Announcing New Unraid OS License Keys

[beckp]

I had to chime in, this hit a nerve. I agree with 1812, they want everything for free. Even downloading movies. They will spend the money for hardware but software they want for free or next to nothing.

 

Take a look at the users that rant the most. They are fairly new members. I doubt they have experienced a hard disk failure. This is where Unraid shines. If they complain about pricing, I doubt they use parity drive(s). I say let them leave and go to an alternative.

 

I chose Unraid 14 years ago. Back then the biggest concern was LT’s risk management since Tom was a one man show.

 

I wanted a system to be expandable, I wanted to use my various sized hard disks. I wanted the disk to spin down and I liked the idea that you could still access a disk by itself. It had to be an unconventional server, Unraid fit the bill. I went with the pro license at that time since it was the only one that covered my hard disk count. I just checked my email invoice from “Tom” and it was on sale for $109 ($10 discount) at that time. I spent more for a UPS.

 

Soon I was maxed out and bought two 1TB drives, then larger drives and survived through the 2TB limit! I have experienced the introduction of Joe L.’s creations; cache_dirs, unMENU and preclear. We endured a number of LT re-locations. Unraid has come along way. Thanks Tom!

 

Sorry, I haven’t been active on this forum lately, I been busy doing other things and frankly, Unraid just works. I have recovered through a number of hard disk failures, parity swaps, array up sizing and array down sizing. All painlessly. BTW, I still have the original flash drive. I didn’t cheap out on that.

 

I’ve recommended and help setup Unraid using the Pro license to lots of people and not one complained about the cost. When my kids finally move out, we will happily pay for the “Lifetime” license no matter what the cost.

[cj0r]

On 3/8/2024 at 12:32 PM, beckp said:

I had to chime in, this hit a nerve. I agree with 1812, they want everything for free. Even downloading movies. They will spend the money for hardware but software they want for free or next to nothing.

 

Take a look at the users that rant the most. They are fairly new members. I doubt they have experienced a hard disk failure. This is where Unraid shines. If they complain about pricing, I doubt they use parity drive(s). I say let them leave and go to an alternative.

 

I chose Unraid 14 years ago. Back then the biggest concern was LT’s risk management since Tom was a one man show.

 

I wanted a system to be expandable, I wanted to use my various sized hard disks. I wanted the disk to spin down and I liked the idea that you could still access a disk by itself. It had to be an unconventional server, Unraid fit the bill. I went with the pro license at that time since it was the only one that covered my hard disk count. I just checked my email invoice from “Tom” and it was on sale for $109 ($10 discount) at that time. I spent more for a UPS.

 

Soon I was maxed out and bought two 1TB drives, then larger drives and survived through the 2TB limit! I have experienced the introduction of Joe L.’s creations; cache_dirs, unMENU and preclear. We endured a number of LT re-locations. Unraid has come along way. Thanks Tom!

 

Sorry, I haven’t been active on this forum lately, I been busy doing other things and frankly, Unraid just works. I have recovered through a number of hard disk failures, parity swaps, array up sizing and array down sizing. All painlessly. BTW, I still have the original flash drive. I didn’t cheap out on that.

 

I’ve recommended and help setup Unraid using the Pro license to lots of people and not one complained about the cost. When my kids finally move out, we will happily pay for the “Lifetime” license no matter what the cost.

 

Boom nailed it. Close the thread! Next song!!! 

[eras]

On 3/8/2024 at 7:32 PM, beckp said:

I had to chime in, this hit a nerve. I agree with 1812, they want everything for free. Even downloading movies. They will spend the money for hardware but software they want for free or next to nothing....If they complain about pricing, I doubt they use parity drive(s).

"They"...aha! And of course "they" are all the same, those cheap peasants.

I bet that nearly everyone who voiced critical opinions about the changes here has decided against a whole bouquet of free alternatives and paid money for an unRAID license. So yeah, not exactly convincing your diagnose. Frankly, it looks a bit fanboyish and defensive. You would look a lot better if you actually came up with convincing arguments why this new model is fair to the user and why you expect it to be a success.

