Is an Open-Source Core Really That Big a Deal?

[legallink 187]

Thanks, this information was not previously disclosed.

 

Regardless, the same question still stands for me: what is lost by open sourcing the non-premiere portions of emby that are free in binary form anyway? If the answer is actually revenue, then that's fine. The separation of code is just like another feature request, which I understand takes time.

This would most likely be dependent on how the source code is done and whether it is easy to separate out the "non-premiere" portions easily.  Separation of code sets and management of that takes time and effort.  I assume that until Emby wants to make a commitment to managing that effort, probably nothing.  It's just hard to separate out.  Historically, the only open source modifications were to take down the Emby advert to buy premiere.  Some also removed premiere restrictions, but for the most part, it was removing the advert. 

So, at a minimum it is revenue in a round  about way, because someone can strip most if not all emby branding and distribute it as there own, thereby creating a competitor. 

It gives Emby's competitor a long line of knowing how emby does things. 

I think it also comes to where you want the devs focusing their time.  Making the source open with a product like Emby isn't enough.  You also have to manage the users of that source.  Maybe the community will do it, maybe they won't, but devs that like open source, some like it for theoretical reasons, a lot like it because they like to get involved and be a part of the creation, so just throwing something out there unmanaged creates problems in and of itself.

[Guest]

@@ebr

 

you missed the part where you explain that the DIY members helped with the speaker design for years

 

The code we have as closed was either created by a main Emby Dev or contracted for.

 

That is your prerogative and perhaps clever business wise. It does however in no way address the reason behind the "anger" in @@Jdiesel's analogy, which I tried to explain more fairly, because it's portrayed as random and unreasonable, which it simply is not, or at least not at first.

 

If three brothers (say Foo, Bar and Baz) work on a speaker, and one brother (say Baz) renders the speaker design unusable because he pays an engineer for a part and doesn't want to share it with his brothers, the other brothers will be annoyed, because they have worked on a speaker model that is now defunct by an unexpected move from Baz. The left out brothers feel tricked, and they probably won't talk to Baz on family meetings like the Christmas holidays.

 

Just because something is legal, doesn't make it nice. Baz disadvantaged his brothers - even if he felt like Foo and Bar have been freeloading on Baz's expertise - and they lash out in response. Now Baz (Emby + community) is angry at Foo and Bar in response.

 

Reconciliation starts with understanding and acknowledging what went wrong. Not quoting you were in your legal right. Because now there are three groups in stead of one. Much like in relationships, failure to communicate properly is often a root cause.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Redsandro

[ebr 14925]

That is your prerogative and perhaps clever business wise. It does however in no way address the reason behind the "anger" in @@Jdiesel's analogy, which I tried to explain more fairly, because it's portrayed as random and unreasonable, which it simply is not, or at least not at first.

 

Hi.  I didn't read any "anger" in his post.  I don't think that was intended...

 

 

If three brothers (say Abel, Bernard and Cain) work on a speaker, and one brother (say Cain) renders the speaker design unusable because he pays an engineer for a part and doesn't want to share it with his brothers, the other brothers will be annoyed, because they have worked on a speaker model that is now defunct by an unexpected move from Cain. The left out brothers feel tricked, and they probably won't talk to Cain on family meetings like the Christmas holidays.

 

But that's not what has happened here.

 

What has happened here is three brothers worked on a speaker for years and also freely allowed the world (including their competitors) access to the plans and free parts to build the speaker.

 

Then the three brothers decided to stop doing that - for a number of reasons.  None of the brothers was cut out and they are committed to continuing to pour their heart and soul into making the best speaker out there.

 

I hope that explains the situation because that's really all I want to say on this matter.  Everyone is free to make their own value judgments and we fully support that.

 

Thanks.

[Guest]

Hi.  I didn't read any "anger" in his post.  I don't think that was intended...

 

Apologies, I wasn't clear. I mean the "anger" from the "DIY members" in my quote that was a amendment to the analogy in his post.

 

What has happened here is three brothers worked on a speaker for years and also freely allowed the world (including their competitors) access to the plans and free parts to build the speaker.

 

Then the three brothers decided to stop doing that - for a number of reasons.  None of the brothers was cut out.

 

In my analogy, two of the three brothers represented that world. Or at least the community that contributed to Media Browser and parts of Emby before it became semi-closed.

