MediaGoblin 0.7.0 released

[Posted August 27, 2014 by corbet]

Version 0.7.0 of the MediaGoblin media publishing platform is available. New features include initial federation support, a switch to a responsive CSS system, a "featured media" option, bulk uploading via the command line, and more. "Well we’re excited to announce that the first piece towards MediaGoblin federation has landed! We don’t have server-to-server federation working yet, but we do have the first parts of the Pump API in place: you can now use the Pump API as a media upload API!"

MediaGoblin 0.7.0 released

Posted Aug 27, 2014 12:49 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I like that they thanked the contributors by name (2nd last paragraph). It's a simple thing, but most projects don't bother, and I think that's a mistake.

MediaGoblin 0.7.0 released

Posted Aug 28, 2014 12:52 UTC (Thu) by djzort (guest, #57189) [Link] (3 responses)

the agpl license is tricky because if you run this as a service you need to publish your code.

if thats a good thing or not is a different debate.

also gplv2 code isnt compatible with it.

read the license carefully.

as a "regular joe" user running it off your adsl/cable connection or vps - you may need to publish the code you are running

MediaGoblin 0.7.0 released

Posted Aug 28, 2014 14:17 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I haven't checked, but is this actually a problem?

Is it not simple to make the source code available? I would assume that, if the licence does require it, then the software is surely set up to do this by default.

The requirement would only create additional work if someone modifies the software. Again, I'm not sure how much effort this is, but I'd guess it's trivial compared to whatever coding the person was doing.

The Python licence is compatible with agplv3. Is there much gplv2-only code that would cause a problem?

(I'm a little sceptical about this sort of problem because it always gets mentioned by someone who's warning others - never by someone who actually has the problem. But that said, if it is a problem, I'm interested to know how much of a problem it is.)

MediaGoblin 0.7.0 released

Posted Aug 28, 2014 17:38 UTC (Thu) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]

The comment as posed is somewhat misleading: a great deal of GPLv2 code is published under the FSF recommended "or any later version" construct, which means that such code is also usable under the GPLv3, which combines with the AGPLv3 seamlessly to create an AGPLv3 product.

What is tricky about publishing the code? If one is already presenting such code as a web application, which is the only real domain of interest for the AGPL, then adding a link to download the code can hardly be said to be burdensome.

I note that the AGPLv3 has much less onerous terms for license violation than its predecessor: if you are notified of a violation "by some reasonable means" and you cure the violation within 30 following days, then your rights under the license are reinstated. This seems perfectly reasonable and fair to me. The chief complaint against the GPL licenses generally boils down to "I don't want to actually expend any effort to give others the rights that were extended to me when I was offered this software." That permeates the "open source" community, which emphasizes purely practical aspects of sharing source code, and has enormous corporate forces behind it which accept a certain amount of infrastructure openness where shared development serves their profit interest, while still defending large proprietary codebases.

MediaGoblin 0.7.0 released

Posted Aug 29, 2014 21:25 UTC (Fri) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]

Well, if the AGPL is like the GPL2 you don't have to have a permannent link on the site or anything like that. You only have to provide the code on request.

A regular joe doesn't change the code. So there is nothing to publish anyway. They can just point to the MediaGoblin website. Maybe just by looking at a MediaDoblin powered site you can infer the version too so maybe the regular joe doesn't even have to provide the version number to you.