As pointed out before, I don't see how someone can regard a model as fair that combines an initial license fee much higher than in regular subscription models with reoccurring charges for what is essentially bug fixing--without any clear commitment on the company's side. If you see things differently, it would help to point out why.

So no, people over her who are critical don't want "everything for free." They simply point out that the new licensing model doesn't look like a fair deal. 

It is rather silly and self-defeating to claim that people are cheap or should go elsewhere "if they don't like it." Because if they do and if the new model doesn't attract any new customers, the company will eventually run out of cash and the system will meet its end alongside the business.
As I pointed out in one of my earlier comments, I was planning to buy a secondary license in the nearer future, but won't in the new system, because I am not getting a fair deal. And I am already sold on unRAID. The new model will be much harder to sell to people who are just building their first NAS and who compare the competing options. It's a lot of good systems for free out there--vs the paid system that you will have to pay forever for.
I would actually prefer NOT to be grandfathered with my current license and to have a reasonable update fee for each main version switch for everyone--even though it would cost me more personally. Because in such a model, even the old-license users would get a fair deal and actual workable alternative options. Buying a new license would not becoming utterly unattractive, the company would be obligated to make the big version updates worth their price.
I asked in an earlier post if anyone could name a company that runs such a licensing model--a combination of a fullish-price fee for starters followed by annual subscription fees--and thrives. Can you? And if not, I don't see what you derive your optimism from.

 

On 3/8/2024 at 7:32 PM, beckp said:

Take a look at the users that rant the most. They are fairly new members. I doubt they have experienced a hard disk failure.

1) Nobody rants here. 
2) Good for you that you experienced a HDD failure and survived it without data loss. I see that you consider that a major achievement of yours. From here, it looks a bit funny though that you based your elitist attitude on that. 
3) You do understand LT needs a lot of those "new users" you seem to consider of lesser importance? Because you and me won't be paying for that subscription model. You think someone who considers buying a license later this year and reads your statements is more likely to shell money out in order to share a forum with you?

Edited March 10 by eras

[guybrush2012]

With the subscription model, Unraid is no longer attractive. Then it's better for new user, to look for alternatives, Openmediavault with Portainer and Docker Templates, TrueNAS Scale with TrueCharts, Xpenology, Proxmox or systems such as Synology, QNAP or Ugreen.

 

Keep the Basic and Plus licenses and still offer two additional licenses. That would have been the right way.

Edited March 10 by guybrush2012

[beckp]

 

12 hours ago, eras said:

1) Nobody rants here. 

Please look up the definition of rant. “To speak or write at length in an impassioned way.”  As a member of this forum, as of this date you have a total of 12 posts. All of them within this topic.

12 hours ago, eras said:

2) Good for you that you experienced a HDD failure and survived it without data loss. I see that you consider that a major achievement of yours. From here, it looks a bit funny though that you based your elitist attitude on that. 

It is a good achievement not only for me but for Unraid. Try recovery with TrueNAS or OMV. Try up sizing and down sizing with the alternatives. This is an area where LT marketing can improve by educating the prospective user. Please note, I know some of you may say neither systems are meant for backup, I agree. I also have JBOD backup, luckily I have not had to use. Perhaps it's Unraid, clean shutdowns using an UPS or just monitoring my system.

12 hours ago, eras said:

3) You do understand LT needs a lot of those "new users" you seem to consider of lesser importance? Because you and me won't be paying for that subscription model. You think someone who considers buying a license later this year and reads your statements is more likely to shell money out in order to share a forum with you?

Please see #2 above. LT marketing has a challenge. A new user needs to understand the differences. They all three have their pros and cons. A new user needs to know what they want.  

 

I’ve have helped colleagues switch to Unraid when they could get what they wanted using OMV on a Raspberry Pi because they saw it on YouTube.

