My users are being told to purchase something

[jaybroni 4]

Is this open source or shareware?

I'm saying it's off putting to create a Linux server with the open source philosophy in mind, and setup a nice media organizer that I think is open source, then get bombarded with "upgrade to premium" popups. Finally, once I confirm it suits my needs, I donate $100 to support the project for a lifetime and generally support open source software. I then find out that my users themselves continue to get the same messages.

 

And the example that my users may need help on the emby forums is terrible. First of all, you can adopt the Ubuntu model where the software is free but the support costs money. Second, the support level on the forums is not high enough quality to call it paid for. The first thing people hear when they complain of slow response to questions is: "hey we're just volunteers man" so you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say the forum support is why we need to charge money to your server's users. And thirdly, we both know the forum users are the server admins. Grandma has not and never will register on the emby forums to ask her technical support question. She will contact the person who set her up, the grandson who gave her a link and told her to try it to see the family videos.

 

If you tell me it costs money to list Emby on the apple store fine. A solution to that is charging $1.99 right on the app store. People expect that. Get rid of the popups to buy premium and the popups to users outside the home. If you stopped at one popup, I'd honestly not have an issue with it. It's that they keep appearing until the donation is made that turns it into nagware, which is a tactic of shareware.

[ebr 14910]

 

 

The first thing people hear when they complain of slow response to questions is: "hey we're just volunteers man" 

 

Where have you seen that in the last year?

[ice pube 20]

 

Second, the support level on the forums is not high enough quality to call it paid for. 

In my opinion - I believe that the primary emby devs (luke and ebr) and infinitely more communicative and open about emby than the most direct competitor - Plex. Trying to get support via the plex forums (the only support available) is like pulling teeth. Multiple issues I have posted never were responded to and left to rot. Great support from a paid product. 

 

Emby isn't perfect, but at least there is an effort made to be open and up front with people. 

 

Apologies if this is a tangent. 

[jaybroni 4]

In my opinion - I believe that the primary emby devs (luke and ebr) and infinitely more communicative and open about emby than the most direct competitor - Plex. Trying to get support via the plex forums (the only support available) is like pulling teeth. Multiple issues I have posted never were responded to and left to rot. Great support from a paid product. 

 

Emby isn't perfect, but at least there is an effort made to be open and up front with people. 

 

Apologies if this is a tangent. 

I agree with your sentiments of appreciation for the support team. Well said in fact.

 

The reason I bought a premium membership is because I appreciate the overall product including the support team. I merely intended to state that, solicitations of premium members or their guests isn't justified by the quality of support, or any other reason. 

 

At the end of the day, I like to think the best way to show appreciation for a project is to donate money and provide constructive feedback. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by jaybroni

[disillusioned 0]

The Egotistical rantings of the Admins and the members in this post and others like it regarding the way Emby has become a get rich quick scheme by the Emby staff.

 Supported by a number of member, has already lost you a number of supporters.
And it has lost you this supporter also, as it will over time lose you a lot more.

 

Sorry to say, but you will not get rich from me.

 

Disillusioned

[Luke 37056]

The Egotistical rantings of the Admins and the members in this post and others like it regarding the way Emby has become a get rich quick scheme by the Emby staff.

 Supported by a number of member, has already lost you a number of supporters.

And it has lost you this supporter also, as it will over time lose you a lot more.

 

Sorry to say, but you will not get rich from me.

 

Disillusioned

 

Hi, have you actually experienced a problem? Because we went and made changes in response to the feedback from this topic.

[kandolhu 3]

@@ebr I'm also facing the same issue. I paid for lifetime. I use this in my office for a small group of people. I don't like when our colleagues have to pay for it, besides they don't even have their icloud accounts connected to their bank accounts. On the other hand, I'm willing to buy for them. Is there any payment method that I can do to get 30-40 users? And today when someone tried to use the app it gave this message "your emby premiere device limit has been exceeded....".. I dont want my colleagues to pay for anything, like i said, I'm willing to pay something and enable them from using the app. Anyone can help?

[ebr 14910]

@@ebr I'm also facing the same issue. I paid for lifetime. I use this in my office for a small group of people. I don't like when our colleagues have to pay for it, besides they don't even have their icloud accounts connected to their bank accounts. On the other hand, I'm willing to buy for them. Is there any payment method that I can do to get 30-40 users? And today when someone tried to use the app it gave this message "your emby premiere device limit has been exceeded....".. I dont want my colleagues to pay for anything, like i said, I'm willing to pay something and enable them from using the app. Anyone can help?

 

Hi.  Have you seen our new extended device options?  Click the link on the Emby Premiere page.

 

Thanks!

[kandolhu 3]

Thanks for the link. I didn't know it existed. Really appreciate it. Is there a way to pay one time for a particular number of devices? If someone no longer uses one device how can I remove that device and let a new device join?

[ebr 14910]

Thanks for the link. I didn't know it existed. Really appreciate it. Is there a way to pay one time for a particular number of devices? If someone no longer uses one device how can I remove that device and let a new device join?

 

There is no lifetime option for extended device plans.  The devices are managed automatically.  Basically, you will need a license that covers the number of Premiere devices that will use your server over a couple week period.  Thanks.

[kandolhu 3]

I bought my lifetime license like a month ago for $99.99. How do I upgrade this to add a few more devices? How do I remove some devices? Some people who used to use emby are no longer around.

