Is Emby really open source ?

[chudak 24]

I love Emby, and really would like to see it's getting better.

 

But lately it's feels more and more like a commercial software.  I stopped using Plex because of it's proprietary s/w

 

Two open source good examples  - compare vs `ceph` (https://github.com/ceph/ceph) and `pfSense` (https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense) open source projects.

 

They don't do any feature limitations, but rather charge customers for extra support and training.  Why Emby is making more limitations? 

 

If general direction is not open source, I personally will be hesitant to keep using it in long run.

 

Wonder what other people think about it.

[jachin99 88]

I don't think the charge for support and training model would work out well for consumer software like Emby.  I bet projects like that are charging corporate customers for support, rather than Emby.  The best enticements emby can offer are features, and scalability.

Edited January 19, 2019 by jachin99

[chudak 24]

I don't think the charge for support and training model would work out well for consumer software like Emby.  I bet projects like that are charging corporate customers for support, rather than Emby.  The best enticements emby can offer are features, and scalability.

 

I buy this notion that corporate vs consumer software like Emby are different.  

 

So then the question become - where is that line that makes open source into "closed" source ? 

 

I am premier customer, so unsure how Live TV works in 4.0.0.2, but I guess it's not available to regular users.  Is it OK? 

Say tomorrow Emby will block 50% of functionality - is it still open source ?

[tdiguy 99]

I buy this notion that corporate vs consumer software like Emby are different.  

 

So then the question become - where is that line that makes open source into "closed" source ? 

 

I am premier customer, so unsure how Live TV works in 4.0.0.2, but I guess it's not available to regular users.  Is it OK? 

Say tomorrow Emby will block 50% of functionality - is it still open source ?

This is one of those things i am not sure there really is a good answer for. If it is open source and there are a lot of people voluntarily submitting code to make improvements its hard to say what should or if people should have to pay for features. However as i understand it now there is a very small group of people dedicated to keeping emby great. I could of course be wrong on that also because all i can do is guess based on the forum so even my source of information is flawed at best. But assuming that is semi accurate i can easily imagine that maintaining emby, going through the requests, assisting people with troubleshooting and the other things that the emby team do all take time and skill to do. Which means at the very least they should get  some compensation for this. Now they don't want to sink themselves by pricing themselves out of the market since they have stiff competition ( no matter how flawed plex is it is a very similar product ) so they have to try to strike a balance between pay and hours. If it was a case where there were dozens of people all committing some bits of code here and there on it and all doing it more like a part time hobby spending an hour or less on it per week then it would be weird to charge for it. Course then it would also be far more chaotic also i imagine.

[chudak 24]

Well, I could not find any mention about open source on the website.

 

I guess this is an answer to my question - Emby is not open source anymore. 

 

True ?

[Luke 42077]

We have over 70 open repositories in our github organization.

[chudak 24]

We have over 70 open repositories in our github organization.

 

Well, any word about this or open source license here https://emby.media/ ?

[chudak 24]

Just to make it clear, I don't say that Emy must be open source and I think that subscription model probably is a good option at some point.  I would pay for it.

But now it seems unclear ...

[SilverPeak 0]

Just to make it clear, I don't say that Emy must be open source and I think that subscription model probably is a good option at some point.  I would pay for it.

 

But now it seems unclear ...

 

What features does Emby restrict you from using without subscription?

 

I believe that the subscription is only necessary if you want to use the Emby Theater app at the Xbox One

they probably charge for that because it costs money to publish and keep your apps at these app stores.

It's not a bad thing that Emby gets financial support from it's userbase, because it can make emby even better than it is today which is a hard job because so far it's the best mediaserver i've ever seen, very smooth and high performance.

Edited January 22, 2019 by SilverPeak

[Mintbox 0]

The hardware acceleration feature, as of version 4.0, is restricted to active emby premiere only.  It's mentioned, kinda in passing, at the tail end of the transcoding section (right before you get to transcoding throttling) in the V4 release announcement.

[cptlores 40]

What features does Emby restrict you from using without subscription?

 

I believe that the subscription is only necessary if you want to use the Emby Theater app at the Xbox One

 

Quite a lot of things need 'Premium', including stuff not mentioned in this list like hardware encoding. Not to mention that Emby gets VERY naggy when you use it without a license. So for every release the "Premium" choice is more and more made into the only realistic choice.. Or in other words, there is a reason why the 100% open source Jellyfin fork was made.

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Emby-Premiere-Feature-Matrix

Edited January 19, 2020 by cptlores