Not the OP, but I believe they’re talking about the upgrade from 128 bit AES to 256 bit AES. It created some compatibility issues between clients for a few days as the ones that weren’t updated yet couldn’t decrypt the newer 256 AES encrypted notes. That was my experience anyways. It’s a great app/server from my personal experience.

I’ve basically agreed with you this whole time, see my initial comment regarding the difference between the previous comtribution model and the new request for purchase:

Yeah, functionally it’s the same.

However we’re drawing different conclusions about the situation. You say it’s misleading and morally wrong to refer to “buying” this software, I say it isn’t and that it’s actually a helpful perceptual change in fostering support from their users.

I don’t really think there’s anything else to say beyond that. If you don’t like how Immich is handling their software, don’t use it.

Evidently there’s some difference to the approach. I’m not familiar with the WinRAR days, but they specifically address that in this video. I don’t know if it being similar to WinRAR is a good thing or bad thing in your book, but maybe you’ll enjoy the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdwG6SHeZEA

The technicality of usage rights is irrelevant, the developer is asking you to pay a set price that they’ve set as the total they would like to be reimbursed for providing the development service. That’s not a contribution, that’s a purchase. They’re generous people though, so they won’t restrict your use of the software if you choose not to pay.

Maybe you make donations to FOSS developers regularly. Unfortunately, I did not in the past. While I always intended to, it just slipped through the cracks. After running in to FUTO and the software they sponsor, I’ve been motivated to donate to or purchase much of the free software I’m using, and it’s entirely because of the way they approach their relationship with the user.

If you feel like that’s a dark pattern, or that your payment would only be purchasing an empty NFT, then I guess that’s your choice. But purchasing FOSS applications provides an incredibly important line of support to developers who stem the tide of surveillance capitalism and the digital abuse that big tech has filled our world with. Call it a donation, contribution or purchase price. In any case you are exchanging value for something that has made your life better and supporting the person who made that possible.

Maybe it would help to view the cost of Immich as purchasing a ethics NFT. Sure, you have no observable difference in the material world, but you as a person have affirmed your ethical values through reciprocal action with someone who shares those values 😉

Ownership is being conferred by purchasing immich, that’s what the product key codes they’ve started using indicate.

That is the fundamemental change in the way they are offering Immich: if you pay, you are provided with proof of ownership (product key). If you don’t, you are using it as a part of an indefinent trial period.

Why do you think you aren’t really buying it? Is it because they allow you to run it without paying money for it?

I don’t think the definition of “purchasing” software should be defined by whether you can run the service without paying or not. I think it’s best defined as paying money for something that you like and want to exchange value for. In my book that’s nothing near a dark pattern, as I can’t imagine anyone being confused by it, let alone mistakenly believing there is missing features that they won’t get until they buy.

Privacy is a marketing angle right now for sure. I hate seeing companies like apple advertise to the vague privacy concerns of the general public. Companies like Proton are also making money based on privacy concerns.

As far as I’ve seen, FUTO’s approach is to fund and support independent developers who have a high skill level and well thought out piece of software. They focus on software that is Open, or source available for auditing and viewing purposes, privacy respecting and free of any kind of advertising. They also are pushing for a new culture of payment to these developers that is not a donation to support, but a purchase to use. They don’t insist on the purchase though, you can use any piece of FUTO sponsored software free of charge indefinitely.

They do, but I don’t think that would apply to Immich. Immich is under the AGPL, and hasn’t taken on any FUTO licensing. In a QA they did awhile back they said there was no plans to change it as well, so should be AGPL for the long term.

As far as I’ve seen, the only connection that Immich has with FUTO is the $1M grant and continued development support. I would imagine any sales from these Immich server purchases are now obligated to go to FUTO, but that’s the only connection between the two companies.

I saw a lot of concern in the original github announcement regarding the use of the term “license.” People felt it gave the team a legal footing to paywall features down the road and offer them only to licensed users, along with a few other concerns based in the legal implication of the term license. That of course runs counter to their statement that no features will be paywalled ever, so I guess there’s still some anxiety over their trustworthiness out there. Understandable given some of the rug pulls that have happened in the open source world over the past year though (i.e Redhat, redis, etc…)

Yeah, functionally it’s the same. However I think it is a big perceptual change to be in line with the FUTO principle of “we want to make good software that is open and accessible, but we would also like you to pay us for it so we can continue this project sustainably.” That’s a bit of a contrast with the general open source approach of “I’m writing this software as a service to others, make a donation if you’d like to support my work.”

Personally I think the move towards a more structured buy it if you can mindset is great. I’ve seen too many projects get abandoned because of lack of time and resources and then shift from developer to developer, sometimes getting better, sometimes worse.

I replied to a similar comment above ☝️. They call it a server license, but all the language surrounding it is centered on user counts. They are extremely generous giving the “unlimited trial period” with the high quality of Immich, but the way the licensing is being handled is just kind if confusing. At it’s root, it’s essentially just a request for people to pay for the service, but they’ve complicated it with the word choice.