 

But you know what, I'm not the person to continue this line of analogies. I wasn't there. The only thing I was trying to achieve - unsuccessfully - is to show that there are three groups now. Team emby, team open source, and new folks and potential contributors that see both teams have their heels dug in the sand, not seeing their own hand in the situation. I wish there was a way to achieve some mutually beneficial symbiosis. It seems to work in certain other projects. Points that might help were made here and there. Mostly unaddressed. Shame.

 

On a more positive note, it's good to see that Emby keeps moving forward. Let's hope that subtitle playback will remain free. 

[Deathsquirrel 741]

Apologies, I wasn't clear. I mean the "anger" from the "DIY members" in my quote that was a amendment to the analogy in his post.

 

 

In my analogy, two of the three brothers represented...<A whole lot of text deleted by Deathsquirrel>

 

In your analogy the Emby devs are deliberately compared to the world's first freaking murderer.  @@ebr and @@Luke Do this for a living.  They probably can't afford to react to that.

 

You comment on the perceived anger in someone else's post.  I don't know if @@Jdiesel's post contained anger but to make myself VERY clear, this one does.  You owe the devs an apology and, absent that, I think you should be posting elsewhere.  That's utterly unacceptable IMO.

 

Post was edited.  Thanks, I withdraw the comment.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Deathsquirrel

[Perplexed 25]

Choices are good, and competition as well. It's competition that got us the world today, to a large degree. So, now our media choices boil down to Plex, Emby and (perhaps, one day, hopefully) the new player Jellyfin. All have their different goals and viewpoints.

 

Plex, I think we all agree, is the most commercial of the three, constantly seeking new areas of revenue.

 

Emby makes it clear that the developers quit their day jobs over this, and depend on the income from the product for their livelihood.

 

Jellyfin (and I quote) is of "the complete opposite mindset - how can we make sure this stays $0 and Free as in Speech for everyone always."

 

There is nothing wrong with any of those takes. Plex will probably become a conglomerate of 3rd party (3rd rate) commercial content, and people who enjoy that sort of thing will continue to use Plex. It will make others angry because that is not how they envisioned Plex when they signed up.

 

Emby will probably keep their passion for the product, but also take measures to ensure that their revenue stream is not jeopardized too much (by placing more features behind a paywall for example, or making sure other projects can't piggyback on their own apps for long). This will make certain people happy, because it means the Emby team is dedicated to working hard for their project and ensuring that it keeps on working, and working well. Others will be angry, because they feel Emby lost their open source spirit that they felt so passionate about in the past.

 

Then there is Jellyfin. Everything free, ideals and values no one can argue with, what more is there to wish for? No one could possibly ever be angry at that, right? Not so fast... JF is a half baked product. That is very fine for now, they have all the goodwill of their community (and deservedly so). But whether that will last depends on their keeping momentum. If a year from now they still have a wonky Android app, conflicting ports with Emby, or no Roku app, the goodwill will wane gradually. Or if they release an update and they have to say "whoops, sorry we wiped your entire media collection, we'll do better with the next release", chances are they will lose some of that goodwill rather quickly with some, but others won't mind being alpha testers of an unproven product. 

"But that won't happen, it's open source!" I hear you say. Yes, but tell the truth now, when did you personally check each line of code in an open source project, and then keep track of all future changes? Most of us just use it as is, right?

 

The point is, there is something for everyone. And I don't think it's right to come in this forum, all high and mighty, and tell the Emby devs how wrong they were in their decisions... I don't agree with that at all.

[legallink 187]

Apologies, I wasn't clear. I mean the "anger" from the "DIY members" in my quote that was a amendment to the analogy in his post.

 

 

 

In my analogy, two of the three brothers represented that world. Or at least the community that contributed to Media Browser and parts of Emby before it became semi-closed.

 

But you know what, I'm not the person to continue this line of analogies. I wasn't there. The only thing I was trying to achieve - unsuccessfully - is to show that there are three groups now. Team emby, team open source, and new folks and potential contributors that see both teams have their heels dug in the sand, not seeing their own hand in the situation. I wish there was a way to achieve some mutually beneficial symbiosis. It seems to work in certain other projects. Points that might help were made here and there. Mostly unaddressed. Shame.

 

On a more positive note, it's good to see that Emby keeps moving forward. Let's hope that subtitle playback will remain free. 

The tough part in that is there is an assumption that because it was open to the world people think the world contributed. That’s not what happened here. There aren’t teams either. People are people, dividing people into groups is what separates communities. Emby is delivering the same product by the same people that always delivered it.

