Chyron 221 Posted December 17, 2018 Share Posted December 17, 2018 (edited) Apparently, with Emby Server v3.6, the software is moving forward with various aspects of the core server software becoming closed-source. The Emby devs say the reasoning for this is at least in part because they are implementing aspects of the software that are costing them money to develop or maintain. In response, there are people asking for refunds, and other people starting a project to create another open-source fork... And I'm sitting here thinking... why? Why does it matter? Open-source is not automatically better. And the fork not having features that facilitate the need for the devs to implement a pricing model like Premiere or some such just means those features won't exist. It doesn't make the forked software better for not having them. I don't see why, for a company who is developing a software package, to maintain some level of control over their codebase is worthy of demanding a refund. If you like the software, use it; if you don't, then don't. Edited December 17, 2018 by chyron8472 26 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madic 13 Posted December 17, 2018 Share Posted December 17, 2018 Just logged in to "like" that post. I also don't understand the problem. Emby is a great software and does a good job 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdiesel 1113 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 People just like to attach themselves to a cause. I'm willing to bet the loudest critics of Emby going closed source have never modified a line of its code or performed an audit of its code for security purposes. They are hoping someone does it for them, at zero cost to themselves. Let's not beat around the bush, the majority of people complaining about this were using a forked version that bypassed Emby's licensing authentication. They are mad that they will no longer get Emby for "free". You need to ask yourself if Emby has value to you and if it is worth paying for. Does it being open or closed source affect how you use the software or how if performs for you? Do you feel development and support of the software justifies some financial compensation to the developers? Make your own decision and don't fall victim to the hive mind. 15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chef 3745 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) People just like to attach themselves to a cause. I'm willing to bet the loudest critics of Emby going closed source have never modified a line of its code or performed an audit of its code for security purposes. They are hoping someone does it for them, at zero cost to themselves. Let's not beat around the bush, the majority of people complaining about this were using a forked version that bypassed Emby's licensing authentication. They are mad that they will no longer get Emby for "free". You need to ask yourself if Emby has value to you and if it is worth paying for. Does it being open or closed source affect how you use the software or how if performs for you? Do you feel development and support of the software justifies some financial compensation to the developers? Make your own decision and don't fall victim to the hive mind. Agreed. And if people want to read the core code they should because there is some beautiful (and I mean B-E-A-Utiful) uses of dependacy injection, .net core, javascript, and man oh man the way it all works together with javascript object notation, and extensible markup is wonderful. It's worth a read while you can because you'll most likely learn a heap of code and code styles. It's kindnof like a beautiful piece of art... Really. That is if you can appreciate the art of code. I'm glad we can write plugins. Edited December 18, 2018 by chef 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1917 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) To 1% of the world open source matters. Open source allows people to find exploits. They can then choose to exploit users of said software, or tell the software developer where they made a mistake. If I were to say one way is insecure I would say open source is more insecure. Everyone can see how you do anything and break your code. If they can't see your code they have to run attacks against it and find the weak point. It takes more time to find a way into a closed source system because you have to brute force your way in. The other thing is @@chef is right. The code is actually quite elegant in how it is so concise. It is almost like poetry where you have short verses. I think of code like a song. The better you are at writing code it shows. Other coders can hear that symphony. I agree most of the codebase you can feel the effort that went into keeping it clean. I think @@Luke sometimes is a robot. He bleeds for Emby. This passion is something you keep whether the source is closed, open, copyleft.. who cares.. In the end really you want something that you can know won't break and will keep getting better. Emby is that. The other fork is something that will always be worse. It will always be in the shadow of Emby where the "everything should be f'ing free" crowd is. That "everything should be f'ing free" crowd expects everything free. This is why they have so much attention because free helps sell a product. They will never get monetization in that effort as it is everyone out to get something free. Not to contribute or help. They get the lowest common denominator of the users and coders to help. The ones who hack others code to remove restrictions and basically get something for nothing. They welcome with open arms that type. It isn't a community. It is a band of thieves. They know it too... There is no honor among thieves. Edited December 18, 2018 by speechles 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathsquirrel 741 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 I personally couldn't care less but I don't mind that to some this is important. I just recognize it's a VERY small number of people and most of them weren't paying customers. I don't expect the fork to go anywhere and as an active Reddit denizen, have said so. The amount of work that goes into this product just doesn't make sense in the model that team is pursuing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasonmcroy 315 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) Yeah, I saw the redditt post on the Emby forum the other day and realized that I didn't have any idea Emby was going closed source and I really don't give a damn if