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

[mlcarson 13]

My reasoning is pretty simple.  If it's possible to look at the open source software and modify it to bypass a paywall that's there to monetize the effort then it can no longer be open source until the program is redesigned to make it impossible.  The addition of guide data that you'd otherwise have to pay for would be the line in the sand for me. The developers of Emby probably thought it was much earlier when Emby Premiere came out and coders found ways of getting the Emby Premiere features without paying for them.   I want open source so that code can be validated and compiled for multiple platforms -- not so that every product can be monetarily free.

[metsuke 27]

I see what you are saying, though at first it seemed like you only saw one option available to the Emby team, which is to close the source entirely.  Like Luke was saying here and there, making the code modular enough to separate the premiere features from the free features takes time.  If the time and resources are found, then most of the code can certainly remain open source for the various benefits that it provides.

[BillOatman 596]

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.

 

 

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.

 

As a long time professional software developer I see the pluses and minuses to open source.  First off, the statement that most prefer open source to find exploits for their own benefit is just false.  The majority want to learn from it, and as was said, appreciate a work of art.  Or "white hats" that look for exploits to help solidify their project.  Also people can look at the code and build it themselves and make sure there are no exploits being installed on their machines.

 

But it's a two way street.  Open source projects take developers time to maintain, and also tends to take project direction out of their complete control.  If the Emby team wasn't getting benefit back in the form of useful contributions, it is understandable why they would not continue down that path.

 

Seeing open source projects go closed source commercial tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth.  But at the end of the day, the Emby team provides a very good product as well as pretty amazing support and I will continue to use it.  Open or closed source.

 

But, as a "art lover", I'll continue to follow Jellyfin as well

Edited January 27, 2019 by BillOatman

[Guest]

Except Netflix and HBO are not comparable to Emby or Plex. All they do is provide content, emby organises content and serves it to clients.

 

Netflix/HBO/Amazon Prime video also organize their content and serve it to clients. The difference is that they provide the content. You can like or dislike this, but for the ones arguing against "everything should be f'ing free", as one user puts it, I hardly think half of the content that's being served by Emby users is legal. Even ripping your own blu-rays for personal use, or removing DRM from your iTunes collection, is technically illegal.

 

So you have to ask yourself: Is $5/mo a fair price for a media server, when $8/mo is the price for a media server with a giant library of legal content?

 

This is subjective. For you, it just might. For me, it is not.

 

Second, I'm all for opt-in paying for extra features that are useful. Like a TV guide. But moving previously free features behind a paywall, like hardware transcoding, is a lot like the definition of Crippleware. This will frustrate users.

 

There are just some realities that come with certain choices:

 

Offer additional features at a cost - happy users.

Sell previously free features - sad users.

Opening previously closed source - happy users.

Closing previously open source - sad users.

[Jdiesel 1431]

 

So you have to ask yourself: Is $5/mo a fair price for a media server, when $8/mo is the price for a media server with a giant library of legal content?

 

This is subjective. For you, it just might. For me, it is not.

 

 

I like to look at it a different way. What if you ask yourself: Is $119 for a lifetime membership to Emby Premiere really much more of an expenses than a $150 Bluray player, a shelf to store your Blurays, avoiding the cable company's monthly DVR rental fee? 

 

Software has value just like the other physical items in the room where you watch your media. I find people have no issue dropping money on the latest media player hardware but scoff at the idea of paying for the software that feeds it. For me the $119 one time payment is more than worth it for the convenience it provides. My time and sanity is valuable and having everything done for you and presented in an accessible way is a service worth paying for IMO. 

[Guest]

I like to look at it a different way. What if you ask yourself: Is $119 for a lifetime membership to Emby Premiere really much more of an expenses than a $150 Bluray player, a shelf to store your Blurays, avoiding the cable company's monthly DVR rental fee? 

 

Software has value just like the other physical items in the room where you watch your media. I find people have no issue dropping money on the latest media player hardware but scoff at the idea of paying for the software that feeds it. For me the $119 one time payment is more than worth it for the convenience it provides. My time and sanity is valuable and having everything done for you and presented in an accessible way is a service worth paying for IMO. 

 

This is an interesting point @@Jdiesel. Although I don't like the comparison - the Bluray player in your metaphor would be Kodi (and the content is either free or already paid for; what is left is the media management part of things; Emby is what Calibre is to e-books) - I think I understand what you're trying to say. Is ~$120 worth a lifetime of media management. Is your freedom to switch to something else worth $120.