 

This is sort of what is perplexing to me, because if the “world” built something you would see comments from people saying “my code is part of that closed source now and I’m upset about it even if they did everything legally (or not)”. But not one person has raised an issue about their code being made closed source. The reasons why are because the world didn’t contribute to it.

 

This is what I don’t understand. Why are we debating about a theoretical world that contributed code to a project when it just doesn’t exist? I get people being upset because they have a privacy concern or perhaps they think that open source is more secure than closed source or because they love the theory of closed source. All fine to have those opinions, although I don’t think most of them except the last one prove out in real world examples, but it’s fine to disagree on the point. However the notion that some mythical person contributes code to a project and is being cut out, we would hear from that person/people. The silence on this topic is I think the strongest statement about it.

[speechles 1920]

@@Deathsquirrel I don't think it was meant to be implied that this was a biblical discussion. He just wanted A B C names and maybe Cain should be Charlie.

 

@ In any case, I know that certain individuals were the only ones contributing to the code. Most of these individuals are still doing the same thing they were contributing to the same code as part of Team Emby. So as far as open source, yes, the loss of learning from the code is gone. The chance to vet that no evil exists within it. Perhaps even your chance to contribute to certain parts of the code are made very difficult. This is unfortunate but times are changing. There are people who want to damage/cause-harm to Emby. First someone redirected an old Emby redirect that was no longer registered, registered it, and used it to point to Plex. Net effect was it looks like Plex doing it. Turns out after all this wasn't the case. It was malfeasance, greed, revenge, who knows. It was a bad actor. Then the forking of Emby to strip paywalls. Then the open source debate. You see where this goes it is a very deep rabbit hole we are in. This is the matrix and we took the red pill.

 

It is simply the case that when you want to monetize your efforts that were once open source you meet resistance every single time. This time is no different. But we are all human at the end of the day. We can discuss this and see where our minds meet and where they don't. This is what these forums are for. There is no reason to close this thread as it is a collaborative discussion. There is no wrong answer in this case. People are allowed to make choices. People are prone to pick sides. Fighting for what you feel is right is human nature. As part of Team Emby I am vested in my choice. Everyone deserves a voice at the end of the day.

Edited January 30, 2019 by speechles

[Deathsquirrel 741]

@@Deathsquirrel I don't think it was mean to be implied that this was a biblical discussion. He just wanted A B C names and maybe Cain should be Charlie.

 

 

I hope you're right and it's just a gross oversight.  Should that be the case I'll edit my post.  If that's the case I strongly encourage an edit of your post, @.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Deathsquirrel

[metsuke 27]

Emby makes it clear that the developers quit their day jobs over this, and depend on the income from the product for their livelihood.

And they also said that closing the source was not about money.  Whether the core, or non-premiere code, is open source or not, I expected Emby to do just as well monetarily (Emby team, please correct me if my understanding is not your understanding on that matter since it is the main premise of my argument).

 

@ In any case, I know that certain individuals were the only ones contributing to the code. Most of these individuals are still doing the same thing they were contributing to the same code as part of Team Emby. So as far as open source, yes, the loss of learning from the code is gone. The chance to vet that no evil exists within it. Perhaps even your chance to contribute to certain parts of the code are made very difficult. This is unfortunate but times are changing. There are people who want to damage/cause-harm to Emby. First someone redirected an old Emby redirect that was no longer registered, registered it, and used it to point to Plex. Net effect was it looks like Plex doing it. Turns out after all this wasn't the case. It was malfeasance, greed, revenge, who knows. It was a bad actor. Then the forking of Emby to strip paywalls. Then the open source debate. You see where this goes it is a very deep rabbit hole we are in. This is the matrix and we took the red pill.

 

It is simply the case that when you want to monetize your efforts that were once open source you meet resistance every single time. This time is no different. But we are all human at the end of the day. We can discuss this and see where our minds meet and where they don't. This is what these forums are for. There is no reason to close this thread as it is a collaborative discussion. There is no wrong answer in this case. People are allowed to make choices. People are prone to pick sides. Fighting for what you feel is right is human nature. As part of Team Emby I am vested in my choice. Everyone deserves a voice at the end of the day.

I see there is some history to this topic, which I was thankfully not a part of. It is unfortunate that others were able to take advantage of the code's permissiveness to get around a paywall, but having a separate open source version a la nginx and haproxy or including premiere features as binary blobs ought to prevent this behavior.  Indeed it would take time, and that is the most important "feature" for me, even if it would cost another lifetime license or so.

