Libravatar is a free/libre/open-source replacement for the Gravatar service. It is designed to be easy for existing sites to switch to it from Gravatar: its API is identical to Gravatar's, and it will actually use Gravatar if it cannot find an image in its own database.

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jdea’s picture

jdea CreditAttribution: jdea commented
Issue tags: +libravatar

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Gravatar be completely eliminated from this module, only that site administrators be given the option of choosing between Gravatar and Libravatar.

jdea’s picture

jdea CreditAttribution: jdea commented

Ok, I hadn't noticed that this module allows admins to specify custom Gravatar URLs. All one has to do is put in libravatar.org instead of gravatar.com. Maybe include a list somewhere of known alternative URLS such as Libravatar?

Narno’s picture

Narno CreditAttribution: Narno commented

Interesting suggestion: do you know where we can find documentation for this service (protocols and more)? And if a release date for the stable version was announced?

Thank you jdea.

fmarier’s picture

fmarier CreditAttribution: fmarier commented

In terms of documentation, there's nothing written yet (it's definitely on my list of things to do very soon though) but for the basic centralised mode, it's pretty much just using the main Gravatar API:

http://en.gravatar.com/site/implement/hash/
http://en.gravatar.com/site/implement/images/

The main thing that isn't implemented yet in the simple Gravatar API is some of the special values for the "d" parameter:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/libravatar/+bug/710395

As for the release date for the stable version, I'm currently looking working on a scheme to have mirrors for serving the images. The service itself is fairly stable but of course it won't scale massively, bandwidth-wise, unless a few mirrors are available to spread the load. Feel free to get in touch with me if you want to volunteer a server with a little bit of disk space :)

Dave Reid’s picture

Dave Reid
he/him
Primary language English
Location Nebraska USA
CreditAttribution: Dave Reid commented

/me waves at fmarier. Watched the LCA2011 video introducing the service and it sounds really intriguing. I've thought Gravatar lacked behind on not accepting different hashes and not really being an open service so glad to see open innovation happening.

fmarier’s picture

fmarier CreditAttribution: fmarier commented

There is now a bit of documentation about Libravatar here: http://www.libravatar.org/api

Narno’s picture

Narno CreditAttribution: Narno commented
Assigned: Unassigned » Narno

I'm testing Libravatar on my blog: http://narno.com/blog/mon-module-gravatar-pour-drupal#comments

It works fine and it's simple to switch on Libravatar: just replace URL in advanced option of Gravatar's configuration.

Someone else tested? :-)

lightweight’s picture

lightweight CreditAttribution: lightweight commented

I've used it in the past and it worked fine for me (/me also waves at fmarier :)) The important thing is to include the trailing "/" in the URL, e.g. replace http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ with http://cdn.libravatar.org/avatar/ and similar for the HTTPS option.

anarcat’s picture

anarcat CreditAttribution: anarcat commented

So is this just a configuration issue? Maybe we need to just update the project description and readme for people to change that setting...

Or do we want to implement the SRV DNS lookups here?

Narno’s picture

Narno CreditAttribution: Narno commented
Component: Code » Documentation
Priority: Normal » Minor

So is this just a configuration issue? Maybe we need to just update the project description and readme for people to change that setting...

Yes, I will update documentation.

fmarier’s picture

fmarier CreditAttribution: fmarier commented

If you want to have full support for Libravatar (including DNS-based federation), it does involve code changes but you can bundle this handy PHP library to do it all for you:

https://gitorious.org/services_libravatar

Narno’s picture

Narno CreditAttribution: Narno commented

@fmarier thank you for sharing!

I don't think it's appropriate to extend Libravatar usability via Gravatar module: I will just add documentation to indicate how to change the module configuration to make it compatible with Libravatar.

In my opinion, a further implementation should be done via a dedicated module. Probably through API User picture.

cweiske’s picture

cweiske CreditAttribution: cweiske commented

PEAR has a nice PHP library now that can be utilized: http://pear.php.net/package/Services_Libravatar/