
OPDS – Easy to Use, Open and Decentralized Content Distribution - robin_reala
https://opds.io/
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mqus
The Website is really bad in communicating what OPDS actually is.
"Distributing Content" can be anything, from ads, videos, images, websites,
video games, ebooks, news, songs, etcpp.

But the drawings suggest that this is only about (e)Books and other text-form
articles. They seem to actively avoid calling it what it is and instead using
"Content". Is this some kind of special lingo?

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detaro
My impression from looking at this a bit after seeing this submission is that
yes, it's mostly eBooks in practice, but I think they use the general wording
because it's not strictly limited to that - you could pack audio or video
publications in the formats too.

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AndrewUnmuted
This is a neat idea in the way it works with very well-supported open web
standards. It feels like it could fit within the Dat/Hyperdrive ecosystem as a
means for syndicating content held within decentralized content distribution
networks.

As one of the architects of Ara [0] I would be curious to know if proof of
content ownership and/or intellectual property protections are offered by
these protocols? This has always proven to be one of the more challenging
aspects to decentralized content distribution, in my experience.

[0] [https://ara.one](https://ara.one)

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shuntress
The image of literal sheep inside tiny barbed wire fences is a bit extreme but
I do feel the same problem.

I want to be able to purchase something then access it reliably without re-
purchasing it.

I think the main problem is that digital copy/distribution is so cheap
relative to content creation that the existing model of bundling those costs
to emulate the inherent properties of physical distribution naturally leads to
walled gardens.

OPDS seems to address only a small portion of the problem by describing a how
publishers should host their content in a standard way that makes it easier to
access/index.

Am I missing something in the specification?

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detaro
Is there a list of software/services supporting this somewhere? (It's an easy
mistake to make, but I find that difficult with many "standards" websites -
how do I judge if this is actually in practical use, and if yes in what
fields?)

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captn3m0
I currently use it across multiple devices:

KOreader supports it on Kindle,Kobo,Linux,Android

Foliate (great EPUB reader) supports it on Linux

On Android - MoonReader and a few other apps. Ubooquity app for eg.

On iOS- I use KyBook, and I’ve been planning to work on something that
integrates this into the Files app.

The mobileread wiki has some more, but the page has some spam:
[https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/OPDS](https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/OPDS)

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CharlesW
It'd be interesting to see something like this built on podcasting standards,
which has successfully filled these design goals for a couple decades now.

It'd require a handful of thoughtful RSS extensions, and possibly OPML
extensions for "Shelf" interop, etc.

With OPDS, I don't understand what enforces the "buy" scenario. Or is it not
enforced at all?

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sonicggg
OPDS may work fine to distribute free digital catalogs, but I find it pretty
hard to integrate it with purchased material. You definetely won't have the
same experience as a proprietary platform.

So your end - user downloads a random opds-enabled client, and adds your
catalog. Let's say you want to make sure the client owns the material. You
can't expect the client to redirect to a sign - in page, that's not part of
the protocol. Purchases also do not work well (try the O'Reilly opds for
example) . It's just a mess.

It's not clear to me what exactly opds is trying to solve. I found it such a
stretch when they claim it's an alternative to proprietary book platforms.
These systems have tons of people thinking about the entire user experience.
What opds offers is just a tiny fraction of what's necessary to build that.

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captn3m0
It only supports Basic Auth, so the client is expected to support some out of
band auth to get a token?

I think the new OPDS JSON spec had some notes on OAuth, not sure if that
resulted in anything.

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dvh
How is illegal content handled?

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ethanwillis
I think this is a centralized ecosystem "brainworm."

Every feed publisher would be responsible for providing a feed that does not
include illegal content. This is just a protocol for cataloging and
distributed information about content. So, it'd be like asking "how does
TCP/IP" handle illegal content? It doesn't and that's not the purpose.

Now, publishers of feeds could indeed keep illegal content from being
linked(in a naive way) by pairing this protocol with another protocol that can
check hashes of file content against a database of copyrighted works
signatures.

If copyright holders want to protect their works online they should be making
it easy, by providing such a service.

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l00sed
Is this supposed to be a supplement to RSS, or in what ways is it unique or
different from another XML-like feed standard?

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robin_reala
It builds on Atom, and provides a collection-based vocabulary, with at least
at the start was focused on ebook distribution.

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detaro
According to the site, they're switching and the future work builds on JSON-LD
(IMHO: _ughs_ ) and Schema.org (instead of Dublin Core)

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captn3m0
If you are looking to run a lightweight OPDS server: check out elibsrv. The
indexer is written in C, which writes to a SQLite database, which is then
presented using a lightweight PHP script. And as a plus, it supports OPDS
search, which most other implementations don’t (such as Ubooquity).

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tomkpa
Ubooquity does support OPDS search.

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captn3m0
hmm, doesn't seem to work on either of the clients that I Use
(Foliate/Kybook2).

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tomkpa
As far as I remember, I strictly followed the OPDS specifications when I
implemented search, so it should work with any OPDS client. Just in case,I
just tested it successfully with Moon+ Reader on Android.

I can't test the clients you use as I have neither a Linux or iOS device at
hand, but if you have any kind of error when trying to use them, I could take
a look.

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captn3m0
Might just be an issue with my install. I'll do an upgrade and report an issue
if I still can't get it working.

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onyva
I was using the superb Marvin on iOS for my own content. Unfortunately the
OPDS app for NextCloud doesn’t seem to work for a while now.

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Yetanfou
I'm the author of that app, it was made for a much earlier version of Owncloud
and it would take more work to get it up to date with the current state of the
platform than it would to start anew. It also was not made to support many of
OPDS' more 'advanced' features like sharding and search. I've started to look
into making a new version, possibly integrated with my other Own/Nectcloud app
'Reader', look for more info on that front in a few weeks.