they do or not. What some of those guys are doing per that post seems really creepy to me and I would never bother to use what they are (I would say "creating" here, but they didn't create it did they?). It kind of pisses me off to be honest. Anyway, even though I am a Premier member I am going to sign up for at least one if not a few monthly payments to Emby. Especially since @@Luke just introduced Gracenote directly as a source for the EPG and now I don't have to pay the Schedule's Direct fee. Plus @@ebr just introduced the re-designed UI for the Shield App which I have fallen in love with. Thanks you guys for all you do and have done with this software! EDIT: Ha! I just went to the subscription page and just signed up for a year subscription instead of a month. Merry Christmas! Edited December 18, 2018 by jasonmcroy 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstewiegreen 147 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Open source allows people to find exploits. I browsed the github page of the new fork that is getting a lot of attention on reddit and the only "contribution" the (2) "developers" have made to emby is that one of them made a way to bypass emby's paywall and if their github profiles are any indication neither of them has much (or any?) experience with C#. Their indignation has nothing to do with closed/open source but because they want it for free. I expect that their inexperience will make for a poor media server. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilhelmStroker 96 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 the other thing that they likely widely underestimate is support for their end users. One of my main reasons when I switched to Emby was the support that Luke and ebr give, and their responsiveness to feature requests etc. Also, how are the guys behind this new fork going to handle the clients as those have been closed source for a while. Are they going to write them from scratch? And the `open source allows people to find exploits' argument is all well and good until you look at things like the Heartbleed bug that was around for years.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlGaInTl 279 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 If you are a supporter of FOSS I don't see any problem being upset that a product is moving to closed source. I also don't see that being a true FOSS supporter means that you submit commits to the code either. Some people support FOSS just for the ideals that it represents, and that is fine. By the same respect, I understand when a project needs to move from FOSS to closed source. "Free as in Beer" is great until the party gets too big. I think that is where where Emby is at right now. The party has gotten big... the cost of Beer is significant. I'm a supporter of both sides of the coin. I'll continue to support Emby in closed source so long as it remains true to it's roots. Providing one of the best media experiences, whill still allowing a certain amount of user freedom. As long as I can run my server my way, and log in remotely without having to go through some additional hoops or portal, I'll be happy. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstewiegreen 147 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) Also, how are the guys behind this new fork going to handle the clients as those have been closed source for a while. Are they going to write them from scratch? From what I understand after reading their reddit page is that 'their' server is installed over the emby server and then the emby clients are used with the "new" server. edit: they said this will buy them time till they can write their own clients Edited December 18, 2018 by adamstewiegreen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1917 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) Unfortunately this is a teaching moment. Lets see what they learn from it. Times up. Edited December 19, 2018 by speechles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlGaInTl 279 Posted December 19, 2018 Share Posted December 19, 2018 Unfortunately this is a teaching moment. Lets see what they learn from it. Times up. Time's up? They have a right to fork if they want to... that's the nature of the GPL. But I was also reading that they plan on continuing to use the Emby proprietary apps, hoping that it will keep working until they can develop their own. That doesn't seem prudent. But you know... what can that take? a few days? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1917 Posted December 19, 2018 Share Posted December 19, 2018 (edited) I meant more the fact that they are using an outdated Roku app code that will die in Jan 2019. This is the time that is up. School is now in session. This is a teachable moment. Now they learn to swim......or sink...to the bottom. Circus side-show. The only way to fix it is to flush it all away. Edited December 19, 2018 by speechles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perplexed 25 Posted December 19, 2018 Share Posted December 19, 2018 So far they seem to lack any vision or future plans other than "it's free"... they even said it, quote "Clearly, the community has spoken: you want a Free Software, quality alternative to Emby. And we hope to deliver that." While that is a lofty goal, it's also not sustainable in the long run. Man cannot live from air alone... there's got to be bread on the table too. To create quality software takes a lot of time and effort... and unless these people are retired, old fogies wanting to dabble in a little project to keep the brain from getting rusty, Jellyfin can by default never develop into anything more than a little hobby project on the side - with the quality to reflect that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAlGaInTl 279 Posted December 19, 2018 Share Posted December 19, 2018 So far they seem to lack any vision or future plans other than "it's free"... they even said it, quote "Clearly, the community has spoken: you want a Free Software, quality alternative to Emby. And we hope to deliver that." While that is a lofty goal, it's also not sustainable in the long run. Man cannot live from air alone... there's got to be bread on the table too. To create quality software takes a lot of time and effort... and unless these people are retired, old fogies wanting to dabble in a little project to keep the brain from getting rusty, Jellyfin can by default never develop into anything more than a little hobby project on the side - with the quality to reflect that. From what I've read, it's going to be different. They are going to have an active community with tons of qualified coders adding to the project for free. /s 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstewiegreen 147 Posted December 19, 2018 Share Posted December 19, 2018 So far they seem to lack any vision or future plans other than "it's free"... they even said it, quote "Clearly, the community has spoken: you want a Free Software, quality alternative to Emby. And we hope to deliver that." I told them on their reddit page that "it's free" isn't a vision. Of course people want free shit! Ask anyone, "hey, do you want to pay for it or have the same quality item for free?" They'll want the free one!! It's easier said than done however. Then they said I didn't understand what open source meant and listed a bunch of examples of major, free open source project. Confirmation bias. