7 ms·

Funkwhale is looking for new maintainers

182 points by input_sh 6y ago

rapnie 6y ago
Funkwhale is great software. It featured a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25067701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25067701 Here's some extra incentive from the blog post for people to consider: > Some of the development tasks can be paid, as we still have some of the NLNet funding. This could be an opportunity for you to get paid working on open-source software! Funkwhale is implemented with Vue and Python.
- 0df8dkdf 6y ago
  Thanks. Very nice project. how can I find more about the paid the work?
  - pax 6y ago
    this might be a hint: https://governance.funkwhale.audio/d/QyEBOaV6/status-of-our-nlnet-funding https://governance.funkwhale.audio/d/QyEBOaV6/status-of-our-...
    - mxuribe 6y ago
      Now THAT is great transparency!!! Kudos to the funkwhale folks!
    - deepstack 6y ago
      thanks. They just put the pricing list. It wasn't there before. For sure, it is very great they put it up.
- antihero 6y ago
  How's the memory usage? Can you just pop it on an existing server and index the files there?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mxuribe 6y ago
I had heard of funkwhale previously (as i've been on the fediverse for many years now)...but never was interested in installing something like it (nothing against funkwhale or similar platforms, i just really never needed to). But after reading the first page of their installation documentation [0], was quite impressed! This is how installation documentation should be written!! Now, i want to play with it, just because of how the doc is written. Who knows if i will keep things up, but apparently all it takes is to have really amazing documentation to interest me; go figure. [0] = https://docs.funkwhale.audio/installation/ https://docs.funkwhale.audio/installation/
AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
Well, that was fast. Only a few days ago it was on the front page of HN.
- olah_1 6y ago
  I thought it was strange even when it was on the front page. Seems like a project that is 10 years too late. Nobody downloads music files anymore. Everyone streams... If Bandcamp invested in making their app a legitimate alternative to Spotify, we could maybe go back to buying music, though.
  - monkin 6y ago
    > Nobody downloads music files anymore. I know this may be shocking, but... a lot of people still does it.
    - olah_1 6y ago
      Where do you live? I don't know a single person in America that does. Probably a sample size of (realistically) 400 people.
      - tweetle_beetle 6y ago
        Of course Spotify is popular and it may well be a demographics thing, but I wouldn't say that this describes a sample size of "nobody", or excludes everyone in America: > Fans have paid artists $619 million using Bandcamp, and $18.3 million in the last 30 days alone. And that is from Bandcamp alone. There are numerous other genre-specific sites that sell music, as well as Amazon, Google and others. I can't speak for everyone, but one of the challenges of this relatively open market is managing music bought from different stores. Who wants 5 apps to stream from all these places? Funkwhale is really designed with a more libre/open source/communal spirit, but happens to be excellent at doing this for individuals too.
      - pavel_lishin 6y ago
        Hi! You know one now. While I stream music from Google Play (or Google Youtube Music, or whatever they've pivoted to), I still have all the mp3s - and for good reason, because Google Music consistently tried to switch many of my tracks for the "censored" versions, which I'd have to re-upload. And Youtube Music isn't much better, and it's only a matter of time before their aggressive opinions on what's good for their consumers diverges from mine. I'm not willing to let a company dictate which music I can listen to based on licensing agreements with yet another company. I try to buy my music directly from the creator, and keep it safe and sound. Funkwhale will never be as large as Spotify, and that's fine. There is a niche for what they're offering.
john_moscow 6y ago
>I won't dive too much in the details, but I had serious health issues this summer, and the dust is only starting to settle. This affected my ability to work on the project on more important scale than expected, and I haven't been able to achieve anything lately but the most basic tasks. We need to bring back the culture of small business charging for the software, and users paying for it. If your software is paid, your revenue generally scales with your user base, so you can go full time on the project, or even start hiring people to help you. Also, since your revenue comes directly from your users, you want to listen to their requests and align your software with them. You can't just release an overnight patch pissing most users off, because you will feel the monetary loss right away. Except, these days, people expect consumer software to be free. So it's either the naive founder driving themselves to a burnout, or one of the big companies monetizing it indirectly (by charging for their cloud platform, or via ads). Maintainers lose, users lose, corporations win.
- yepthatsreality 6y ago
  I agree, there should be more encouragement to pay for software. Getting more people to embrace this idea means we can move away from a freemium model on the wider Internet as well.
- 3np 6y ago
  Many peoples minds seem to be stuck at either "charge and keep it closed source and heavily guarded" versus "FLOSS". There's nothing wrong with charging for free and open software if you'd otherwise be developing it purely based on donations to keep it open.
  - frenchy 6y ago
    Part of the problem here though, is that many people don't want to pay for software if there is a free alternative, so market forces work such that anyone who tries to attempt such a thing often gets sidelined by someone else who releases their binaries for free.
    - oceanghost 6y ago

182 points by input_sh 6y ago

Funkwhale is great software. It featured a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25067701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25067701 Here's some extra incentive from the blog post for people to consider: > Some of the development tasks can be paid, as we still have some of the NLNet funding. This could be an opportunity for you to get paid working on open-source software! Funkwhale is implemented with Vue and Python.