 

Remember, LT stated the system does not stop functioning when you elect to not renew the license for another year. I won’t call it a subscription.  I sat on the fence for a few years before upgrading from 4.7 to 5. If this license program were in place  then I would start the licensing again once I was comfortable with the upgrade.

 

As for security update, that was a Docker issue and not an Unraid security issue. Yes, Docker is part of Unraid, I am pretty sure it could have been patched on Docker side or Slackware side. LT made it convenient in the upgrade.

 

I said my peace and I will move on...

 

[ddube]

22 minutes ago, beckp said:

Remember, LT stated the system does not stop functioning when you elect to not renew the license for another year. I won’t call it a subscription.  I sat on the fence for a few years before upgrading from 4.7 to 5. If this license program were in place  then I would start the licensing again once I was comfortable with the upgrade.

 

As for security update, that was a Docker issue and not an Unraid security issue. Yes, Docker is part of Unraid, I am pretty sure it could have been patched on Docker side or Slackware side. LT made it convenient in the upgrade.

Ok, here we are. Assuming we are in the "subscription" model (or call it yearly update fee) and you are using 6.12.6 and security patch 6.12.8 is out but you are past that 1-year window so you are left out of update, which is a major security fix.

 

That model is not good at all. LT will need to maintain more branch and they will need to provide roadmap and incentive to purchase the product. We don't even have a clue about what are the advantages to switch model. There is none.

 

This is a community driven software by the way and I'm pretty sure you will not see the increase in customer. The money boom will come before the change and it will dry after.

 

[eras]

15 hours ago, beckp said:

Please look up the definition of rant. “To speak or write at length in an impassioned way.”  As a member of this forum, as of this date you have a total of 12 posts. All of them within this topic.

To write in an impassionate way isn't the definition of rant.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/rant
And I am not impassionate, I am frustrated that I even have to point out something that should be glaringly obvious. Glaringly obvious isn't depending on posts or time spent in forums btw.
 

15 hours ago, beckp said:

It is a good achievement not only for me but for Unraid. Try recovery with TrueNAS or OMV. Try up sizing and down sizing with the alternatives.

It's great, no question. I paid for a license because it is. 

It isn't, however, willing-to-pay-for-subscription-on-top-of-license-great. Once again: What makes or breaks a subscription model is a continuous added-value proposition that works for the subscriber. People sign up for streaming services, Office365, newspapers, pool memberships because they get a clear, continuous benefit from it. Every day, every week, every month they pay they get something they want in exchange for that money.

No matter how hard you try to ignore this: unRAID's new licensing model doesn't even have a defined value proposition. And to make things worse, they don't just switch to subscription (which would be difficult to sell already), they ask you to buy a full license first.
That's a business licensing model ported into the end-user space, where such models rarely work--even if they offer a clearly defined, high-demand benefit in return for the money. If they would have switched to a "19.99 a year"-software-as-a-service model, I think they would probably struggle as well to convince new users, but it would at least make sense, especially if they added some online service to the package (like MS does with Office 365). Asking users to pay 40-90 dollars for a license and then asking them to pay for a subscription on top in order to get bug-fixing and security for the software you already bought is basically asking them to look elsewhere.
If you don't understand that, you apparently don't understand how the NAS-market looks like, at least for home users. People assign a budget to these things. They decided against a Synology (etc) ready-to-deploy system because they expect additional benefit in return for their investment of time and money. And now they are asked to accept a constantly growing budget for something that the vast majority of software and hardware companies factor into the price and provide for free.
And not only that. Those new users are also asked to pay continuously--when the vast majority of users they encounter in the forums have perpetual licenses and get the very same updates and features for free. Do you really believe those prospective new users are going to miss the fact that they are not only asked to pay for both a license and a subscription (which is unusual and bad in itself) but that in this system, their subscription money subsidizes the service provided to a majority of existing users who pay nothing? Do you really think they miss the fact that they are effectively asked to become suckers?