 

This will probably depend on your trust in the project. How many choices were made that you would rate with a thumbs up or thumbs down. How communicative is the dev team. How friendly is the community. How do the features and UX compare to competitors (e.g. Plex), and what are their prices. Did you buy lifetime subscriptions before and how do you look back on those choices. One example: I purchased a lifetime subscription to a certain VPN service, which got slower and slower, and I ditched it after 6 months. 

 

When you love Emby to bits enough to pay the full lifetime fee, the recent closing of the source means that you're now depending on a small group of devs to want to do this forever. If they move on, or win the lottery, or decide to spend more time with the family, or volunteer on a mission to Mars, or get served with a DMCA takedown request over GPL violations - no one can carry the torch because the source is closed. For some, this was precisely why people preferred Emby over Plex in spite of Plex' better UX. With that USP gone, what's left is Plex' better UX. (Actually I don't know that. I haven't used Plex in years.)

 

 

My time and sanity is valuable and having everything done for you and presented in an accessible way is a service worth paying for IMO. 

 

I agree with this, with some reservations.

[Luke 42077]

 

 

With that USP gone, what's left is Plex' better UX

 

That's not entirely true. We think our UX can be better, but even if you put that aside for a second, there are other things to think about. For example, our core focus areas and direction of the software compared to competition, our commitment to your privacy, the way we value your feedback, and our industry leading response time to support and troubleshooting.

[Guest]

our commitment to your privacy

 

Nice, I hadn't thought about that.

[Chyron 256]

So you have to ask yourself: Is $5/mo a fair price for a media server, when $8/mo is the price for a media server with a giant library of legal content?

previously open source - sad users.

You're not paying $5/mo for a media server. You're paying $5/mo for indefinite, frequent updates to commercial-grade software. You're paying for Luke and ebr to work on this software daily as their job. Plus, if you pay for Lifetime, you're effectively getting unparalleled support for software that has only one commercial rival (whose price model is nearly identical) and is constantly being refined and improved for free after two years. $5*24=$120. That's two years. Plus, Netflix costs more than $8. $9 is its most basic plan, which isn't HD. And on top of that, you only have access to items in Netflix's library for as long as they have the license. As soon as the license expires, that content is straight up gone. Usually without warning.

 

With a personal media server, you can host your own content, organized how you want it, and have unlimited access to that content potentially forever. You don't even need quality internet access to view it locally, and doing so locally also doesn't use any bandwidth toward your ISP's data cap.

 

To argue that people can use Emby to view pirated content is the same argument levied against Sony for its VHS-competitor Betamax, and that court decision said there were enough legal uses for Betamax that Sony wasn't responsible just because people could use it illegally.

 

 

the Bluray player in your metaphor would be Kodi

No, because Kodi is only compatible with a small number of platforms. I have a desktop PC, a Roku, and an Android phone for my media consumption. Kodi is nonexistent on one, and frankly is crap on the other two.

Edited January 28, 2019 by chyron8472

[Deathsquirrel 745]

For some, this was precisely why people preferred Emby over Plex in spite of Plex' better UX. With that USP gone, what's left is Plex' better UX. (Actually I don't know that. I haven't used Plex in years.)

 

Just for perspective, plenty of us are using Emby over Plex because the Plex UI sucks ass and I'd personally sooner give up on digital media storage and playback than use that thing again....so there are alternative perspectives.

[metsuke 27]

For more perspective, I actually looked into Plex first since my colleagues use it.  It was closed source and it required me to connect to their site to register for local usage - two red flags for me personally.  I did not even get past the initial install and I never saw a main dashboard.

 

By contrast, Emby allowed for local-only usage, and was open source, which soon prompted me to buy the lifetime subscription.  While I don't regret my purchase, others who have the same values that I do may choose to look elsewhere, since they may not even attempt to trial Emby - they may never see any of Emby's awesome features, much like how I didn't even begin to see what else Plex had to offer.

[Perplexed 25]

The real question of course is "how much is the developers' time and effort worth?".

 

Take the Jellyfin project, that started this conversation. Right now all they receive is thank you notes and the warm glowy feeling of creating something. How long will that satisfy them? And more importantly, how long before the need of chow on the table becomes more important?

 

Free is very nice and all that, but at some point money does become important... Especially if it's expected that a project keeps evolving and maintained to work on various systems.

[metsuke 27]

The real question of course is "how much is the developers' time and effort worth?".