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perplexed 25 Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 (edited) I told them on their reddit page that "it's free" isn't a vision. Of course people want free shit! Ask anyone, "hey, do you want to pay for it or have the same quality item for free?" They'll want the free one!! Yes, it's very nice to be all starry eyed and full of ideas, but indeed, "free" isn't a vision in itself. Anything these days that is truly free is either 1) ad supported 2) a place to harvest personal information 3) a portfolio case for the developer or 4) an investment into something else (like building a loyal user base for a future product that will have to bring in the revenue). Otherwise, it'll be just 5) DOA. I do wish them the best, but I'm wondering how long they will continue to be motivated by a crowd that only joined them because it's "FREE" (oh and something something open source, whatever that means) Edited December 20, 2018 by Perplexed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chef 3745 Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 I browsed the github page of the new fork that is getting a lot of attention on reddit and the only "contribution" the (2) "developers" have made to emby is that one of them made a way to bypass emby's paywall and if their github profiles are any indication neither of them has much (or any?) experience with C#. Their indignation has nothing to do with closed/open source but because they want it for free. I expect that their inexperience will make for a poor media server. Hold up! Someone has done that?? @@Luke right here my friend. There is a link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstewiegreen 147 Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 Yes, someone has (if their description is to be believed), and that person is a main developer of this emby fork. The developer of said project: https://github.com/nvllsvm And one of his other projects is: https://github.com/nvllsvm/emby-unlocked Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstewiegreen 147 Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 Oh and if you're wondering who owns emby.app, well now it directs to a reddit page started by the same guy whose fork of emby we're discussing. I'm willing to bet that it will soon go right to the github fork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naeonline 27 Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 (edited) didn't emby.app redirect to plex for a while? Edited December 20, 2018 by naeonline Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pünktchen 1258 Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 Oh and if you're wondering who owns emby.app, well now it directs to a reddit page started by the same guy whose fork of emby we're discussing. I'm willing to bet that it will soon go right to the github fork. https://www.newmediarights.org/business_models/artist/domain_name_subject_copyright_law"You can make a strong claim of trademark infringement if you can prove the following three things: (1) someone registered a domain name with your trademarked name in it, (2) she registered it with the sole purpose of attracting visitors using your trademarked name, and (3) she had no legitimate purpose to own the domain except for taking advantage of the popular name. ... ... if you use someone else’s trademark whether it’s famous or almost totally unknown in your domain name to confuse people into coming to your site, or with the intention of selling it later on to the person you who uses the name, then you may be guilty of cybersquatting or subject to a UDRP action." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legallink 187 Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 https://www.newmediarights.org/business_models/artist/domain_name_subject_copyright_law "You can make a strong claim of trademark infringement if you can prove the following three things: (1) someone registered a domain name with your trademarked name in it, (2) she registered it with the sole purpose of attracting visitors using your trademarked name, and (3) she had no legitimate purpose to own the domain except for taking advantage of the popular name. ... ... if you use someone else’s trademark whether it’s famous or almost totally unknown in your domain name to confuse people into coming to your site, or with the intention of selling it later on to the person you who uses the name, then you may be guilty of cybersquatting or subject to a UDRP action." There is a lot more complexity/nuance here, because it depends on who did what first, etc. UDRP actions are cheaper than litigation, but they aren't cheap. The major things it comes down to is use. While a lot of people think that trademarks are for the benefit of the company, and in general, that is how the public views them, the legal background is that trademarks are granted for the benefit of the consumer. It has the sole purpose of allowing a consumer to identify the party responsible for the goods, not for allowing a company to mark things however they want. I recognize that it is a very nuanced distinction, but that's how it is actually intended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chyron 221 Posted December 20, 2018 Author Share Posted December 20, 2018 (edited) To be fair, emby.net and emby.com also point to completely unrelated things. (as do plex.com and plex.info) But it does seem suspect for emby.app to deliberately point to a fork of emby.media. Edited December 20, 2018 by chyron8472 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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