elRepo.io - Resilient, distributed content sharing
Resilient, human-centered, distributed content sharing and discovery.
In this project AlterMundi and NetHood collaborate to develop a critical missing part in decentralized and distributed p2p systems: content search. More specifically, this project will implement advanced search for elRepo.io, the self-hosted and distributed culturesharing platform currently under active development by AlterMundi and partners. Search functionalities will expand on the already proven coupling of thelibxapian searching and indexing library and turtle routing. The distributed search functionality will be implemented to be flexible and modular. It will become the meeting point of three complementary threads of on-going work: Libre technology and tools for building Community Networks (LibreRouter & LibreMesh), fully decentralized, secure and anonymous Friend2Friend software (Retroshare), and a transdisciplinary participatory methodology for local applications in Community Networks (netCommons).
- The project's own website: https://elrepo.io/
Why does this actually matter to end users?
Culture is the glue that ties global and local communities together. The words people use, food they share and songs they sing makes up a collective language that says 'this is who we are, this is what our culture means to us'. To satisfy this very human need, communities need some common infrastructure that brings its members together in a space where they can share their culture, without any (commercial or governmental) interference. Internet technology can help create such a public space, a digital commons, through networks that communities host themselves and use to share their culture among peers.
elRepo.io can help communities everywhere build their own networked home where they can safely store and share audio, video, text and other file formats. The network is resistant to any form of central censorship and can even be used when internet connectivity is down, as content is stored and can be exchanged locally. To make such networks become more relevant to, for example new members of a community, this project will add a content search function to the existing distributed peer-to-peer platform.
Run by NetHood + AlterMundi
This project was funded through the NGI0 Discovery Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 825322.