 

Take the Jellyfin project, that started this conversation. Right now all they receive is thank you notes and the warm glowy feeling of creating something. How long will that satisfy them? And more importantly, how long before the need of chow on the table becomes more important?

 

Free is very nice and all that, but at some point money does become important... Especially if it's expected that a project keeps evolving and maintained to work on various systems.

But again, it is not a question of monetary worth in this case, because the Emby devs are not getting more money at this time than they previously did just because they closed the entire source (though I'd like to hear if I'm wrong on that).  It was a matter of logical convenience since separating the free vs premiere code takes time.  With the exception of transcoding, the free parts are still free.

[speechles 2055]

As a long time professional software developer I see the pluses and minuses to open source.  First off, the statement that most prefer open source to find exploits for their own benefit is just false.  The majority want to learn from it, and as was said, appreciate a work of art.  Or "white hats" that look for exploits to help solidify their project.  Also people can look at the code and build it themselves and make sure there are no exploits being installed on their machines.

 

I did not mean to infer that the main interest is milw0rm hacktivists, but one cannot say that #2 is not black hats. White hats need to out number the black hats or the internet would be all Russian/Chinese/Korean BitCoin miners installed on everything on the internet to generate them some fast bitcoin to convert to currency that isn't as valueless as their own. There are good people all around. But all it takes for evil to succeed is one good person to do nothing. In that if you aren't open source you will never know how close you are to evil being able to penetrate your fortress. I agree it takes help to keep a community of value in a condition that is safe. Where you can derive economic benefit to drive your future success.

 

It is all about perceived value. How much do you value Emby? Some people see it as free. Why does it have to cost? Well.. it doesn't "have to". You can limit yourself to the free choices available to use. There are free choices to use. Now open source doesn't mean free, but for some reason to a huge percentage they see it as that. Then the bible thumping GPL touting protectors of the freedoms of the internet. That group is almost like the kooks on usenet who harrass anyone brave enough to even attempt to post control message to alt.config to create new usenet groups. Those people think they own the internet. In the same way, these people who fork a project and do it to remove restrictions, defeat paywalls, etc then use this GPL rule breaking crap as if to justify what they are doing like they are buddies with lawyers or something.

 

Their past illustrates their goal. The same guy in charge of jellyfin wrote the patch to break emby out of premier paywalls. This raises red flags all over as a game to play as if GPL is their main intent all along when we all know the real reason. They are mad at Luke. So they take it out on everyone involved with Emby. Then they say, oh Emby guys are all just doing this to be the bad guys and are evil corporate shills who just want money and hoard it like gold in their caves with a dragon protecting it. Those who think that way live in a different reality. Not in one based on any research or factual basis.

 

Sorry to go off a little bit on a dusty backroad there but those are my honest opinion about the entire thing. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

 

 

The real question of course is "how much is the developers' time and effort worth?".

 

This is the entire argument. When does it become too much to pay and when is it to little? You cannot price yourself below the other guy if you match them toe to toe on most everything or you cheapen your product. This cannot happen. There must be parity. Blame the other guy for making things the way they are.

 

But again, it is not a question of monetary worth in this case, because the Emby devs are not getting more money at this time than they previously did just because they closed the entire source (though I'd like to hear if I'm wrong on that).  It was a matter of logical convenience since separating the free vs premiere code takes time.  With the exception of transcoding, the free parts are still free.

 

They expected free Emby apps to use on their "jelly-fin"ished project. You, I, the trees, everyone knows that cannot last. They need to learn to walk on their own and survive if they want to play the game this way. Remember they chose to be the arrogant guys in this. The apps cannot be open source because these are costing money to produce. There is proprietary code embedded. This argument isn't about the apps really, but it was weird them thinking hey lets fork the server and keep using all the other stuff they develop and devote time into for free. How simple minded they must be to think that would last beyond the time it did. Lets not forget also the same guy wrote the patch that removed the Emby premier paywall restrictions. How do you defend these people? Please be rational and sensible and see things as black and white. There is no grey. Thanks.

Edited January 29, 2019 by speechles

[metsuke 27]

They expected free Emby apps to use on their "jelly-fin"ished project. You, I, the trees, everyone knows that cannot last. They need to learn to walk on their own and survive if they want to play the game this way. Remember they chose to be the arrogant guys in this. The apps cannot be open source because these are costing money to produce. There is proprietary code embedded. This argument isn't about the apps really, but it was weird them thinking hey lets fork the server and keep using all the other stuff they develop and devote time into for free. How simple minded they must be to think that would last beyond the time it did. Lets not forget also the same guy wrote the patch that removed the Emby premier paywall restrictions. How do you defend these people? Please be rational and sensible and see things as black and white. There is no grey. Thanks.