 

If there really is a credible competitive threat presented against Emby, and I don't think one has surfaced yet, which causes it to directly or indirectly lose revenue, then I'm all for taking measures against that action.  I don't really see tangible competition arise from open source companies' code in the real world, but if someone has seen it then I'd be happy to modify my perspective.

[Chyron 225]

In any case, I know that certain individuals were the only ones contributing to the code. Most of these individuals are still doing the same thing

This was my understanding.

 

And besides that, I remember someone at the Plex forums complaining about Plex not having an API for him to use to create additional features, or whatever; and that if Plex had done so, many of the features people requested would have been created by the Plex community. But then I said, that if that were the case, and Kodi is open-source, that Kodi would already have those features and whatever else from the Kodi community making them. But Kodi doesn't, and so that argument didn't hold water. So I don't believe that just because Emby might make their source code open, that every programmer and their dog will jump at making meaningful contributions to the project.

Edited January 30, 2019 by chyron8472

[Guest]

I don't know if Jdiesel's post contained anger

 

It does not. I was responding to his analogy, i.e. the part "you find that (DIY) members (are) angry at the new designs (for speakers) not being made public".

 

 

but to make myself VERY clear, this one does.  You owe the devs an apology and, absent that, I think you should be posting elsewhere.  That's utterly unacceptable IMO.

 

I apologize. I used some XYZ names from this story called "Westworld" I'm following right now. It's about conflicting interests. Didn't know they had such a distracting emotional effect on people. Will change them fwiw.

 

 

dividing people into groups is what separates communities. 

(...)

 

not one person has raised an issue about their code being made closed source. The reasons why are because the world didn’t contribute to it.

 

This is what I don’t understand.

 

Legallink, I think you are not entirely correct. The world did contribute. And then it didn't. Why? Emby imposed a copyright relinquishing CLA and the source started getting partially closed, which simply is a no-go for contributors. I don't know if any original contributor complained about this, although I do read that a lot of github issues around that time got removed so we will never know. But that's not really the point. 

 

Around 2% of internet connected people worldwide care passionately about open source software freedoms. So to the question "Is an Open-Source Core Really That Big a Deal?" I am showing that categorically, yes, it's the reason why people stopped contributing, and eventually got "angered" up to four times with different related events. There are quite definitely separate communities now where once was one. And it's partially due to this ongoing failure to understand each other.

 

Emby got a lot of fans and praise for what they are doing. But they did alienate a group of people. They just did. You can call it collateral damage, or you can try to reconcile, for example by following @@metsuke's advice:

 

having a separate open source version a la nginx and haproxy or including premiere features as binary blobs ought to prevent this behavior. Indeed it would take time, and that is the most important "feature" for me

 

Similar to the many successful projects out there with an open source community edition. Delphi CE, Gitlab CE, MySQL CE, 

 

There are people who want to damage/cause-harm to Emby. First someone redirected an old Emby redirect that was no longer registered, registered it, and used it to point to Plex. Net effect was it looks like Plex doing it. Turns out after all this wasn't the case. It was malfeasance, greed, revenge, who knows. It was a bad actor. Then the forking of Emby to strip paywalls. Then the open source debate. You see where this goes it is a very deep rabbit hole we are in. This is the matrix and we took the red pill.

 

The rabbit hole is bigger than I thought. Thanks for informing. We can debate the forking, but I think we can agree that the trolling is in bad taste.

 

 

It is simply the case that when you want to monetize your efforts that were once open source you meet resistance every single time.

 

It depends on how you do it, because there are actually some successful examples. But I have to agree that something "small" like Emby will have a harder time, because when additional features in open source are not SAAS, someone will always get around it. The one thing I would like to protect is that the group of people who care about open source and the group of people who would write cracks for commercial software are not the same people, but for someone who is not in either of those groups, they might seem like the same group sometimes.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Redsandro

[ebr 14925]

Legallink, I think you are not entirely correct. The world did contribute. And then it didn't. Why? Emby imposed a copyright relinquishing CLA and the source started getting partially closed, which simply is a no-go for contributors. I don't know if any original contributor complained about this, although I do read that a lot of github issues around that time got removed so we will never know. But that's not really the point. 