No aspect of the software is going to gloss over the fact that this proposition is ridiculously bad and unfair to those new users. No level of denial will make the fact go away that prospective new users won't overlook that it is. And if they are smart, they will understand immediately that this model will likely fail--casting a big doubt on the future of the system they are asked to subsidize.

As an existing user, the fact that this was decided and publicly announced is making me question the decision-making infrastructure at LT. Because either nobody realized the above, or everybody lives in denial. Neither option would be great. 

And no, I am not ignoring LT's perspective. Again, as stated multiple times before: I believe they should have explained the situation to existing users, asked them to accept a voluntary switch to a pay-by-version model and installed the same model for new users. I would have accepted that and would have paid a (reasonable) upgrade fee for each mainline version. Because that would be making sense from a budget POV, it would be fair to the developers, to existing and new users, and it would ensure that the company and the software stay in business, which is the one thing everyone involved is interested in.

So instead of calling my posts a rant or focusing on the irrelevant part of how much time I spent in the forums, may I suggest you provide an argumentation why what I pointed out above isn't true or relevant? I doubt you can.

Edited March 11 by eras

[jit-010101]

On 3/7/2024 at 10:45 PM, SpencerJ said:

 

Woohoo! Please see here: 

Hope to hear from you 🙂

 

 

 

Had a quick glance into the code base.

 

Honestly not sure if I want to do it - C++ or Qt aint my strongest contenders and they come with a lot of uglyness in that specific code base (many external dependencies, originally based on Qt5 which is Out-of-Support already).

 

Specifically speaking from a low-level the customization features are also tailored for the Raspi-Bootloader - should be U-Boot as most SBCs as far as I remember.

 

But then again this topic interests me quite a bit (in terms of learning) so I decided to create something from scratch in Rust (yesh):

 

https://github.com/thiscantbeserious/usb-creator-rs

 

Upside is I charge 0,00 - if you want to help with the planning and design feel free to contribute by feature requests.

 

If it turns out useful / works as intended then I'll gladly rebrand / customize it for Unraid too.

 

But no promises - I was initially planning to keep quite about it but here we are ... no pressure!

 

 

Edited March 12 by jit-010101

[SpencerJ]

3 hours ago, jit-010101 said:

 

 

If it turns out useful / works as intended then I'll gladly rebrand / customize it for Unraid too.

 

But no promises - I was initially planning to keep quite about it but here we are ... no pressure!

 

 

 

Thanks! I'll send you a DM!

[RGBlack316]

On 3/10/2024 at 9:04 AM, guybrush2012 said:

With the subscription model, Unraid is no longer attractive. Then it's better for new user, to look for alternatives, Openmediavault with Portainer and Docker Templates, TrueNAS Scale with TrueCharts, Xpenology, Proxmox or systems such as Synology, QNAP or Ugreen.

 

Keep the Basic and Plus licenses and still offer two additional licenses. That would have been the right way.

 

This response goes right along with the rants others have pointed out. Feel free to move on to something else since. you no longer want to support the work done on Unraid.

[ddube]

On 3/13/2024 at 1:08 PM, RGBlack316 said:

 

This response goes right along with the rants others have pointed out. Feel free to move on to something else since. you no longer want to support the work done on Unraid.

Well, that depends on a lot of things. People are right to be mad about this. Do you remember in 2018 when LT told us that bitrot wasn't real ? It took at least 5 years from that to implement ZFS and it's not fully implemented. It came with 6.12 and the last part will be in 6.13. Where is the roadmap ? When will we get news about this ?

 

Source :

Time will tell if that gamble will work, but I will hold my money on this one. If it works then good for the company, if not then something else will replace unraid anyway.

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, ddube said:

People are right to be mad about this.

There are exactly 0 people in the world currently affected by the decision, so I'd beg to differ.

 

It'll only affect people buying licenses after the change. Whether that's gonna work out for LT is to be seen, and won't directly affect you.

 

[ddube]

3 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

There are exactly 0 people in the world currently affected by the decision, so I'd beg to differ.

