Announcing New Unraid OS License Keys

[Hoopster]

11 minutes ago, matt4542 said:

This is a switch on the people who have purchased your software

Did you miss this statement? 

Quote

Nothing changes for existing Basic/Plus/Pro keys: you still get Unraid OS updates for life and you will still have the option to upgrade Basic to Plus/Pro or Plus to Pro.

 

Seems to me that nothing changes for legacy users unless they want to make the change in license. The subscription licenses are for new users going forward who want a basic/starter or unlimited version and the subscription after a year is optional.  There will still be a Pro/lifetime license.

 

Sure, some things still need to be worked out, including pricing but there is really not much in this announcement about which to be upset.

 

[matt4542]

3 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Did you miss this statement? 

 

Seems to me that nothing changes for legacy users unless they want to make the change in license. The subscription licenses are for new users going forward who want a basic/starter or unlimited version and the subscription after a year is optional.  There will still be a Pro/lifetime license.

 

Sure, some things still need to be worked out, including pricing but there is really not much in this announcement about which to be upset.

 

I am well aware of this, I have read the post and I've watched their YouTube video.

 

It's not a change of functionality for "legacy" users but it's the idea that was sold to the users. It's changed, it's different, and that product is no longer available. How does that guarantee availability in the future? It truly does feel like a switch. Companies that have historically offered legacy perpetual license support when changing licensing models generally slowly fade it away as it's nowhere as lucrative as the subscription.

 

Again, it's a Trust Us™️ scenario.

[Hoopster]

24 minutes ago, matt4542 said:

Again, it's a Trust Us™️ scenario.

Only time will tell but Limetech has earned the benefit of my trust unless something happens to change that.  Today's announcement alone has not changed anything for me other than prompting me to upgrade one of my Plus licenses to Pro. 😀

 

Of course, you are welcome to draw your own conclusions and act accordingly.

Edited February 19 by Hoopster

[trurl]

2 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Limetech has earned the benefit of my trust unless something happens to change that.  Today's announcement alone has not changed anything for me

If anything, it makes it seem more likely that Unraid will be able to continue.

[EDACerton]

12 minutes ago, matt4542 said:

Again, it's a Trust Us™️ scenario.

Everything is a  Trust Us™️  scenario.

 

Limetech does nothing?  Trust Us™️  to not make changes in the future.  Trust Us™️  to be able to bring in sufficient revenue to keep the product going (after all, if they go under then a promise of lifetime updates isn't worth much).

 

Limetech makes licensing changes, and honors the existing licenses?  Trust Us™️  to not make changes in the future.

 

I'm not afraid to push when I think it's required (ref: my questions about privacy posted earlier in this topic). Portraying the licensing change as a breach of trust is excessive, though -- they're honoring exactly what they offered. They never promised to sell a forever license for forever.

Edited February 19 by EDACerton

[dopeytree]

Please watch this - The best explanation is here in this really nice video interview With Tom the Founder & his Daughter who is co-ceo.

 

 

Basically extra money is needed to help bring on new team members & help further development. They want to continue serving the community and not seek venture capital etc. They talk about how they would like to use more community developers for little projects. And how moving to this new business model will work both ways as people have the choice to pay or not and so this means they have to bring features that people will pay for. So exciting.

 

After watching the video, hearing the history & realising it is a family run business - I am feeling better about the future of unraid.

Edited February 20 by dopeytree

[Kilrah]

Only comment on the plans from me is that IMO "4 devices" or "unlimited devices" being the only choices for the yearly license makes little sense... 4 is barely even a server, and 99% of people don't need "unlimited". Only seems like a way to get everyone on "unleashed".

Edited February 19 by Kilrah

[KapaaIan]

What CD said. 

You can't sell perpetual licenses WITH baked in upgrades forever.

 

Back in the day, you would buy "Productivity Software '92" and get upgrades to '92 until '92 was dropped from support. At that point, you could either a. Continue using it as it drifted further from current software and became more insecure. b. Pay to upgrade to Productivity Software '95 and start the cycle over again. or c. (usually in enterprise) pay for a perpetual license and then pay for maintenance which authorized you to upgrade and get more support. Moment you stop paying, you're stuck on the major version you're on. Eventually option d. Subscription came out and gradually became the standard. Why? Lower upfront costs gets more people in the door, the cost can be better calculated and budgeted for and the companies themselves don't need to "sell" all the time.