 

Hi.  This is what I've been trying to explain to you.  legallink is correct.  In the entire history of this project, we received very little in the way of public contributions.  Any that we did, we either removed or obtained permission from that contributor to close it.  Our "open source" was a one-way street unfortunately.  And that street is paved right to our competitors as well.

 

Upon what information are you basing your belief that this is not the case?

[ebr 14925]

If there really is a credible competitive threat presented against Emby, and I don't think one has surfaced yet, which causes it to directly or indirectly lose revenue, then I'm all for taking measures against that action.  

 

Have you heard of Plex?  I don't mean to imply that they have ever taken code from us.  However, with all of our code out there for anyone to view, how are we ever to be able to create anything that may give us a competitive advantage?

[Guest]

This is what I've been trying to explain to you.

 

Okay, you could have just said that. See what I mean when I say there is a communication problem? I mean, I'm probably an idiot too. But people are idiots. And I'm an instance of "people" just like the rest of us. 

 

we received very little in the way of public contributions. 

 

Upon what information are you basing your belief that this is not the case?

 

I made the assumption when I saw 100+ contributors on certain repo's. The assumption was emphasized when I read that you or your colleague said something like "We hadn't received any meaningful contributions for two years prior to closing the source," which sounds like you did receive meaningful contributions before the two year drought.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Redsandro

[ebr 14925]

Sorry for the misunderstanding.  When I replied to your original analogy, I mentioned that all three brothers who had built the speaker originally were still involved in the operation.

 

Again, sorry for the mis-communications.

 

Thanks.

[metsuke 27]

Have you heard of Plex?  I don't mean to imply that they have ever taken code from us.  However, with all of our code out there for anyone to view, how are we ever to be able to create anything that may give us a competitive advantage?

This is part of my argument, that I chose to throw money at you, Emby team, specifically because you were open source!!

 

Being open source itself Was your competitive advantage for me!

[BillOatman 502]

 

The one thing I would like to protect is that the group of people who care about open source and the group of people who would write cracks for commercial software are not the same people, but for someone who is not in either of those groups, they might seem like the same group sometimes.

 

 

This is very true and is often the cause of conflict when a passionate topic like open source gets debated,

[Chyron 225]

Being open source itself Was your competitive advantage for me!

 

Because...?

 

What advantage does it give for you, other than a warm fuzzy feeling about liking to use FOSS in general, that could not be made up for by Emby having usability features the other guys don't have?

 

And if you wanted to actually help improve the code, why then could you not just ask the Team for permission to join in improving it? Just because specific areas of code are closed to the general public, that doesn't mean there is no, and will be no, community helping to improve or implement various features.

Edited January 30, 2019 by chyron8472

[metsuke 27]

Because...?

 

What advantage does it give for you, other than a warm fuzzy feeling about liking to use FOSS in general, that could not be made up for by Emby having usability features the other guys don't have?

 

And if you wanted to actually help improve the code, why then could you not just ask the Team for permission to join in improving it? Just because specific areas of code are closed to the general public, that doesn't mean there is no, and will be no, community helping to improve or implement various features.

I've mentioned before that there are many different reasons why one or another person may want open source software, and having just one reason that doesn't work for your worldview or even practically does not nullify the other reasons. My own main reason is the ability to audit, which has helped me in the past. I also want others to be able to audit as well. I don't trust anyone's code and have been burned personally as well as in an enterprise environment by poorly written code that needed review, specifically code that I could have reviewed myself. The merits of auditing open source code have been proven to me via experience and observation, so I am not very interested in debating whether it is a real scenario or not.

 

I also regularly modify code that I deploy locally for my own purposes. Sometimes the modifications are ubiquitous enough to push upstream, but the convenience of being able to customize a solution for my environment is highly enticing. One size does not fit all, but open source code allows rough edges to be more palatable. Along this line of reasoning is that open sourcing code is not always about what you can get back via contributions, but can also be philanthropic. Allowing your code to be audited, scrutinized, and customized is a service to the community, and again, one that I gladly paid for.

[Perplexed 25]

My own main reason is the ability to audit, which has helped me in the past. I also want others to be able to audit as well. I don't trust anyone's code and have been burned personally as well as in an enterprise environment by poorly written code that needed review, specifically code that I could have reviewed myself. The merits of auditing open source code have been proven to me via experience and observation, so I am not very interested in debating whether it is a real scenario or not.

