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>> 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 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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  >> 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 15y ago
    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/ 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 http://www.facebook.com/#!/terms.php. Noticed you had no response to the value gained from OpenPhoto over the download all.
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        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.
jmathai 15y ago
Not sure I understand your first point. Dropbox isn't the only "filesystem" that's supported. S3, Cloudfiles or anything with an adapter is. "Download all" is a good solution in your opinion? Maybe you don't have a lot of photos but that doesn't sound terribly useful to me. Does SmugMug provide differential syncing (honest question)? My guess is no. Amazon S3 does. I agree that every service has a gatekeeper when you're talking about the Internet. But in my mind decoupling this way buys you a tremendous amount of advantages at fairly low cost. Hopefully the project gets funded and you can see how great the service is and how big of a problem it solves :).
- callmeed 15y ago
  Sorry if I'm not being clear ... SmugMug uses S3 for its storage [1]. DropBox also uses S3 for its storage [2]. They are, in essence, both layers/services built on top of S3 (albeit different types of services). So why support one but not the other? [1] http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2006/08/12/amazon-s3-the-holy-grail/ http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2006/08/12/amazon-s3-the-holy-g... [2] http://www.dropbox.com/help/7 http://www.dropbox.com/help/7
  - jmathai 15y ago
    Gotcha. In theory SmugMug could be supported as a "storage service" if they have the appropriate APIs. It doesn't make a lot of sense to do that because SmugMug doesn't offer any compelling storage services on top of S3. Their APIs are (from a file system perspective) a subset of S3. Dropbox on the other hand provides sync on top of S3 which could be a big benefit for some users. Personally, I think S3 and Rackspace Cloudfiles make the most sense. They are as close to a raw file system API which exists "in the cloud". I mention Dropbox to showcase the flexibility of the idea and more people are probably familiar with what Dropbox is than S3. Thanks for clarifying.

khornschemeier 15y ago

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 15y ago
>> 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 15y ago
  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/ 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 http://www.facebook.com/#!/terms.php. Noticed you had no response to the value gained from OpenPhoto over the download all.
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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.

jmathai 15y ago

Not sure I understand your first point. Dropbox isn't the only "filesystem" that's supported. S3, Cloudfiles or anything with an adapter is. "Download all" is a good solution in your opinion? Maybe you don't have a lot of photos but that doesn't sound terribly useful to me. Does SmugMug provide differential syncing (honest question)? My guess is no. Amazon S3 does. I agree that every service has a gatekeeper when you're talking about the Internet. But in my mind decoupling this way buys you a tremendous amount of advantages at fairly low cost. Hopefully the project gets funded and you can see how great the service is and how big of a problem it solves :).

callmeed 15y ago
Sorry if I'm not being clear ... SmugMug uses S3 for its storage [1]. DropBox also uses S3 for its storage [2]. They are, in essence, both layers/services built on top of S3 (albeit different types of services). So why support one but not the other? [1] http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2006/08/12/amazon-s3-the-holy-grail/ http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2006/08/12/amazon-s3-the-holy-g... [2] http://www.dropbox.com/help/7 http://www.dropbox.com/help/7
- jmathai 15y ago
  Gotcha. In theory SmugMug could be supported as a "storage service" if they have the appropriate APIs. It doesn't make a lot of sense to do that because SmugMug doesn't offer any compelling storage services on top of S3. Their APIs are (from a file system perspective) a subset of S3. Dropbox on the other hand provides sync on top of S3 which could be a big benefit for some users. Personally, I think S3 and Rackspace Cloudfiles make the most sense. They are as close to a raw file system API which exists "in the cloud". I mention Dropbox to showcase the flexibility of the idea and more people are probably familiar with what Dropbox is than S3. Thanks for clarifying.