In followup to an earlier post https://tree.taiga.io/project/robbt-libreairwaves-airtime-fork/issue/27
Is there a list of sites incorporating LibreTime? Is there a demo site or one planned?
There isn’t currently a demo. Isn’t a bad idea. Maybe we should just create a free-form experimental radio station programmed by the LibreTime community and have it operate as a demo. I don’t know, it’d be easy to setup a demo that allowed people to login but not mess with the settings too much, but otherwise we need to setup a scripted install that reinstalls itself every so often to avoid people breaking everything regularly while platying around.
We have not created a list of stations using LibreTime yet, this isn’t a bad idea either, perhaps it can start as a forum post ?
Certainly could open up a lot of interesting ways to showcase the software, community, and musical tastes!
If it was determined to be a good idea, possibly that would provide additional incentive to create a proper distro package and setup for AWS?
Forum post probably would be a good first step for compiling examples. Should we create another post for that?
Yeah, I’m not sure this is really needed at this point without someone really wanting to become the station manager of a station whose sole purpose was demonstrating the software. Additionally there could be issues with music copyright and streaming depending upon who and under what locality the server was set-up. Maybe if there become funds to pay for hosting etc it might be a worthwhile idea.
What about replicating how http://airtime-demo.sourcefabric.org is set up as a demo site. I assume the db and files are wiped periodically?
or ya, possibly there could be some tracks and programs preloaded?
Even if it’s more of a DIY demo there would need to be some sort of licensing cost? Do we know how Airtime handles that on their demo?
Well a demo could be set-up but someone would have to host it and write the scripts to install it and wipe it periodically. If it was just a demo we could use public domain files and creative commons music etc. If it was wiped periodically I don’t think it would be much of an issue.
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I had a https://dply.co/ demo up and running a while ago but It was having stability issues with it. The user experience also wasn’t very nice since the install took ages.
We might also need to consider disabling uploads and only hosting creative commons files or something similar.
Sounds like this could be setup/managed if there’s enough community interest to support LibreTime on AWS
What is needed at this point for this to happen is a number of things.
- Hosting - a desginatee VPS of some sort
- Script to wipe and reinstall everything - maybe this could be done more easily with docker or using a virtual machine but things will get messed up and need a wipe on a regular perhaps daily basis
- People to administer it and building a good demo that includes example tracks, auto playlists etc.
Several hosting options have been discussed in the libretime slack. @ned-kelly said he’d “be happy to look at seeing if we can get a free AWS (https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/nonprofits/) just to run build server etc.”
Does anyone have any objection to soliciting free hosting from AWS?
Just to be clear - As LibreTime is not a nonprofit company, we would need to be a project of a nonprofit to qualify? If we create OpenCollective to help sustain the project and community, I can help evaluate options such as Open Source Collective, Open Media Foundation, Kendraio, and other nonprofit organizations already set up to host projects.
Hi guys - Already submitted application to AWS And Openshift last night - They are both pretty flexible if you’re applying for 100% open source project (which Libretime is) and are only asking for a small amount of credits…
Re the Libretime being a non-profit - That’s a probably different discussion than getting some credits for a demo-site and something that AWS and the likes WILL require if we’re going to ask for many thousands of $$$ of credits worth from them (Or try and join their Activate program) - In the case of a demo server $150-$200 will be enough to run us a decent EC2 instance and the bandwidth for 12 months or so and should do the trick in the short-term.
If you want to look at moving forward as a Non-profit with OpenCollective that sounds good to me, however I’d be thinking that’s @robbt and company’s choice right?
so AWS doesn’t require us to show legal non-profit status as a condition of donating server space?
I’m not sure if we qualify for free AWS since there is no formal organizational structure (yet?). I might be able to get a privately sponsored Azure subscription if that would be of interest. My main issue with it is that setting it up in a secure way will also need quite some engineering effort.
so my understanding from NedĹ› research is that getting a demo site up and running on AWS server with decent resources is going to require some non-profit paper pushing.
and @hairmare’s “quite some engineering effort” comment makes me not want to go the Azure route.
regardless of server/legal stuff, it makes sense to table this one:
"Someone will need to write a script to redeploy the Demo on a clean slate on a regular basis. It also could be a liability for the project if there are undiscovered security issues in LibreTime and/or giving people access to the server. Basically we would need someone to bottom line the deployment on AWS and write a script that wipes the server or simply deploys a fresh server and runs the install script and sets up the accounts etc. It’d also be helpful to have sample calendar and tracks and smartblocks etc.
I don’t think the demo site is a high priority until we have someone interested in being in charge of it. Maybe once we are at least considering the project beta and getting ready for a real release it would make more sense. "
If you are still looking for a place for a demosite, I am willing to host it. I am running 7 instances here already in lxc on a Proxmox server. And in front of those Libretime servers I use a NGinx reverse proxy.
I run this for my radiostation Pure Radio Holland and we have 7 channels. This a link to one of the LibreTimes. https://www.airtime.underground.pureradio.eu and I did a few changes to the install script myself to our needs.
Not to sound like a broken record of nostalgia, but I should point out that the way Nullsoft’s dev team promoted SHOUTcast technology was by having each of the team members run a stream, each of a different genre. Worked like a charm. This is how we ended up with classic streams like Tag’s Trance Trip and BlueMars which lasted for over a decade. They were so popular they formed their own independent fan bases which carry the torch to this day.
So, running a team-run radio station? I’m all for it. Let’s be scrappy and start with a simple 6 buck a month streaming server and scale up as needed. We wouldn’t need more than 25 concurrent listeners to start out. 64kbps dynamic bitrate OGG. We’d just bypass any bells and whistles they offered by using our own LibreTime server and shoot the mix up to the streamer as a relay.
The bandwidth for the LibreTime server would be so negligible that any of us could volunteer a personal machine for it to function. Hell, I’ll even offer mine. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.
We’d set up scheduled shows, each have a team member do a minimum 1-hour live show a week, and that way we can actually use this software in a collaborative environment, and open it up for guest spots from the broader community.
The Libretime Community Access Radio Server (Yes, that spells LCARS for you Star Trek fans out there.)
A LibreTime radio station sounds like a great idea, but probably would be in addition to a demo site? With regards to hosting, it looks like DigitalOcean provides server resources for similar OSS projects like AzuraCast https://www.azuracast.com/about/#friends-of-azuracast
Might be worth seeing if they’d sponsor LibreTime?
Either way, we should be able use https://opencollective.com/libretime to offset any hosting cost. Especially if LibreTime radio provides opportunities to credit sponsors and backers!
I’m feeling that a community radio station is worthy of its own thread, even though it’s related to demonstrating the technology. If this really becomes a thing, it would probably warrant a dedicated forum topic.
I’m in total agreement when it comes to having a sandbox demo installed for random users to poke around with. Such a thing would really need an icecast server connected to it, but I’m reckoning it should be restricted in time and listener count. I can already imagine how it could be abused.