We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun.
Libre.fm registration is reopening after two years. It may look like nothing on the Hacienda project has happened, and that's partly true. Let me explain where we're at.
I'll start by telling you why I closed it.
Libre.fm is pretty much one person at this point. That's not a problem. I have lots of people who want to help work on the codebase (get in touch if you want to help too!), but ultimately support falls on me (Dr. Matt Lee, aka mattl) -- some people are very cool about this, others are not. One person was very, very uncool about it. That person forced me to shut registration because they were so utterly persistent, despite running their own broken email server.
In the next few months I want to retire the existing Libre.fm website, but won't be doing that just yet.
- Instead, I will replace the code https://turtle.libre.fm/ with updated PHP code that works on a modern PHP version. See https://github.com/foocorp/hacienda/issues/32 for details on that as I start work on that component.
Once that is complete, I will be building the new authentication system for Libre.fm. This will let you have a single account, multiple sub-accounts, handle reset passwords, username changes, export data, etc. This will also support (and favor) IndieAuth.
Libre.fm will move to the new authentication system as soon as its ready.
See https://github.com/foocorp/hacienda/issues/13 for details on that as I start work on that component.
Next steps
I want you to have a personal website and have your listening habits on your own website, not my website. But I know some people won't want that, which is fine but Libre.fm is effectively a silo (other than Last.fm which it talks to, although federation with other instances has been possible for a long time) and has over 372,000 registered users and 302 million scrobbles.
- Some new features will only work if you're publishing your Libre.fm stats on your own website.
A new version of Libre.fm's front end will appear later, powered by Ruby on Rails.
We're also going to put our full attention to supporting ActivityPub where possible.
Libre.fm will evolve from a single project into a larger project with a few distinct aims:
- Being a good IndieWeb citizen.
- Being a genuinely useful tool for artists (payments!)
- Being a good member on the social web, which means supporting ActivityPub where it is useful. Maybe you could share what you're listening to on the social web?
(For those of you who've used Libre.fm since 2009, you'll remember the GNU social project we started back at the start of Libre.fm (or GNU FM). Personally I hope you also remember our roots in the history of the social web. GNU social continues to this day, but I'm no longer involved and no longer using the software. Happily, GNU social now supports ActivityPub so things are coming full circle.)
What you can do today
- Get a personal website.
- Get an account on the social web and follow me!
- Read https://bored.city and send me feedback.
- Donate to keep the lights on. https://libre.fm/donate.php -- our expenses are low, but a few dollars here and there helps buy new domain names, renew things, pay for the outgoing email service, etc.
I have https://mat.tl/ and you can have your own domain name too! I've been using http://porkbun.com for domain name registration. If you're stuck thinking of a name, check out Ernie Smith's Dumb Domain Store -- https://dumbdomain.store
Another way you can do this easily today is signing up with https://omg.lol for $20 a year and supporting Adam and all the amazing work he's doing. (I'm using omg.lol to update mat.tl!) -- this will also get you a social web account on https://social.lol -- but there are lots of places you can get social web accounts, https://joinmastodon.org/servers has a good list and I've been using https://social.coop for the last year or so.
Another way is to use https://micro.blog -- also a big fan of their service, which gives you a blog, website, social web presence and more.
Hook up your own domain name and both omg.lol and micro.blog are awesome services.
If you need help with any of this, email me or join the IndieWeb chat.
What's all this talk of being bored in cities?
I see Ivan Chtcheglov's Formulary for a New Urbanism as a great story for the failures of the past twenty years. I am personally burnt out by that era but find great energy in the IndieWeb and the social web movements. Proprietary social media is dead or dying. The social web is the future.
The poetry of the billboards lasted twenty years.
And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. That's all over. You'll never see the hacienda. It doesn't exist.
The hacienda must be built.