About GNU MediaGoblin

What is GNU MediaGoblin?

In 2008, a number of free software developers and activists gathered at the FSF to attempt to answer the question “What should software freedom look like on the participatory web?” Their answer, the Franklin Street Statement has lead to the development of autonomo.us community, and free software projects including Identi.ca and Libre.fm.

Identi.ca and Libre.fm address the need for micro-blogging and music sharing services and software that respect users’ freedom and autonomy.

GNU MediaGoblin emerges from this milieu to create a platform for us to share photos, video and other media in an environment that respects our freedom and independence. In the future MediaGoblin will provide tools to facilitate collaboration on media projects.

Why Build GNU MediaGoblin?

The Internet is designed—and works best—as a complex and endlessly resilient network. When key services and media outlets are concentrated in centralized platforms, the network becomes less useful and increasingly fragile. As always, the proprietary nature of these systems, hinders users ability to develop, extend, and understand their software; however, in the case of network services it also means that users must forfeit control of their data to the service providers.

Therefore, we believe that network services must be federated to avoid centralization and that everyone ought to have control over their data. In support of this, we’ve decided to help build the tools to make these kinds of services possible. We hope you’ll join us, both as users and as contributors.

Who Contributes to the Project?

You do!

We are free software activists and folks who have worked on a variety of other projects including: Libre.fm, GNU Social, Status.net, Miro, Miro Community, and OpenHatch among others. We’re programmers, musicians, writers, and painters. We’re friendly and dedicated to software and network freedom.

How Can I Participate?

See Get Involved on the website. We eagerly look forward to seeing you!

How is GNU MediaGoblin licensed?

GNU MediaGoblin software is released under an AGPLv3 license.

See the COPYING file in the root of the source for details.

Is MediaGoblin an official GNU project? What does that mean?

MediaGoblin is an official GNU project! This status means that we the meet the GNU Project’s rigorous standards for free software. To find out more about what that means, check out the GNU website.

Please feel free to contact us with further questions!