[ebr 14910]

I bought my lifetime license like a month ago for $99.99. How do I upgrade this to add a few more devices?

 

Please see the link I posted above: https://emby.media/premiere-ext.html

 

 

How do I remove some devices? Some people who used to use emby are no longer around.

 

The devices are managed automatically.  Basically, you will need a license that covers the number of Premiere devices that will use your server over a couple week period.  Thanks.

[Protektor 12]

Interesting that things are being removed that were once Open Source GPL v2 when there are listed 120 people who contributed code and I am curious if all 120 people were asked if the license could be changed for all the code they submitted. Please don't tell me only a few people developed it when clearly at least 120 contributed code not including those who contributed before it was posted to GitHub.

 

I find it interesting that the project wanted all the advantages of leveraging the community to build the project as an Open Source GPL v2 but now they have decided it is time to try and profit off it and started removing things that were free before under the GPL. I'm talking about the Android clients, were once freely released source code, same for iOS because I have copies of the code and there is clearly a GPL v2 license included with the code.

 

I have worked on Open Source projects for the last 10-15 years contributing my time, code and money so please don't lecture me about the costs of developing things because they are specifically Open Source to leverage the community so one person isn't doing all the coding and so that once Open Source someone can't slam the code shut and try to say it is proprietary and then try to make money off the community work.

 

I moved from Plex to Emby specifically because it was Open Source despite it not being as stable or feature rich as Plex. I've had the web interface for Emby only load the libraries and not show what TV shows are next or what the latest uploads are for each library. I have had it mis-identify lots of music and movies and had to spend a lot of time correcting that. As an example I specifically tagged Belly - Star and it shows a picture of some rapper for the artist even though the album was tagged with Piccard MusicBrainz with the correct artist. Emby doesn't show any picture for "38 Special" but managed to find a picture for AWOLNation. Which doesn't make any sense that it finds a picture for an offbeat artist but not a very common and well known band. It also didn't find a picture for 30 Seconds from Mars or Toad The Wet Sprocket or Toto either. It has problems looking up movie titles as well. I can tell it to search for a movie using the exact string it has for a movie title and it finds it but somehow searching on it's own couldn't find it. The reports show zero TV shows for a TV show, but how could it even exist in the database if there are no shows, but you look in the web interface and it shows the complete run of the TV series. It isn't just one TV show that this happens.

 

Again none of these are deal breakers and I could probably fix them but I'm less inclined to bother if the software isn't Open Source especially since it has been proven that code that was once Open Source was yanked back and claimed to be proprietary. That's a violation of the spirit of Open Source and probably a violation of the GPL license.

 

I was considering taking on the eBook part of Emby but given that isn't really Open Source and that any code I contribute could end up being yanked back and put under the pay license makes me less inclined to bother given that I prefer to donate my time and code to Open Source projects.

[im85288 1493]

Interesting that things are being removed that were once Open Source GPL v2 when there are listed 120 people who contributed code and I am curious if all 120 people were asked if the license could be changed for all the code they submitted. Please don't tell me only a few people developed it when clearly at least 120 contributed code not including those who contributed before it was posted to GitHub.

 

I find it interesting that the project wanted all the advantages of leveraging the community to build the project as an Open Source GPL v2 but now they have decided it is time to try and profit off it and started removing things that were free before under the GPL. I'm talking about the Android clients, were once freely released source code, same for iOS because I have copies of the code and there is clearly a GPL v2 license included with the code.

 

I have worked on Open Source projects for the last 10-15 years contributing my time, code and money so please don't lecture me about the costs of developing things because they are specifically Open Source to leverage the community so one person isn't doing all the coding and so that once Open Source someone can't slam the code shut and try to say it is proprietary and then try to make money off the community work.

 

I moved from Plex to Emby specifically because it was Open Source despite it not being as stable or feature rich as Plex. I've had the web interface for Emby only load the libraries and not show what TV shows are next or what the latest uploads are for each library. I have had it mis-identify lots of music and movies and had to spend a lot of time correcting that. As an example I specifically tagged Belly - Star and it shows a picture of some rapper for the artist even though the album was tagged with Piccard MusicBrainz with the correct artist. Emby doesn't show any picture for "38 Special" but managed to find a picture for AWOLNation. Which doesn't make any sense that it finds a picture for an offbeat artist but not a very common and well known band. It also didn't find a picture for 30 Seconds from Mars or Toad The Wet Sprocket or Toto either. It has problems looking up movie titles as well. I can tell it to search for a movie using the exact string it has for a movie title and it finds it but somehow searching on it's own couldn't find it. The reports show zero TV shows for a TV show, but how could it even exist in the database if there are no shows, but you look in the web interface and it shows the complete run of the TV series. It isn't just one TV show that this happens.

 

Again none of these are deal breakers and I could probably fix them but I'm less inclined to bother if the software isn't Open Source especially since it has been proven that code that was once Open Source was yanked back and claimed to be proprietary. That's a violation of the spirit of Open Source and probably a violation of the GPL license.

 

I was considering taking on the eBook part of Emby but given that isn't really Open Source and that any code I contribute could end up being yanked back and put under the pay license makes me less inclined to bother given that I prefer to donate my time and code to Open Source projects.

 

Nicely said, as someone who contributed in the past here and helped bring in a lot of new comers with the development of the emby for kodi addon (and it's predecessors) you make some valid points. However I can guarantee you your wasting your time with the post.