The model being implemented here is 100% NOT a subscription model. It is option C. A perpetual license with a year of maintenance. This does allow users to make their own judgements on when to pay. Year is up, nothing new on horizon I need, wait to pay for maintenance until I have a compelling reason to upgrade, then get year of updates to catch up. This would be like having Photoshop 2, skipping 3 and upgrading to 4. 

 

We'd all love to get everything forever for free, but that's not how it works. This is the best (or least worst if you prefer) option that provides revenue to Lime, while taking care of everyone. And as long as it isn't 10 times the price for a pro license, you can still pay to not have to think about it. And many companies will because of the difference between capitalized vs. expense. 

Obviously ALL of this goes out the Window if the grandfathering and new Pro Licenses go out the Window, but the fact that LT is planning to continue to sell new Pro licenses indicates that such a change is not coming anytime soon. Doing that would open one up to litigation. 

[BVD]

4 hours ago, limetech said:

 

A small point: it's not a subscription fee in this sense: with a subscription if you don't renew then the service ends.  By contrast if you do not extend your Starter or Unleashed key your server still runs as before and you still have complete access to your data, etc.

 

I'd call it an "OS support fee". In all larger enterprises I've worked for (pre inability to own anything as has become the enterprise norm), software upgrades were part of a support contract. In this instance, its more like a "license support" situation than "software support" (e.g. you own the hardware, but support contracts allow access to upgrade that hw), but similar ideology.

 

Personally, I feel like its about time unraid did this, and am glad for the move. While I'm not really as much of an unraid user as I once was, for the target market of the product, I think its more than fair, and passed time 👍

Edited February 19 by BVD

[EDACerton]

13 minutes ago, BVD said:

 

I'd call it an "OS support fee". In all larger enterprises I've worked for (pre inability to own anything as has become the enterprise norm), software upgrades were part of a support contract. In this instance, its more like a "license support" situation than "software support" (e.g. you own the hardware, but support contracts allow access to upgrade that hw), but similar ideology.

 

Personally, I feel like its about time unraid did this, and am glad for the move. While I'm not really as much of an unraid user as I once was, for the target market of the product, I think its more than fair, and passed time 👍

I’m used to enterprise software support contracts too… I’ve dealt with them for a long time. The renewal cost is what I found interesting from the podcast  — 50% is a lot for a software renewal. 20% is closer to the industry norm.

 

Not backdating/charging reinstatement penalties is interesting too. I’d rather see a less expensive renewal, but have the support backdate if I let it lapse and then renew. 

Edited February 20 by EDACerton

[squirrellydw]

the people that are complaining are probably still running windows 3.1.1 because they have to pay to upgrade to win95 🤣

 

I have been running unraid for 12 years or something like that since the 3.xx/4.xx days and this is the first time I can remember that they changed anything.  unraid will always have my support, great community and it's rock solid.

[dopeytree]

1 minute ago, squirrellydw said:

the people that are complaining are probably still running windows 3.1.1 because they have to pay to upgrade to win95 🤣

 

I have been running unraid for 12 years or something like that since the 3.xx/4.xx days and this is the first time I can remember that they changed anything.  unraid will always have my support, great community and it's rock solid.

 

That probably would be a better focus the new payment schemes start with unraid 7.

Unraid 7 brings the 2nd part of ZFS and various other cool features talked about in the video.

However free for all current customers. It's new future customers who pay yearly.

 

 

[starbetrayer]

6 hours ago, limetech said:

 

We need more of these.

 

Thanks for the honesty but in the after-covid period, why not hire developers in Europe who work remote?

 

That seems a way better logical choice.

Edited February 20 by starbetrayer

[starbetrayer]

5 hours ago, EDACerton said:

I appreciate the response regarding the licensing situation.

