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

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)

Comments

Why do kickstarter funders fall for this?

[frovingslosh]

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?

Re:Why do kickstarter funders fall for this?

[griffey]

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.

Re:I like PirateBox better

[griffey]

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.