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LibraryBox is an Open Source Server That Runs on Low-Cost Hardware (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the share-thousands-of-books-no-matter-how-far-you-are-out-in-the-boonies dept.

The world is full of wireless servers -- or at least some of it is. There are still many places, including parts of the United States, where you can have all the laptops, smart phones, and other wireless-capable devices you want, but there's no server that caters to them. Enter LibraryBox. It's open source and it runs on a variety of low-cost, low-power hardware. The project's website calls it "portable private digital distribution."

A lot of people obviously like this project and wish it well. LibraryBox ran a Kickstarter campaign in 2013, hoping for $3000, and raised $33,119. But today's interviewee, Jason Griffey, can explain his project better than we can, so please watch the video (or read the transcript) if you want to learn more about LibraryBox -- including the story behind the project's name. (Alternate Video Link)

13 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Do we really need this? by iggymanz · · Score: 2

    Not really a file server distro, a wireless access point and router combination that intercepts any http/https request and sends it to a certain web server.

  2. Re:Do we really need this? by darkain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, a file server service running on top of OpenWRT with a HTTP capture portal? I remember doing this with a WRT54G way back in the day...

  3. Why do kickstarter funders fall for this? by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This guy got $33,119 from Kickstarter and now he is selling the "Starter Edition" for $150. The starter edition is, in a nutshell, a router that costs $31.24 on Amazon and a stinkin' 16 gig flash drive with some free books from Gutenberg.org on it. And he even wants to sell custom 3d printed boxes for $50 more and little stickers that say "Library Box" that he charges 5 bucks each for. Why do people feel compelled to fund such greed?

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:Why do kickstarter funders fall for this? by griffey · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's a particularly cynical way to look at it. :-) I have talked elsewhere about the budget for the Kickstarter, but something like 80% of the total went directly towards fulfilling the rewards, and almost 10% comes off the top for Kickstarter itself and Amazon for processing. Plus the 4% or so of backers that didn't pay, and you're getting a pretty narrow window of $$ here. If you think that people doing Kickstarters are getting rich, you've never done one yourself. The typical router that we use is $35 or so most days (varies a lot on Amazon), but you have to pay development somehow. Typical markup for commercial products is in the 300% range after you do production, then wholesale price, then retail...this is within that rough amount ($35 for router, $10 or so for USB, plus packaging and such). And that, of course, doesn't take into account actually paying anything at all for development time. All of which ignores the fact that, of course, it's an open source project that anyone can use and install at will. All of the code we've produced is available, for free, for anyone to modify and fork at will. Trust me, if you actually looked at the numbers, there is nothing happening here that isn't by the skin of our teeth.

  4. Re:Justify my love by Cley+Faye · · Score: 2

    You.... don't?

    This one is too hard to defend. Sometimes I've been really enthusiastic about small and/or useless stuff on crowdfunding sites and early access stuff, but this is simply overpriced off the shelve hardware with a sticker...

    Well, as long as there are people willing to send money to them, I suppose it's a "good" idea from a commercial point of view...

  5. I like PirateBox better by hot+soldering+iron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://piratebox.cc/

    It's open source, anonymous, keeps no records, and acts as an off-line file-sharing system. you can pack it in your lunchbox, or even smaller. You can have it sitting in the bottom of your backpack, and have everyone in the food court up/downloading *ANYTHING* without worrying about getting nailed by "The Man". I don't think that it would be that hard to have it securely wipe it's storage clean at shutdown or startup, so there is no evidence of anything being stored on it, in case of seizure. It's been out for over a year and runs on multiple platforms.

    --
    When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
    1. Re:I like PirateBox better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you look at the docs for the librarybox, you will notice that it is just a modified piratebox.

    2. Re:I like PirateBox better by griffey · · Score: 5, Informative

      As another poster noted, LibraryBox is a fork of Piratebox (done with the blessing of the Piratebox creator, for what its worth). In fact, the lead developer on both projects is the same person. The Kickstarter funding allowed us to create an entirely new installation process for LibraryBox, which was then backported to PirateBox after the fact. LibraryBox has also produced an internationalization process for the UI that's going to be ported back to Piratebox in a future release. We've freely shared code back and forth at this point. Why a fork in the first place? Because I wanted an anonymous sharing device that was more friendly for use in library and educational situations. Anonymous uploading isn't exactly a welcoming idea for sharing in those circumstances.

  6. Re:Justify my love by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2

    To clarify: I want to buy my own $35 hardware and install the downloadable firmware on it, not pay a 300% markup for someone else to do it for me. The project itself looks neat, not the commercial product itself.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  7. Re:We aren't the target audience... by grcumb · · Score: 2

    I see several post on here that talk about how we've been able to do this for quite some time now. I can think of several other devices that do the same thing as what this guy made.

    Yep, just like the Aptus Classroom Without Walls (sorry, PDF only - not my site) or any one of a dozen other attempts at this.

    I am right at this moment putting together the ground work to deliver tablets and computers to some of the most remote areas in the developing world, and we've been looking very carefully at this kind of stuff. Right now, we're leaning heavily toward just reappropriating the software and using better hardware. The big problem with this kind of server-in-a-dongle is that, although it's possible to make a cute knick-knack with a tiny processor, it doesn't handle a class of 40 children (and more) well at all.

    As far as this particular one is concerned: would it be too much to ask to see a listing of the content in this 'library'? I checked the site, and there's basically nothing.

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  8. Re:Do we really need this? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 2

    I doubt they have an iphone 6+, and they probably have a candybar nokia, but cheap androids are only getting cheaper and will be in more hands as they do, especially when you have whatever idealist kids going around handing them out.

    There's probably still a lot of the candybar phones still around, but it was the Huawei IDEOS 8150 that took on the laptop-killer role in sub Saharan Africa all the way back in 2011. They were a quiet revolution in that part of the world, with locally-developed apps for everything from agriculture to healthcare, from disaster response to business and more. This stand-alone WiFi library would be ideal for those areas.

    http://singularityhub.com/2011...

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  9. Re:Why? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

    Wouldn't an old android phone with an SD card running a web server be the same thing, pretty much for free? It seems like it would be a great use for all those old phones sitting in drawers. They're compact, low power and come equipped with touchscreen interfaces, powerful processors, wifi capable and SD card slots (most of them).

    Meet my old Galaxy S1. It also serves as a remote control for my router and my desktop.

    I'm pretty sure all the software I use on it for those things is available on G-Play, even. There's probably better/more secure stuff from alternative sources, but I am fortunate enough to live in a building whose inhabitants seem blissfully unaware that there's even a 5GHz band (since I appear to have it all to myself), so I'm not real worried about anybody leeching copies of old Green Acres shows or what have you.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  10. Bibliotecha by u27039008+ · · Score: 2
    If you a interested in this sort of projects, I recommend checking Bibliotecha for the RPi. Developed by students and enthusiasts interested in light electronic publication sharing infrastructures. It's all free software, humble and to the point:

    Bibliotecha is a framework to facilitate the local distribution of digital publications within a small community. It relies on a microcomputer running open-source software to serve books over a local wifi hotspot. Using the browser to connect to the library one can retrieve or donate texts. Bibliotecha proposes an alternative model of distribution of digital texts that allows specific communities to form and share their own collections.

    http://bibliotecha.info/