Pepper 03:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't even think the license applies and I can't believe that you people are that hung up on it. If you read the GPL, you'll see that it mentions the word "software" 35 times and the words "source code" 11 times.  It makes no mention of "food" "beverage" or "recipe."   It's a joke.  -Roofus 06:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * how can one distinguish between a recipe and say a piece of html code? the only difference is the performer of the instructions: human and computer. so, if recipe is not a "source code", then manually copied/'painted' html code shouldn't be either..:) --81.215.215.115 10:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the point is that the RECIPE is what is covered by the GPL. The COLA is a product produced by the RECIPE. Like the web pages served from a web server - the server software may be GPL'd but that doesn't mean that all the pages it serves are GPL - They can be a proprietary as you like. Slothie 14:47, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Definition of Open Source
I don't mean to pick nits, but the part about carbonating water at home with yeast seems to replace "open source" with the concept of "homespun" Pretty much any ingredient, even yeast, is going to be closed source at some level--just because you use a machine to carbonate water does not mean that you don't know what or how much of the ingredient you are putting in. In other terms, Ubuntu is open source, but using Ubuntu does not mean you wrote the operating system on your computer yourself. You may not even know how it works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.253.7.233 (talk) 19:16, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * A "source" is where something comes from and a recipe is a source and as it is free to share while most corporations keep it a secret the name freely applies, even if it were a misnomer WP:COMMONNAME doesn't allow Wikipedia to use the correct term. --59.153.232.180 (talk) 06:15, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Software drinks?
uhh... pls explain.

It's too simple, Tux drinks it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.135.178.206 (talk) 23:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Citation needed
"The legal grounds for this are dubious however, as recipes are exempted from copyright as they are techniques, not artworks."

i think this line needs a citation —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.64.25.25 (talk • contribs) 22:23, 26 June 2007


 * Recepies are not universially exempt from copyright. It differs from country to country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.209.129.51 (talk) 02:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not the person who added the above quote, but I have added a reworded version of it, plus references to US and Canadian copyright law. Merenta (talk) 14:32, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a Cola ?
In the United States, for a drink to be legally called a "cola", it must contain all sorts of ingredients. Drinks that have some modification have to have the spelling changed, viz. the unsuccessful drinks called some form of "Kola" or "Qola" (the latter had honey). Caramel coloring, for example, is required. The sweetener used to have to be sugar, though that didn't stop the major manufacturers from switching to corn syrup without a pause. WHERE is the KOLA NUT extract in this recipe? (Headline comes from what a friend's son said when I poured him some Moxie: This is a drink?) 74.10.198.105 (talk) 20:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Is Lavender Oil warning needed?
Is Lavender Oil warning needed?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender:

"Controversy over possible endocrine-disrupting activity. In 2007 a study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine which indicated that studies in human cell lines indicated that both lavender oil and tea tree oil had estrogenic and antiandrogenic activities. They concluded that repeated topical exposure to lavender and tea tree oils probably caused prepubertal gynaecomastia in some boys.[15]  The study has been criticised on many different levels by many authorities.  The Aromatherapy Trade Council of the UK has issued a rebuttal [16]

The Australian Tea Tree Association, a group that promotes the interests of Australian tea tree oil producers, exporters and manufacturers issued a letter that questioned the study and called on the New England Journal of Medicine for a retraction (ATTIA). [17]

The New England Journal of Medicine has so far not replied and has not retracted the study."

184.76.223.30 (talk) 18:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC) somitcw

Licensing fail..

 * "Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General Public License. Since recipes are, by themselves, not copyrightable, the legal basis for this is untested."

It doesn't need to be tested. If recipes can not be copyrighted then they can not be copyrighted. End of story. --95.144.114.166 (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Merge with open-source cola
I would support merging OpenCola (drink) into open-source cola, but would not support merging open-source cola into OpenCola (drink).

OpenCola is one drink. I don't think it has been made for some years. It was made to prove a point, rather than to be a serious product. Others, such as Cube Cola, are still available today and are distributed (as the flavouring syrup) beyond their small manufacturers. The fact that the WP OpenCola article is older doesn't change this, nor does the Cory Doctorow fanboy effect. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I (as the one who proposed the merge) have to agree with you. I missed this slight difference because of my bad english. I originaly decided to suggest the merge in this direction mostly because of the Language-Links. I changed the Template from Template:Merge to to Template:Merge. Considering this difference, I would even suggest to not merge, but to clearify this difference, though I'm not sure if OpenCola (as this specific one) is seriously notable enough. In german Wikipedia, even OpenCola (iirc mostly about open-source cola, not specific to OpenCola (drink)) was proposed for deletition several times with this reason and survived all of them. The last time it got deleted against arguments and majority, so there is currently no german article about open-source cola – seems like no one realy cares... --nenntmichruhigip (Diskussion) 23:39, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Oppose merge. As Andy says above, OpenCola is but one example. Putting all the OpenCola content into Open-source cola would make the latter article unbalanced and too long. And if we wanted more content on Cube Cola or some future "open" cola, then they would have to go into the merged article also. Pelagic (talk) 19:49, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Since this has been open for over a year-and-a-half without comment, and nenntmichruhigip is probably not monitoring this page, can we get an uninvolved editor to close the discussion and remove the merge templates, please? Pelagic (talk) 19:49, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Never mind, after some thought I've boldly removed the templates myself, on the basis of no strong support for a merge (even the original proposer "would even suggest to not merge"). I feel it's better to tidy up the page rather than leave the banners in place for years due to lack of interest. If anyone does want to merge these articles, then please re-template and re-open the discussion. Pelagic (talk) 20:13, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

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