 

The other concern that I would like some explanation for is the privacy issue related to the new update mechanism. I was finally able to coax some debug logs out of my browser, and I discovered that there's a lot of information being sent with every click of the "Update OS" button:

• apiVersion
• caseModel
• connectPluginVersion
• description
• expireTime
• flashProduct
• flashVendor
• guid
• inIframe
• keyfile
• lanIp
• name
• osVersion
• osVersionBranch
• registered
• regGuid
• regExp
• regTy
• regUpdatesExpired
• site
• state
• wanFQDN

Some of these make sense as part of a license check (guid, keyfile, flash information). Some, though, seem to be quite extraneous: caseModel (does Limetech really need what kind of case my server is in?), LAN IP, hostname, description... none of these are needed to validate a license.

 

The privacy policy (https://unraid.net/policies) says nothing about collecting this kind of information:

• What is the primary purpose for collecting all of this information?
• Is the information used for other purposes? If so, what?
• Is this information stored? If so:
  • Is it stored in identifiable form?
  • How long is it retained?

 

I have to agree there, and would like to get some answers as well.

In addition, I would like unRAID to think about the consequences as the GPDR will apply to you guys.

[starbetrayer]

2 hours ago, BVD said:

 

I'd call it an "OS support fee". In all larger enterprises I've worked for (pre inability to own anything as has become the enterprise norm), software upgrades were part of a support contract. In this instance, its more like a "license support" situation than "software support" (e.g. you own the hardware, but support contracts allow access to upgrade that hw), but similar ideology.

 

Personally, I feel like its about time unraid did this, and am glad for the move. While I'm not really as much of an unraid user as I once was, for the target market of the product, I think its more than fair, and passed time 👍

 

That's the way I see as well and the whole question is what percentage will it be.

[tjb_altf4]

I'm happy to see this change as it will give Unraid the resources it needs to really shine and iterate new features and all the other things we all want.

Also grateful that the licencing model doesn't penalise for time missed, Atlassian used to do this for their self hosted software and I hated it to the nth degree.

 

Now get cracking on the multi array release please

[Nodiaque]

So someone finally did it, OS as a subscription. No one did it yet, not even Microsoft, Apple or Android. It already exist in software for a while, but not OS. I'm glad I bought they key in the past, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that would go another route if they had to pay yearly to be able to update the OS.

[EDACerton]

15 minutes ago, Nodiaque said:

So someone finally did it, OS as a subscription. No one did it yet, not even Microsoft, Apple or Android. It already exist in software for a while, but not OS. I'm glad I bought they key in the past, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that would go another route if they had to pay yearly to be able to update the OS.

 

"No one did it yet" is completely false. The "initial purchase + annual support" licensing model has been common for server OSes for a long time.

 

OEM-distributed desktop OSes are a different thing altogether. Those licenses are tied to specific computers, and so when the device is no longer useful, the license goes with it (and you just pay for a new one when you buy a new computer). The Unraid equivalent to "desktop licensing" would be having to buy a new license if you ever replaced your motherboard/CPU/etc.

 

I like the "server" licensing approach better.

[awa1992]

I'm not sure if this has already been asked for forgive me but for people who currently have the basic, will the price change when I eventually want to upgrade to the pro license or should I go ahead and upgrade? I'm relatively new to Unraid but I absolutely love the software and I'm already up to 5 drives. I know eventually I wanted to switch to the Pro license but wasn't intending to do it for a while. Thank you for the work y'all do! 

Edited February 20 by awa1992

[Nogami]

Think this is pretty fair.

 

1 year of included upgrades is pretty standard and I don’t have an issue with this as long as they never move to a “don’t pay a sub and your existing paid software  expires” (adobe’s garbage model).

 

As long as this is not the case, it’s just a 1 year support contract and not a “subscription” in the sense of Apps where you lose everything if you don’t continue to pay.  Gotta nip that line of FUD in the bud.

 

Retaining a lifetime option that’s a bit more expensive is also quite reasonable for us long term users.

 

There must also be a way that’s less expensive than buying an entire new license to reactivate your license if you don’t keep renewing every year and want to skip a bunch of interim upgrades and just get current.  Too many companies don’t value customers that helped get them there and it would pain me if limetech went that way and only chased new subs rather than treasuring existing customers who are usually the biggest advocates.

