

OpenPhoto, a photo service for your S3 or Dropbox account - jmathai
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jmathai/openphoto-a-photo-service-for-your-s3-or-dropbox-a

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callmeed
I don't want to sound like a hater, _but $25k for this?_

I can spin up a Rails app, add devise, scaffold an image model and add
Paperclip with S3 support in less than 1 hour (probably closer to 30 mins).
Yes, I get that there's more to it but still ...

Also, this project seems to imply that people "own" files on their S3 or
DropBox accounts more than they "own" files on Flickr or SmugMug. I don't get
that. Maybe S3 makes it easier to download/transfer files to your local
machine, but you're still relying on a 3rd party service provider in every
instance. And, since DropBox and SmugMug both rely on S3, it makes even less
sense.

SmugMug especially has a great API and tons of 3rd party tools (including
download ones [1])–so why won't the photo sharing service support that? Why
won't it support images stored on the hard drive hooked up to my home router?

Sorry, but coming from someone who works in the photo space, this project
doesn't seem very thought out from a "here's a problem that needs solving"
point of view.

[1] <http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Hacks+and+Apps>

~~~
jmathai
Valid questions - not hater-ish at all.

Sure, you can spin up an app and server some images from S3 but like you said
there's _a lot_ more to that. I'm not pitching a simple photo hosting service
like Gallery that stores your photos in S3. Perhaps I can go into more detail
on the KS page though.

The fact that SmugMug and Dropbox use S3 is irrelevant because they don't hand
you their AWS key and secret. The point of OpenPhoto is to decouple the
frontend interface(s) from the actual storage. If you want to write a separate
frontend adhering to the OpenPhoto specification then that completely works
and you don't have to do any exporting or downloading.

That's where the ownership differences start to become apparent.

Even with great APIs SmugMug is still the gatekeeper.

Support for a hard drive hooked up to your home router is completely doable.
Just write an adapter that conforms to the OpenPhoto spec ... it's how S3
support works. It's meant to be completely swappable though.

Also, in addition to S3 is the ownership of tags, comments and metadata. For
this to be a truly open system it shouldn't sit in a mysql or mongodb that
OpenPhoto runs.

Hope that answers some of your questions.

 _I'm in the photo space myself. I was surprised that you trivialized building
a truly great photo service._

~~~
callmeed
_> > The fact that SmugMug and Dropbox use S3 is irrelevant because they don't
hand you their AWS key and secret._

Exactly. So, why support one (dropbox) but not the other? Is it only because
DropBox files are sync'd to a local machine? SmugMug has a "download all"
option and most users keep all their original files locally anyway. Plus,
considering SmugMug offers unlimited storage, you can argue that it's more
affordable than DropBox or S3 once you reach a certain threshold.

I get the decoupling argument but _every_ service is a gatekeeper to some
degree.

I'm not trivializing building a great photo service–reading the project
description simply didn't strike a chord with me as a "great service that
solves problems". And I don't mean that in a mean-spirited way.

~~~
khornschemeier
I'm a SmugMug user but I can definitely see the value here. All sites where
you upload your photos have a TOS that gives them rights to use and keep your
photos, even if you leave the service. A service like this would not have
those rights and not even be able to access your photos if you leave because
you own the S3 container and take your photos with you.

Download all is also not a great solution because if you want to leave then
you have to download all your files and then upload them all again to the new
service. Using a solution as OpenPhoto you would just be able to move from one
provider to the next without any hassle. I'm also assuming with the download
all solution you lose all your ratings, tags, comments, and any other meta
info on your photos. Again, moving services with something like OpenPhoto
would keep that data with the photos.

~~~
callmeed
_> > All sites where you upload your photos have a TOS that gives them rights
to use and keep your photos, even if you leave the service._

Can you provide a source or specific TOS clause that shows this?

~~~
khornschemeier
I thought it was pretty well known that sites give themselves those rights in
the TOS, especially with the recent Twitpic issues where they were selling
user content.

In any case, from SmugMug's terms: "However, by uploading and/or posting any
User Content to the Site, you grant SmugMug a perpetual, nonexclusive and
royalty-free right to use the User Content and the name that is submitted in
connection with such User Content, as is reasonably necessary to display the
User Content, provide the Services and to facilitate, at Content Owner's
direction, the license of Photos or the sale of Products on the Site."

Under #13, <http://www.smugmug.com/aboutus/terms/>.

From Facebook terms, "you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-
licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you
post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends
when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been
shared with others, and they have not deleted it."

Under #2-1, <http://www.facebook.com/#!/terms.php>.

Noticed you had no response to the value gained from OpenPhoto over the
download all.

~~~
tedunangst
Those terms exist so smugmug can put the pictures on the website. Otherwise
some jackass would come along, upload some photos, then sue them for copyright
infringement. Note that they only sell the photos at Content Owner's
direction.

