Dryw Filtiarn Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 In my opinion going for a non-internet (read: not a website) solution is a disaster. Having a website which is available for anyone in the world without the requirement of any form of clientsoftware is a must will it successful. Brickshelf is currently one of the reasons people who are in their darkage return to "playing" with Lego again, because they see that a lot of others do so too. When managed properly I think it should be doable to create a website which funds itself. You can get income out of for instance: advertising (google ads), paying members, but also sponsors. When you will look around enough, it will be possible to find a webhoster who will sponsor the site hosting which will reduce the cost a lot. The main issue with many sites like BS is that they are owned and maintained by just a single person. If ever something happens to him/her, the site is doomed to die. My conclusion is that if you want to create an alternative for BS, they way to go is to create a website which is owned and maintained by multiple people, that are "interchangable", this basicly means that you will need multiple people within the same disipline, multiple programmers, multiple serveradmins, etc, so you can ensure reliability and stability at any time if something happens to a person or if someone decides to quit. Regarding the technical sollution, there are several options. The sollution I would personally use is a load-balanced system with dedicated servers located over the world. These servers can be synced every hour or at least a couple of times a day, to make sure that all servers have the same content. Then depending on the location of the visitor you will be able to ensure fast access times with reliable speeds (compared to a single location dedicated hosting situation). By using this method you can also be sure of having backups at any time. Another advantage of above method of hosting is also that it can easily rely on home-based servers (as long as they are on an acceptable internet connection), because the load per server is a lot lower (as long as you set up the load-balancing properly).
lostcarpark Posted September 2, 2007 Posted September 2, 2007 My attitude is that the best solution would be an index that keeps track of the tags of a particular file, it's file signature (including a hash and it's size) and at least one location where to find it. People download the program and the latest index and then perform searches locally. The index can then be updated via peer-to-peer or via a update download, with people adding their own photos to the index. As a programmer (mostly client based assembly language, not web based stuff) I feel this is possible, and I am serously considering doing it, but I should note that I don't do open source. Another interesting idea, but I think it would struggle to gain acceptance. If the client has to be downloaded and installed, that will put many people off, especially if that client is closed source. At least if people can inspect the source they can check that it hasn't any form of malware hidden inside. Also it precludes people using platforms you haven't chosen to support from porting to their platform. I also think the client will have to do a lot of the work that a web browser gives you for free, like formatting the thumbnails, and would make it a lot more difficult to add the commenting and profile features a lot of people are asking for. The other advantage of open source is that if other communities also have photo sharing needs they could participate in the development, making expertise available that we might not otherwise be able to draw on. I am against the concept of a image hosting site due to the huge bandwidth costs involved, not to mention the legal issues of people posting naughty photos. I feel that spreading the load over many servers is one way to mitigate that load so that no single server or person has to bear those costs.
Siegfried Posted September 2, 2007 Posted September 2, 2007 If the client has to be downloaded and installed, that will put many people off, especially if that client is closed source. At least if people can inspect the source they can check that it hasn't any form of malware hidden inside. I always find that often used angle funny. Why? How many people can, and actually do this? It simply isn't practical for most as they don't understand computer languages, so for the average user they still have to trust someone, especially since unless you then compile it youself, you still aren't sure that the binary is the same as the code. Additionally, open source projects always suffer when the coolness factor wears off. Since services like Flickr are already around I can't see massive interest from the open source community. But, I was just stating what I could and might actually do. What I think is best is obviously very different to what you think. I would prefer that the solution was completly independent of hosts, and even allowed people to use their own websites if they want, but maybe your idea is better. If I do it I will find out then if people like the idea or not.
JINZONINGEN73 Posted September 2, 2007 Posted September 2, 2007 *sigh* I wish that lawsuit / inheritance money would come out of escrow already. I'd fix the Lego community's image hosting problems forever... at no cost to anyone but me. Why'd Brickshelf have to go and crash THIS year, I mean... Oh crap, am I talking aloud? *sweet*
Siegfried Posted September 2, 2007 Posted September 2, 2007 *sigh* I wish that lawsuit / inheritance money would come out of escrow already.I'd fix the Lego community's image hosting problems forever... at no cost to anyone but me. Why'd Brickshelf have to go and crash THIS year, I mean... Oh crap, am I talking aloud? *sweet* Dunno, but it sounds good!
xwingyoda Posted September 7, 2007 Posted September 7, 2007 Oh look another closed crappy BS topic... *yoda*
Vader Posted September 7, 2007 Posted September 7, 2007 Oh look another closed crappy BS topic... *yoda* These bloody topics are really starting to piss me off. *vader*
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