 

But it being a real scenario is the whole purpose of this discussion! Let me put it in another way - and I realize this may be a bit personal - but if you feel so passionate about auditing, well written code etc - what is YOUR contribution to the new Jellyfin project? They are passionate about open source as well and begging for help. If you are ACTIVELY (and I mean actively!) involved in their project, then you have have proven you mean what you say.

 

Please forgive me for being blunt, but if you the answer is "not really", then you are just theorizing for the sake of theorizing and all the points you are trying to make are meaningless...

[metsuke 27]

But it being a real scenario is the whole purpose of this discussion! Let me put it in another way - and I realize this may be a bit personal - but if you feel so passionate about auditing, well written code etc - what is YOUR contribution to the new Jellyfin project? They are passionate about open source as well and begging for help. If you are ACTIVELY (and I mean actively!) involved in their project, then you have have proven you mean what you say.

 

Please forgive me for being blunt, but if you the answer is "not really", then you are just theorizing for the sake of theorizing and all the points you are trying to make are meaningless...

The ability to audit code at any time is the point that matters. Whether that happens now or a year in the future, the principle remains unchanged. Not every person who uses every open source project has to run a series of tests on all the code in order for the community to benefit from auditable code. Even one third party doing one test every 5 years is better than nothing. I've reviewed code in many projects, and even sifted through Emby's code to understand some behavior, but that has nothing to do with the principle itself, which again, has been proven to me via experience. Unless you have a different experience based on code you audited, or didn't, it is hard to debate this subjective point.

[Perplexed 25]

Yes, it's just as I thought, you like to discuss hypothetical and theoretical scenarios and principles, nothing to do with Emby in particular. Whereas there is nothing wrong with that, I also don't see the need to keep this particular aspect of the discussion going. I think it's gotten to the point of beating a dead horse now

[metsuke 27]

Yes, it's just as I thought, you like to discuss hypothetical and theoretical scenarios and principles, nothing to do with Emby in particular. Whereas there is nothing wrong with that, I also don't see the need to keep this particular aspect of the discussion going. I think it's gotten to the point of beating a dead horse now

One of the main points of this discussion was to clearly understand the impetus behind open sourcing anything. Believing that just because a particular person or one specific benefit does not apply to you, and therefore nullifies the entire concept for everyone, means that you might not understand, and maybe haven't experienced the real benefits of open source software. That is ok, since I think most in the world don't truly see its benefits until they dig in, participate, and utilize many projects with some depth. I find it presumptive to dismiss any past benefits that were intangible or unobserved and even future opportunities that open sourcing code brings.

 

I tend to think that Emby providing a service to the community is specifically relevant to Emby. There's also the fact that I, and I'm guessing other lurkers, chose Emby over competition partly due to being open source. Being open source gained Emby revenue, whether acknowledged or not. Maybe it is a small amount, and thus is negligible, but most concerns I've heard about being open source also seemed negligible or non-existent, or at least without any real metrics or anecdotes of experience.

 

For what it is worth, I don't want to impose a sacrifice on the Emby team's part. I want the Emby team to be profitable and to thrive. If open sourcing code reduces profitability even a little, then my entire premise is null, but I know that Emby gained at least some revenue from me, partially due to being open source. I also know of, work with, and pay companies that either open source all their code or have an open source version to their great benefit and profitability. I don't see why Emby is special in this case.

 

Ultimately, if the Emby team says that they fully understand all the arguments, principles and case studies of open sourcing code, and say that it just doesn't work in this particular case, then that's fine, and there isn't anything to say or do. Generally I find that this means that being open source just doesn't matter to the team. That's fine, but it would be nice if it was just stated.

[legallink 187]

I think @@metsuke's point is that he likes open source for the sake of open source.  Nothing wrong with that.  Can totally respect the opinion. 

 

I would say that if you were buying this because it was open source, you would have looked at and seen Github and noted that the source available had been limited for the community well before, at a minimum, you created an account on this forum.  And if you created your account account at a similar time you bought a premiere subscription, none of the "open source" comments are new ones.  Similar comments apply in my opinion to @.

 

But yes, I agree with @@Perplexed, the horse has been dead for a while now.  At this point, we're discussing a topic purely for theoretical intrigue, and in turn, turning passionate about respective positions so we can read our own whimsical prose to congratulate ourselves one way or the other.  Seems like its just to continue talking, which isn't a horrible thing, just doesn't move the ball one direction or the other.

 

Wish you all well on the discussion if it continues.