Why not allow users to specify a custom URL for their avatar? Most forum applications allow this by using a custom URL or allowing users to upload images directly. If you want to look at a decentralized, open source option there is spee.ch which works with the Lbry network.

I have some security-related concerns about linking to random, user-provided
places on the internet.

Maybe we can just take over libravatar, seems like @bex is also considering this:
https://wiki.libravatar.org/shutdown-coordination/

Maybe we can just take over libravatar, seems like @bex is also considering this:
https://wiki.libravatar.org/shutdown-coordination/

To clarify, I am not suggesting we do this. I was trying to get the data required to even consider a decision.

I don't know that we have enough people to do this on our own. An open/inclusive solution might be to have interested parties contact the folks who have also expressed interest on that wiki.

We can also talk to OSAS @ RH about providing the hosting in the community cage if there is interest. I can't promise they can do it, but they may have the capacity.

Possibly related to #970

I think allowing direct uploads with something backed by object storage service would be a good option. I've done this on a forum I used to host and never had any issues with security. Sanitizing the data would need to be done as part of the upload process of course. There are PHP libraries to work with S3 and I'm sure there's something for python as well.

Perhaps this is something the Fedora Project could host?

@pingou Have you considered hosting your own instance of libravatar? The Fedora Project could easily host their own server to serve avatars for Fedora projects. Instructions for running your own are located at https://wiki.libravatar.org/running_your_own

@pingou Have you considered hosting your own instance of libravatar? The Fedora Project could easily host their own server to serve avatars for Fedora projects. Instructions for running your own are located at https://wiki.libravatar.org/running_your_own

I think the challenge is less around hosting than around folks able to commit to ongoing maintenance of the service. It'd be great if we saw a SIG or similar group formed around this idea that could supply sufficient people power to keep it maintained and running.

libravatar shuts down in 6 weeks.
A small discussion was going on at https://www.spinics.net/linux/fedora/fedora-infrastructure/index.html#21187 , the consensus seems to be that Fedora Infra doesn't want to host an Avatar server. COPR has already switched to gravatar instead.

Since that time, clime has been working on the codebase and has joined forces with another user working on it and they have something ready to deploy to openshift:

See
https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/issue/6875

for details. So, it might be that we will have an instance up before the sunset...

Yes, we are working on this with Oliver Falk. Copr actually didn't switch. We plan to keep using libravatar.

Either with our own Fedora instance or with the upstream server, libravatar is not going away:
https://blog.libravatar.org/posts/Libravatar.org_is_not_going_away/

this is totally related to #970 IMHO - as discussed back then, pagure already allows file uploads - very little new would need to be implemented to make this work - if fedora wants to host an avatar service that fine but there is now and never was any need for the 3rd-party avatar dependency nor any fancy CMS - these are teeny-tiny small static files - no problemo - as pingou noted it was just a very low priority then

@karsten wrote…
Either with our own Fedora instance or with the upstream server, libravatar is not going away:
https://blog.libravatar.org/posts/Libravatar.org_is_not_going_away/

Given that Libravatar.org isn't going away, I would guess this ticket could be closed and related discussion could move to #970.

Agreed, let's close