
Photo rights attributed to: jm3 on Flickr
First, we should apologise for our rather long radio silence. Both Arin and I have been extremely busy and have therefore not been able to give OpenIndie as much attention as we would like. While we have continued to answer support requests and help our existing filmmakers with their use of OpenIndie we have not made the progress we wanted to. It can be extremely hard balancing a passion project such as this with paying the bills and making films.
That said, we are very excited to announce the next step in the OpenIndie road map- the release of OpenIndie as an open source self-hosted platform.
What does this mean?
Philosophically it means the technology will now embody the same principals that OpenIndie promotions in the field of film distribution. We believe the safest place for our code is in the hands of the community for which it was created. Our open approach to film means you let your audience distribute your work. In turn our open approach to technology will now mean that anyone can run our software on their own hosting platform, enhance it and steer the innovation far beyond what we could ever imagine.
This choice also means that OpenIndie is no longer restricted by the limitations of its founders. Time and money are huge controlling factors in the creation of a platform of this kind. As an open source project OpenIndie will benefit from the contribution of any developer who wishes to spend time extending what we have built. In short, releasing the source code means more flexibility for all.
Some of the benefits of OpenIndie going Open source:
1. Instead of paying monthly or yearly fees, a filmmaker will be able to run OpenIndie for themselves. Anyone will be able to download the source, deploy it on their own server or shared hosting and theme OpenIndie to blend in with their website.
2. Filmmakers will have “ownership” over their data. All data will be stored locally to each instance of OpenIndie, however, filmmakers will also have the option to push their data back to a new searchable hub on OpenIndie.org. This, we hope, will allow for a distributed network of filmmakers and micro-studios all discoverable through an open central site.
Note: OpenIndie.com will continue as a hosted solution for filmmakers who are not confident hosting their own version of the platform. This service will be available for either a monthly or annual fee. For those aux fait with Wordpress think .org vs. .com
3. Movie theaters and film festivals with OpenIndie installs will be able to host profiles of films that would may not otherwise have hosted OpenIndie accounts.
4. The look and feel of the user experience can be adjusted by anyone with basic knowledge of CSS and HTML.
5. The project can be forked and new versions of the software can be created. A developer may take our code and adapt it for bands, public speakers, or any touring professional. The sky is the limit. If you can think of a way to transform OpenIndie, a programmer can take the OpenIndie code and make it possible.
So how do we get from here to open?
We don’t want to simply release the source code that’s currently running on our servers. We want to make it simple for anyone to install OpenIndie and get up and running in a few easy steps. This will take time and we hope to gain the help of a group of developers and designers to shape OpenIndie into something easy to deploy on any standard hosting package.
We are currently looking to work with:
1 x Developer
Ruby on Rails experience ideal but good knowledge of PHP, Python, Scala or any other language / frameworks and a desire to learn Ruby and Rails would do. An understanding of geolocation and frontend technologies such as HTML, CSS and jQuery would be desirable.
1 x Frontend Developer
HTML, CSS, jQuery and a passion for creating standards compliant semantic markup a must.
1 x Designer
Solid portfolio of web design work, an understanding of good user interface design and frontend skills such as HTML and CSS are a bonus.
1 x Copy writer
We need a kick ass copy writer with experience working with user interfaces and the web to give OpenIndie a unique voice.
Those who commit to helping us make the open source project a reality will join OpenIndie Developer Kieran Masterton in becoming part of the core committing team once the project is released and will help steer the direction of OpenIndie.org in the future.
If you’re interested in more details about how to work with us or would like to get involved please feel free to send your résumé or portfolio to kieran [AT] openindie [DOT] com. Developers- we’d love to see a github profile link.
We’re really excited about this development and are confident it will provide the best outcome for the community and OpenIndie.