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Anonymous Coward writes:
""MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing platform that anyone can install and run. Decentralization, (...) is the main goal of the project, one that is backed and connected to the GNU project.
So far, MediaGoblin has raised only $3,000 of its $60,000 goal, with the campaign set to end April 14th, (...) that is a date that is soon approaching. The first crowd-sourcing initiative was in October of 2012, so this is not the first crowd-funding initiative the project has launched. This second campaign was clearly spurred on by the PRISM revelations of recent past. Having not noticed any failures to meet 2012's funding campaign, it's very possible the team may reach their goal again, given the intensity of the subject matter."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17 2014, @12:03AM
I compared it pretty extensively against its competition in the open source space as an all-in-one self-hosted media server, and it talks a BIG game, but there's really nothing great about MediaGoblin. Its interface is kind of ugly, its features are barebones, and despite a lot of talk about development and cutting edge technology integration and future features and freeing the web masses, there's nothing very impressive about the software. They just love to talk about it more than actually produce anything good.
For photo galleries and (to a lesser extent) video, Piwigo BLOWS AWAY MediaGoblin and most everything else. (ZenPhoto is better too, but nowhere near as good as Piwigo.) For video it's outclassed by stuff like Kaltura and PHPMotion.
MediaGoblin is a great example of bloviating software. All talk. If it hadn't latched on to GNU nobody would have given it a second glance. Frankly it acts more like an FTP site than a modern media server. In my opinion they do not deserve your money.
(not affiliated with any of the above or any similar software)
(Score: 1) by Mr. Slippery on Monday March 17 2014, @10:37AM
Serious question: can someone explain to me what a "media server" is supposed to be beyond an FTP site? I have media I want to share, I sftp the file over to my web server and post the URL wherever is appropriate, and I'm done. What am I missing that I need a whole new piece of server software for? Thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17 2014, @11:05AM
Mostly: web player, tags, and prettiness. Sure, you can do all that without a dedicated solution, or with a few CMS plugins. (And I find tags more or less useless.)
But personally I found that the limits of WordPress AND of PHP (particularly upload limits) led me to look for something a little bit easier for ordinary Joes to use, something that acted more like Flickr or Picasa or Youtube. Piwigo came closest. MediaGoblin wasn't even in the running; it's primitive stuff.
There are other niceties to a dedicated solution, like a flexible organizational structure, javascript uploaders, slide sorters, etc. Personally I find it kind of a pain to hand craft every photo or video embed when I can have a Gallery program handle it for me.
But yeah, your point is my point -- if MediaGoblin isn't going to act much differently from embedding my own links in the HTML to a file I uploaded via ftp, then what's the point?