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Libre.fm fundamentals
- Libre.fm is an open source scrobbling service. Born as the GNU FM project, Libre.fm is no longer involved with the GNU Project on a daily basis and the underlying code rarely changes from the final release of GNU FM from a few years ago.
Any new code I write for Libre.fm is typically shared on the end-times-code repo.
The point of this repo is not to provide documentation for GNU FM installs, but rather only documentation for Libre.fm, the largest GNU FM installation I'm aware of.
If your app already supports Last.fm or other such services, you likely already support Libre.fm in some manner or can with a little coaxing.
| Libre.fm | Last.fm |
|---|---|
| turtle.libre.fm | post.audioscrobbler.com |
| libre.fm/2.0/ | ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/ |
Indeed, many Libre.fm users have historically been able to edit their /etc/hosts file and simply point 213.138.110.190 post.audioscrobbler.com and things have worked.
- gnukebox is the code for turtle.libre.fm
- nixtape is the code for libre.fm
(Both names are terrible and @johnsu01 has apologized to me in private for coming up with them when we needed a name at the time)
These need to be 32 characters in length. Get an API key at https://libre.fm/api-keys.php
If you're making a new client and you need a client code, please get in touch. If you already have one from elsewhere, let us know.
Libre.fm initially set out to provide streaming services for libre/free/openly licensed music. Sadly the people who were providing the music have vanished and streaming Ogg Vorbis in a browser has moved on now. I'd like to bring it back someday, but not a priority for now.
Nope. We don't want it, we don't accept it. Anything that looks like automated scraping is blocked.
What's blocked and what's not changes frequently. It is my policy to never block any legitimate user from submitting listens and so if that is happening please let me know. If you have an IP address I can add to the allowlist, that can be helpful.
Libre.fm is not closing.
I was considering closing it as the number of scrapers and other things bringing the site down was too much. Add to this the current situation I find myself in where I am job seeking and in less than fantastic health and you can perhaps understand my frustration.
Cloudflare allows me to mitigate most of that at this point. I am not a fan of Cloudflare's virtual monopoly status, but they are also the only thing keeping a small website like this online without the added burden of administering other systems which may or may not be able to help.
A waitlist is in place for new accounts. I open these up in batches of 20 in the order they're received. This allows me to onboard new users without being overwhelmed with lots of support requests, because I am the only person doing any of this stuff.
Hosting is graciously provided by Bytemark UK, with additional support from Corehost and The Internet Archive.
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Any and all requests for anything can be sent to support@libre.fm.