 

I'm not really sure who "they" are and it doesn't really matter since Emby is the application, in addition to its organization, that matters to me.  We need to establish a presupposition first, which is that open source software allows for monetary success in a variety of ways.  There are many examples of this: RHEL (CentOS), nginx, haproxy, Joyent, FreeNAS, pfsense, elastic, hashicorp, nextcloud...and many more.  Not all of Emby's code is proprietary and paid for, and following nginx's model, a premium binary can be made separately with the proprietary bits.  I do not advocate for GPL (BSD/MIT is my preference anyway) no matter the consequence, but rather offer reasonable alternatives to complete closure.

[Guest]

@@speechles I'm not sure if I missed something, but as far as polite discussion with interesting points about the strengths and weaknesses of Emby's choices goes, you sure beat the average in use of creative derogatory prose to describe your discontent over a group of people. I'm not sure if you mean this in a comical way (not that funny) or in a hateful way (not that productive), but for reasons that I now believe you will not really understand or respect, I too am a proponent of open source and GPL power. I'm also in favor of paying for something that's worth it. In fact, open source proponents are often willing to pay the most for a good product. When volunteering a price in pay-what-you-want schemes as seen in the Humble Indie Bundle, statistics show that for platform-independent titles, between Windows, OSX and Linux users, Windows users pay the least, and Linux users pay the most for commercial software. I'm not necessarily within the mean of that statistic. It shows however that the true-est users of open source behave the opposite of what you describe so colorfully and repetitively.

 

Just saying, this type of generalizations and demonizing a group of people who take GPL seriously make the Emby community feel hostile towards people like me who are interested but on the fence.

 

I've used Media Browser in the past but I'm new here so I don't know exactly what's going on, but "GPL rule breaking crap"? You want to steer the conversation that way? The entire Media Browser has to thank GPL and community effort for its existence. The Emby team had the choice to write the 20 or so libraries they based their product on in-house. They had the choice to purchase licenses to commercial alternatives. They chose to forego both options, and base their work upon hundreds of thousands of hours of other people's work. The only price they had to pay was to keep their source open too, and grant everyone the right to make whatever changes are beneficial to them**.

 

Now some people stopped contributing and used their legal freedoms after Emby became semi-closed, because they didn't want to contribute to a semi-open Xara-like project. And now we're all up in arms because while it has been awesome to fast-forward development by using the many open source low level technical libre projects out there, it's not so fun when others are using our code, even though they are granted that right by the choices we made?

 

One cannot have our cake and eat it too. Emby did some great things. I like their stance on privacy. I love the integration with Kodi. The fast-forward library updates are really clever. It's a good choice to offer TV-guide integration at an extra price. It is however a "crap" move, to use this community's words, to close previously open source code. It just is. Own it and move on. It is an even crapper move to silently move a previously free feature behind a paywall. Irregardless of whether people think we should just "f'ing" pay. The team had previously been "crap" about communicating and announcing (breaking) changes. And the team had been "crap" in their adherence to the GPL in the past. The Emby team decided that they have a better chance of achieving their goals by closing their source code. First partially, then completely. This is their choice to make. For some people, a golden move. For other people, a turd move. You cannot negotiate praise of this move, much like you cannot negotiate love. You cannot put lipstick on a turd.

 

For these 4 "crap" moves I've identified since your artistic descriptions of "the others" made me google, all the team can do is acknowledge, possibly explain, maybe apologize, move on, and show why Emby is the way to go. Testimonials from users here have been promising. But hating on everyone else who steps in one of the four left-behind turds will not win anyone over. At best, you're preaching to some members of the choir, if that's something you find a useful way to spend your creative writing talents.

 

**) Open source products don't have to be free of charge, and opposite to what you think, most people know that. They have however to be free (libre) in that its customers can do whatever they want with the code, including distributing it for free. Take the biggest success story Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Since 15 years, CentOS, the JellyFin of RHEL, was the succesful free version of RHEL. 5 years ago, RHEL actually decided to sponsor CentOS financially, as the community effort turned out to be a really good thing for them. They could "take" the community ideas they liked, and ignore the ones they thought were not worth it. Fedora is something similar, but was actually created by Red Hat, much like Chromium is the open source part of Google Chrome.