Me too. It’s a quality app, the only other open source keyboard that rivals it in my mind is Heliboard.

I’d argue that’s just a license for 4+ users as the only differentiation is the dollar amount. In fact one of Alex Tran’s comments in the github announcement was that they simply capped the price at $100 to keep it from getting too expensive for instances with many users. It’s definitely licensing based on users, not servers.

I would be much more comfortable if their licensing language was centered on licensing a self-hosted server, not user amounts. Paying for individual users (IMO) is best done as a hosted service with a monthly fee. They’re probably a ways from being able to implement that though.

EDIT: they’ve adjusted the language and integration of buying the Immich software. It’s much clearer and balanced now. You can find the new info on their github announcements page, or likely in the notes of their next immich release.

ORIGINAL COMMENT
I was really looking forward to them opening a compensation option as I got in after they had taken down donation links, but this is all a bit weird. There is some good discussion happening on the github announcement page. I’ll probably hold at version 1.108 for awhile until the dust settles.

I’ve gone through quite a few FUTO videos since they started sponsoring Immich, and it seems like the issue is that they are essentially an organization of engineers that don’t have a strong background in the legalese of licensing (thus the lack of attention to the wording of the original FUTO temporary license). Their intentions and goals are solid from my perspective and the software they promote is fantastic, but it feels very much like an org run by idealistic engineers without much of a PR presence. The best PR they have is Louis Rossman, take that as you will 😄

All that being said, I have paid for a few of their other pieces of software that are single user. The part I’m not overly fond of is that it seems to be a payment for each individual user, and not a payment to be able to run the server itself. I’m sure there is rational behind it, but it just feels like this whole licensing element isn’t fully baked yet.

Interesting, yeah I did see in the github issues that Jellyfin itself was a bit unpredictable in triggering the right information requests from the plugin and that it may suddenly start working just because Jellyfin finally fired off correctly. I guess I’ll just be patient 😅

I haven’t run in to any freezing issues either. It sounds like it might be a network issue, do you access the service over your local network or by external DNS?

Not to hijack your post, but do you use tubearchivist-jf-plugin for getting metadata in to jellyfin? I cannot seem to get that plugin to function on my set up for some reason which makes it very hard to view the tubearchivist library on jellyfin 😢

I initially started out with that, it worked fairly well but I did notice a significant speed increase when syncing after getting the Joplin server set up. The downside is having another service publicly exposed though, a more minimal set up does have its benefits.

Yeah, I hear you there. I usually get overwhelmed by the time I get to the “B” section.

I think (looking back at your post) the most important thing that helped me was learning how to use docker-compose. All of my services are in docker containers and are much more manageable then trying to do a bare metal install.

With that comes the struggle of security though, as docker containers use their own set of firewall rules distinct from the main firewall rules you might have setup on your server. If you end up using docker, do a few searches on how to secure those firewall rules for the containers themselves.

I have definitely benefited from other peoples current set up lists, I’ll leave mine here in case it sparks some interesting directions for you.

• Diun - notification service for when new images are released for any running docker apps I have up.

• Immich - self-hosted photos backup. Incredible app, its extremely refined and feature complete.

• Jellyfin (Linuxserver.io image) - personal media streaming service. The Linuxserver.io version was much easier to set up than the stock jellyfin version.

• Joplin server - self-hosted back end for Joplin notes sync. Much faster and more reliable than the 3rd party sync targets like one drive or Dropbox.

• Mealie - recipe management.

• Nextcloud - so many things. Calendar, files, kanban, contacts, etc… Personally I find Nextcloud’s documentation hard to follow, so I’ve linked the video tutorial I used to set mine up.

• Nginx proxy manager - reverse proxy with basic protections built in. I’m on the fence on suggesting this one and have been considering switching to something else, as it rarely gets updates these days. It is the only one I’ve been able to wrap my head around though. Zoraxy, Traefic and Swag are all other options. You mentioned having Nginx set up already, so this might not even be an issue for you.

• Paperless-NGX - document server and archive. All you need is the docker-compose.env and docker-compose.postgres.yml from the linked directory. Tweak the compose and env values as you see fit and remove the “postgres” from the file name before firing it up.

• Portainer - basically just a GUI for viewing docker services. You can manage docker images and stacks with portainer, but I would recommend just learning the docker-compose method in general.

If you ever run into instructions for setting something up with a regular docker command but want to convert it to a docker-compose.yml file instead, this site is super useful: composerize.com

Definitely check DB Tech’s videos put on YouTube. He covers a ton of self-hosted apps and how to set them up. You’ll have to sift through a bit, not all the apps he talks about are really necessary, but I basically learned self-hosting through his channel.

Look for stuff on authelia, crowdsec or fail2ban with regards security for your server and decide what direction you want to go there.

Christian Lempa’s channel is also good, though can be more technically oriented.

EDIT: also, this github repo has an amazing (though overwhelming) list if self-hosted services. Awesome Self-hosted.

Interesting, sounds like it’s worth checking out. Plus as a star trek fan, I approve of the name 😄