Somewhat similar with facebook. If you write on someone's wall and delete your
account, the wall post will stick around.

~~~
jmathai
Ultimately, the terms on Facebook or SmugMug or any other service say that you
"own" your content. Unfortunately, they store it in a proprietary format which
means that it's pretty much useless without their services.

None of these apply to this project.

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elbrodeur
I said I would pay to use it if you built it, so I've become a backer. Can I
ask why you're going the open source route? I would definitely pay a premium
to make sure your service stays around, is reliable and is improved over time.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2184603>

~~~
jmathai
True to your word :).

I'm open sourcing it specifically so that it stays around. I have two goals
with this: to provide a better photo sharing option for those who want to own
their photos and to build a viable business around it.

Once it's done and open sourced the first goal will be met. Then I want to
focus on providing the service in a hosted model similar to wordpress.com. It
will be free to use but there will be premium services you can pay for.

Open sourcing it also fosters competition. If someone else wants to build an
Instagram clone that ties directly to your S3 bucket then they can easily do
it using the language bindings provided by OpenPhoto or opt to use the
OpenPhoto API as a proxy.

All your photos in your bucket regardless of the service you use.

Let me know if you have any suggestions or questions.

------
joshfinnie
I have been thinking of an idea very similar to this. I would be interested in
seeing how this will work since I don't believe Dropbox will like being a CDN
nor do I think S3 is user-friendly enough for the common person.

Love the idea of free and open photo sharing though! Best of luck!

~~~
jmathai
I've talked to the AWS folks and they do have plans for OAuth. I hope I can
convince them that with a product like this the value proposition of selling
their cloud services directly to end users is huge!

Same goes for Rackspace.

As far as Dropbox goes --- we'll see. That's a valid point.

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grandalf
This is awesome. Add a simple iPhoto replacement app for camera syncing and
basic editing and I'll donate $100.

~~~
jmathai
It's actually the $500 pledge level that gets you feature requests!

Just kidding. So there's been some conversation about sync. Nothing solid yet
but a couple ideas include the iCloud photostream API (iOS/OSX only and I need
to familiarize myself with it), an rsync style automatic uploader, etc.

There isn't an official feature request forum but feel free to open an issue
on Github and include some of the specifics of what you're looking for.

<https://github.com/openphoto/frontend/issues>

~~~
grandalf
Excellent. The big unsolved problems with photos are the following four:

\- Picasa doesn't accomodate the workflow of two parents who might both want
to add/edit an album containing their child's baby pictures, each using their
own google account + picasa on their own laptop. iPhoto / MobileMe doesn't
even come close.

\- iPhoto doesn't allow for two people to collaborate on an album, each as
first class citizens, and insists upon its own file storage approach which
means that you can't keep two machines in sync easily.

\- No cloud system that I'm aware of will let me conveniently manage a library
larger than my hard drive. Why not let me specify how much hard drive space I
want to allocate to a picture cache and let the pics actually live on the
cloud?

I think that what's needed is a standard for filesystem-based storage/editing
that addresses revisions, undo, etc., so that a library may be synced between
two computers and all of that state is shared. I want to be able to undo a
crop that someone else made, for example.

And, of course, the cloud needs to just work seamlessly with it all.

~~~
jmathai
That's a tall order. But full of good stuff.

\- Not sure if this solves the workflow problem but two (or more) people can
share the same cloud storage account but maintain their own personal login
information. The desktop vs. web component can be worked out later - the
platform supports this.

\- Addressed above?

\- S3 lets you store as much as you want (theoretically). You pay for whatever
you use.

I don't believe anyone is going to have as seamless an integration as Apple
does with iCloud. I think others can get "close enough" while providing other
features and functionality which surpass the extreme seamlessness iCloud
purports.

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LokiSnake
Do you have an estimate of the storage/transfer costs if doing self-hosting?

~~~
jmathai
Yes. Below and added to the FAQ on Kickstarter.

    
    
        20GB of storage ≈$2/mo 
        A 250KB photo served up 4,000 times ≈$.10/mo-- ten cents 
        A simpleDb database for a personal account is typically free
    
        That would be about $2.10 per month if you get a lot of views on your photos and store 20GB.
    

There's virtually 0 cost outside of what you pay for your cloud services. If
you host the software yourself the only bandwidth will be html markup and a
few images for the site (not your photos). Everything else is offloaded to the
cloud service provider (and is as cheap as you can get).

Hope that answers your question!

------
bryanallen22
Any plans to add video?

~~~
jmathai
I should add that to the FAQ.

It makes sense as a logical progression to add video support. I defer this one
to the community to see if there's enough demand for it. Or of course is
someone's motivated enough to fork the code and add it!