 

Apart from selling individual (new) features, it is also worth mentioning that there are some successful bigger and smaller donationware open source projects, and projects that are funded through bounties on features that users vote upon (with dollars). (-edit- Plus the examples user @@metsuke mentioned.) Not a suggestion, just saying that there were/are options. It's not a back-against-the-wall situation which would have a psychological rationale for getting worked up.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Redsandro

[Chyron 256]

But again, it is not a question of monetary worth in this case, [...] separating the free vs premiere code takes time.

But time is money.

 

Also money is power, power is pizza, and pizza is knowledge.

Edited January 29, 2019 by chyron8472

[ebr 16169]

Not all of Emby's code is proprietary and paid for

 

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

 

Which leads me to this statement:

 

 

Take the Jellyfin project, that started this conversation. Right now all they receive is thank you notes and the warm glowy feeling of creating something. 

 

I'm glad we could give them a 5 year head start on that glowing feeling.  I know, we did that with open eyes when we had the source open.

[chef 3810]

[Chyron 256]

I'm glad we could give them a 5 year head start on that glowing feeling.  I know, we did that with open eyes when we had the source open.

 

Which comes back to what the developers intend for the software. Do the developers want people to be able to fork their software? To be able to piggyback off of their work?

 

If the answer is "not so much", then you know what, so be it. For me it comes down to whether or not the software does what the users want or need it to do, and whether the developers are satisfied with their work. Does being open source help the Emby software do what users want or need it to do? Do random people routinely alter the Emby code to their liking or submit code alterations to the devs?

 

Plex is going in a direction where they're focusing heavily on subscription-based and ad-based online streaming content. I may not like it, but that's what they want for their software. If the Emby devs aren't really keen on people taking their hard work and running away with it, then sure. I get it. And you know, if being closed source helps them to provide better support, build a better product, and provide a better livelihood for themselves, then that's fine.

 

It really should be up to the devs whether they desire for people to ferk around with their code. Of course, that assumes that a significant number of people routinely ferk around with it enough to warrant bothering to enable them to continue to do so.

 

Sure, there are examples of successful open-source projects, but there are also examples are dumpy projects that honestly benefit little by being open-source, especially compared to their closed-source competition.

 

I want Emby to be successful. I want the software to be amazing; I want the devs to continue to provide unparalleled support; and I want the devs to find fulfillment in their work. Whether the code is closed or open really is a business decision that they have to make and shouldn't be a factor in people's ability to appreciate the software and the service provided.

Edited January 29, 2019 by chyron8472

[Jdiesel 1431]

We can argue all we want about the pro/cons of opensource but it doesn't change the fact that this was a business decision. You know that the Emby team didn't just decide to do this on a whim and that there are multiple factors involved in their decision.

 

Once again I like to make a comparison outside of software because of the associated value many have with software. I will use the example of speakers as I think many on this forum can relate to it. So let me setup a scenario:

 

You are an average hometheater enthusiast who enjoys anything and everything about home theater and the technology around it. You are researching equipment for your latest upgrade and decide that the DIY route offers much better value for speakers and you already possess some of skills and tools required to build your own. You go online and find some well regarded plans and build the speakers exactly to specifications and are overwhelmed with the results. You caught the DIY speaker bug. You start researching the science behind loudspeaker design and participate in online communities to expand your knowledge on the subject. You decide to undertake a new project but this time you decide to deviate from a tried-and-true design and come up with your own. Your results vary but over time and multiple revisions you end up with something you are quite happy with so you decide to share the design back with you community but posting the plans online for free. The satisfaction of sharing your work and the positive feedback is reward enough for you to tackle your next project. As time passes you gain more skill and knowledge becoming an accomplished DIY speaker builder. You have many designs available on a popular forum for speaker building where you provide support for others looking to build your design. You answer questions and make minor modifications for users with special needs that fall outside the basic design. Its still a hobby for you and you still enjoy it.

 

Building and testing speakers isn't cheap so you decide to create a website to generate some ad revenue and sell some flat pack kits for people who don't have the tools to cut their own wood. Your plans are still free and available on your website and the community forum. Business isn't amazing but you work out a deal with a local CNC shop to cut the flat pack enclosure and maintain an inventory of parts to ship out to customers. You make a few buck but it isn't enough to make a living off of. You continue to create new products and revise old ones. Over time your business grows and you are beginning to spend a lot of time and energy on the business side of things and less on the development so you hired someone part-time to fill and ship out the orders. It is around this time that you start to notice your completed designs are being sold by other people in different markets across the country. While it is cutting into your business you don't mind other people providing a service to assemble your design and ever customize it in some cases.

