OpenCola is a brand of open-source cola whose list of ingredients and preparation instructions are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe. It was launched in 2001 by the now-defunct free software P2P company Opencola, to promote their company.

Background

The original version 1.0 was released on 27 January 2001 by Grad Conn, Cory Doctorow, and John Henson. The current version is 1.1.3, released on 20 February 2001. Although originally intended as a promotional tool to explain free and open source software, the drink took on a life of its own and 150,000 cans were sold. The Toronto-based company Opencola shut down in 2003, and had became better known for the drink than for the software it was supposed to promote. Laird Brown, the company's senior strategist, attributed its success to a widespread mistrust of big corporations and the "proprietary nature of almost everything".

Flavouring formula

The flavouring formula for OpenCola is:

Concentrate formula

Dilution

After mixing up the concentrate to the prescribed recipe (including all recommended safety precautions), the syrup is diluted 5:1 with ("preferably sodium-free") soda water to make the finished drink; at this dilution, the above combination of ingredients will yield approximately 24 litres of OpenCola. The full recipe also includes instructions for home-made soda water produced from basic ingredients such as yeast and sugar in order to make the entire process open source; otherwise there would be a need to use commercially produced bottled or canned soda, or consumer carbonation machines with commercially manufactured carbon dioxide canisters.