0df8dkdf 6y ago
Thanks. Very nice project. how can I find more about the paid the work?
- pax 6y ago
  this might be a hint: https://governance.funkwhale.audio/d/QyEBOaV6/status-of-our-nlnet-funding https://governance.funkwhale.audio/d/QyEBOaV6/status-of-our-...
  - mxuribe 6y ago
    Now THAT is great transparency!!! Kudos to the funkwhale folks!
  - deepstack 6y ago
    thanks. They just put the pricing list. It wasn't there before. For sure, it is very great they put it up.
antihero 6y ago
How's the memory usage? Can you just pop it on an existing server and index the files there?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mxuribe 6y ago

I had heard of funkwhale previously (as i've been on the fediverse for many years now)...but never was interested in installing something like it (nothing against funkwhale or similar platforms, i just really never needed to). But after reading the first page of their installation documentation [0], was quite impressed! This is how installation documentation should be written!! Now, i want to play with it, just because of how the doc is written. Who knows if i will keep things up, but apparently all it takes is to have really amazing documentation to interest me; go figure. [0] = https://docs.funkwhale.audio/installation/ https://docs.funkwhale.audio/installation/

AdmiralAsshat 6y ago

Well, that was fast. Only a few days ago it was on the front page of HN.

olah_1 6y ago
I thought it was strange even when it was on the front page. Seems like a project that is 10 years too late. Nobody downloads music files anymore. Everyone streams... If Bandcamp invested in making their app a legitimate alternative to Spotify, we could maybe go back to buying music, though.
- monkin 6y ago
  > Nobody downloads music files anymore. I know this may be shocking, but... a lot of people still does it.
  - olah_1 6y ago
    Where do you live? I don't know a single person in America that does. Probably a sample size of (realistically) 400 people.
    - tweetle_beetle 6y ago
      Of course Spotify is popular and it may well be a demographics thing, but I wouldn't say that this describes a sample size of "nobody", or excludes everyone in America: > Fans have paid artists $619 million using Bandcamp, and $18.3 million in the last 30 days alone. And that is from Bandcamp alone. There are numerous other genre-specific sites that sell music, as well as Amazon, Google and others. I can't speak for everyone, but one of the challenges of this relatively open market is managing music bought from different stores. Who wants 5 apps to stream from all these places? Funkwhale is really designed with a more libre/open source/communal spirit, but happens to be excellent at doing this for individuals too.
    - pavel_lishin 6y ago
      Hi! You know one now. While I stream music from Google Play (or Google Youtube Music, or whatever they've pivoted to), I still have all the mp3s - and for good reason, because Google Music consistently tried to switch many of my tracks for the "censored" versions, which I'd have to re-upload. And Youtube Music isn't much better, and it's only a matter of time before their aggressive opinions on what's good for their consumers diverges from mine. I'm not willing to let a company dictate which music I can listen to based on licensing agreements with yet another company. I try to buy my music directly from the creator, and keep it safe and sound. Funkwhale will never be as large as Spotify, and that's fine. There is a niche for what they're offering.

john_moscow 6y ago

>I won't dive too much in the details, but I had serious health issues this summer, and the dust is only starting to settle. This affected my ability to work on the project on more important scale than expected, and I haven't been able to achieve anything lately but the most basic tasks. We need to bring back the culture of small business charging for the software, and users paying for it. If your software is paid, your revenue generally scales with your user base, so you can go full time on the project, or even start hiring people to help you. Also, since your revenue comes directly from your users, you want to listen to their requests and align your software with them. You can't just release an overnight patch pissing most users off, because you will feel the monetary loss right away. Except, these days, people expect consumer software to be free. So it's either the naive founder driving themselves to a burnout, or one of the big companies monetizing it indirectly (by charging for their cloud platform, or via ads). Maintainers lose, users lose, corporations win.

yepthatsreality 6y ago
I agree, there should be more encouragement to pay for software. Getting more people to embrace this idea means we can move away from a freemium model on the wider Internet as well.
3np 6y ago
Many peoples minds seem to be stuck at either "charge and keep it closed source and heavily guarded" versus "FLOSS". There's nothing wrong with charging for free and open software if you'd otherwise be developing it purely based on donations to keep it open.
- frenchy 6y ago
  Part of the problem here though, is that many people don't want to pay for software if there is a free alternative, so market forces work such that anyone who tries to attempt such a thing often gets sidelined by someone else who releases their binaries for free.
  - oceanghost 6y ago