Edited February 20 by Nogami

[cj0r]

36 minutes ago, Nodiaque said:

So someone finally did it, OS as a subscription. No one did it yet, not even Microsoft, Apple or Android. It already exist in software for a while, but not OS. I'm glad I bought they key in the past, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that would go another route if they had to pay yearly to be able to update the OS.

That is far from accurate when you look at the server software space.

 

Unraid baking in a pricing model that can ensure they have a steady cash flow is more than acceptable considering how long they've gone without some form of a fee or licensing system like this. Even moreso considering how much they've given over the years when comparing the original offering and how much it has evolved to its modern day state. They're also allowing customers to keep using their product even after that annual license expires... that's incredibly generous considering most licensed software becomes useless once expired.

 

Yes you can build a similar free open source alternative but it will be a hell of a lot more work to get setup, won't be nearly as modular, and it will never provide the same easy to use experience. Frankly all those saying things about free alternatives should be donating $$$ to those devs as well but I'm sure they are not and that's just sad and is a big problem across the free/open source software community. 

 

I personally have bought multiple licenses from Unraid and recommended to many over the years. I have absolutely no regrets and fully support their decision to create a reasonable revenue stream that they more than deserve. 

[Eddie Seelke]

9 minutes ago, Nogami said:

There must also be a way that’s less expensive than buying an entire new license to reactivate your license if you don’t keep renewing every year and want to skip a bunch of interim upgrades and just get current.  Too many companies don’t value customers that helped get them there and it would pain me if limetech went that way and only chased new subs rather than treasuring existing customers who are usually the biggest advocates.

This is actually talked about in the video that was posted. You should check it out.

[Leseratte10]

9 hours ago, ultimation said:

Security patches are not a minor details. A lot of the unraid systems are exposed to the Internet one way or another. Items like docker security updates must be an essential for everyone running unraid.

 

The support burden of maintaining multiple version releases is high though. So I hope this pays for that.

 

@limetechIf the support / development work for two or more seperate branches is too high, have you thought about allowing everyone to update but lock down new features?

 

So, like, even with the limited license you could update UnRAID forever, but once you add a new large feature to the UnRAID system like ZFS or whatever the last larger update was, you could add code to UnRAID that's like "Only allow people to use this feature if they're on Pro, Lifetime, or their key was bought after the feature was introduced". 

 

That way you'd only have one branch of UnRAID to update, everyone (even those with subscription keys) can update to the newest version and receive security updates and fixes, but new features would require people to either have a Pro or Lifetime license, or a currently valid subscription license.

 

Looking through the last couple of updates, quite a few changes are security-only, or bugfixes for past issues. If I had a temporary license for a year, I'd be pissed if I updated to a new version that introduces some new bug, but then my license expires and I won't be able to update to the next release that hopefully fixes it. 

 

The number of big new features hasn't really been that high recently, so the additional work of locking new features behind a "your key must be up-to-date" shouldn't be that much.

Edited February 20 by Leseratte10

[Nogami]

11 hours ago, trurl said:

 

One of the main reasons I suggest users to upgrade is so the community can support them. We can't keep running old versions just so we can help people that won't upgrade. 

I think a reasonable timeframe for supporting old versions with upgrades that only patch major vulnerabilities is fine. Maybe 2 years tops.

[dgriff]

10 hours ago, deano_southafrican said:

Reddit is going wild but seems far more sensible over here. I have a Pro license and in all honesty I'm unlikely to ever need another license and if I did I'd be willing to purchase a year long license as outlined in the post. We can all be brutally honest and say the amount of value we've gotten out of unRAID for the price has been incredible. That being said, it'd be annoying to have to worry about a subscription model or annual license charge. A lifetime option should exist and if you need to increase the price then so be it. Everyone needs to put down the pitch forks.

In future though, please make your announcement before releasing the update for everyone to find and get riled up about. 

Reddit is a slum now.  Don’t care about them at all anymore.  I suggest you delete them as well.  You’ll be happier.