 

More time passes and your business has grown. You decide to take the next step and make it your full time job and dedicate your full attention to it. You have lined up supply contracts, rented more warehouse space, and invested in all the needs tools to do proper R&D. In addition to the time you have already invested you make a considerable financial investment as well. You have a closer look at the market and realize that many of your designs are being sold across the world at prices that would be considered a loss to you. People reselling your design are able to forgo any R&D costs and are able to build and sell the design as you made available for free online. You don't want to alienate the community that help your grow so you decided that making some design plans available for free while keeping some of your new work private is the best compromise. There are some critics who are unhappy that you don't release the plans your newest and best models online for free but most people are understanding. There is a large market out there who are willing to pay for your pre-built speakers so you decide to focus your energy on developing that area of your business. 

 

Soon you find that community members angry at the new designs not being made public have purchased your speakers, did a tear down, and reverse engineered the design, and posted the plans online for free. Since you used off the shelf parts anyone can easily replicate your design. You decide that to continue operating your business and protect your R&D you must put other controls in place to secure your protect from competitors. Instead of using off the shelf parts you secure a contract with a manufacturer to build custom spec drivers for you at a significant cost. Now you have a propriety driver that only you have access to that prevents copy cats from profiting off your efforts. Once again most people are quite happy with this and continue to use and buy the products with little complaint. There is a group of community members who are very disappointing in this change as it effectively prevents them from building their own copies now as they don't have access to the plans or parts anymore. They feel that this goes against the spirit of the DIY community and are not happy with the older designs that are still available for free.

 

 

So was this person wrong in changing their business model as they grew as a company? Is Emby wrong for changing theirs? OS works well for hobbyists but becomes much more difficult to manage as business.      

[Guest]

@@Jdiesel valid points, but you missed the part where you explain that the DIY members helped with the speaker design for years, and felt alienated when you decided they could no longer help with or see the schematics for a crucial part of the speaker, so that they wouldn't be able to built a fully working speaker anymore. Their work and enthusiasm was now a dead-end street. If they knew this would happen, they wouldn't have helped to begin with, and you wouldn't have learned what you needed to know to build your current speaker.

 

This is how I understand it. For me personally it's more like this (dramatization):

 

Someone built a cabinet with a bass speaker, a tweeter, and a touch screen. You can use the bass and tweeter for free, but the touch screen is behind a paywall. You decide it sounds good and you don't need the touch screen enough to justify the cost. You decide to use the free version, knowing you can always upgrade to the paid version once the touch screen firmware implements a feature you really like. Or if you ever come across an interesting discount on cyber Monday, who knows. 

 

So you decide to build the speaker into the wall. You build the enclosure and use stucco to sink the speakers into the wall. You put a nice grey layer of paint on the wall.

 

There are some firmware updates with a TV guide, which looks good, but is not relevant to your interests, so you stay with the disabled touch screen free version.

 

The free part of the firmware auto-updates the acoustic model for the speakers' internal equalizer every now and then to make the sound even better. Until one day, an unannounced automatic update disables your tweeter. First you thought the speaker or connection had broken, but after some digging you see a message on the display telling you the tweeter now costs money too. Without the tweeter, the audio no longer sounds acceptable. Now you've effectively been backed into a corner: Either tear down the wall and build a cabinet for different speakers, or pay the money. Whatever the reasoning behind this move, it feels like you're being blackmailed into paying. There could have been a popup warning that the tweeter would stop working in 3 months. Like Dropbox did when they effectively dropped Linux support. Still a frustrating move, but less frustrating than a surprise.

 

Again: Adding new paid features - good. Commercializing previously free features in an automatic update - bad.

 

It's just not nice. Even if God came down from heaven and demanded it.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Redsandro

[ebr 16169]

 

@@Jdiesel valid points, but 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.

[speechles 2055]

@ You are right it isn't fair to condemn the group as "they". Lets focus on the core developers of jellyfin. Lets look into their past history. This is where I find conflict and using GPL as a cover up to their real agenda which is to demonetize Emby. I find it comical the way he tries to legitimize his efforts. Now I put this into the right light. 

 

Do not be offended. This is my own personal opinion. Just as I take no offense to your opinion. In fact I agree with alot of it and are not here to debate those issues. I am here for good intentions.

[metsuke 27]

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

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.

Edited January 29, 2019 by metsuke