 

It'll only affect people buying licenses after the change. Whether that's gonna work out for LT is to be seen, and won't directly affect you.

 

I have to disagree on this. If I wanted to expand and build one more server, it'll be affected by this. When I consider this, it will just make me move to something else and then I'll migrate the existing server onto the new solution.

 

It will affect the current customer too if it doesn't work like they are thinking. Less cashflow means that your beloved software might bite the dust. If LT become bankrupt, will they release the code as an open-source project ?

[BoKKeR]

I am afraid that the current plugins and docker container community supporting unraid are not versioned properly to support a big influx of users on old unraid versions. There is no easy way of installing a plug-in which matches your old unraid version as far I know.

 

The way of making these components match is just updating to latest bleeding edge of unraid OS and updating all supporting plugins/containers. With this change there will be many users stuck on older versions. They would have to manually match plugins to unraid versions.

I maintain the unraid-api and there is not enough bandwidth to backport features. I can only implement those for the newest unraid versions. I keep tags for older releases. I am unsure if plugins have a similar mechanism. 
 

I welcome the change but I am afraid it will create a lot of noise for individual contributors who maintain smaller projects related to unraid.

 

Also is there an official release date ?

Edited March 19 by BoKKeR

[EDACerton]

22 minutes ago, BoKKeR said:

The way of making these components match is just updating to latest bleeding edge of unraid OS and updating all supporting plugins/containers. With this change there will be many users stuck on older versions. They would have to manually match plugins to unraid versions.

There's already discussion happening on how to support this better.... we're over a year away from this being a potential issue, so there's plenty of time to solve that problem.

[ConnerVT]

The way that many small companies who distribute OS solve this is to do their damnedest to get users to upgrade to the latest version (Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet,...)

[Kilrah]

2 hours ago, BoKKeR said:

There is no easy way of installing a plug-in which matches your old unraid version as far I know.

AFAIK you can set a plugin's min and max versions in CA, so you could have different plugins called the same with non-overlapping versions and people will see the one that work with theirs. An old version wouldn't get any more breaking/feature changes (or any changes at all) so if it works by the time the new one comes out the old one will likely continue to work without intervention.

 

 

Edited March 19 by Kilrah

[SBehnke]

Am I the only one here who is interested in the revenue only generated by the announcing of the new paying model?

@limetech: I am not asking for the totals but it would be interesting to hear how many more or less licenses have been sold since the announcement and how many upgrades (Basic>Plus>Pro) have been sold compared to the time before the announcement?

I guess the "wow, the upgrades in the future have to be paid for in blood"-panic-upgraders raised noticeable your income.

Oh, while I am reading what I have written: I also have to upgrade asap , I can't see any blood.

 

Sven

[RGBlack316]

On 3/14/2024 at 2:13 PM, ddube said:

People are right to be mad about this. 

 

No one has any right to be mad. They have a choice to be mad, but that choice is imperative upon how they choose to do so. The online outrage over this is simply ridiculous.

[SpencerJ]

3.21.24 Update: We have a new blog up here that outlines our new pricing, timeline and some new FAQs.

[isvein]

And now the question about security updates is answered too

[Jclendineng]

On 3/8/2024 at 11:15 AM, ddube said:

Well, it is true that it needs to be better. I didn't know you were in charge of marketing and I'm pretty sure your signature is recent.

 

That being said, I will stick around until the change are in place. It is really nice seeing that you don't need my money and really want me to leave. It is people like me that bring new cash in the pipeline when I refer a friend, that refer a friend and that refer a friend. Multiply that per 2-3-4-5-6.. and it makes a lot of money. But that won't happen again and I'm pretty sure it will be the same with more people.

 

Anyway, why changing the subject ? It's all about the subscription model (or the annual update purchase, whatever you call it). There is no roadmap from LT. Why someone will pay for a year of update if there is only 1-2 updates during that year ? Why someone will continuously pay when there is no roadmap and date on new features or list of bugfixes ? That's why it needs to have deadlines.

 

Like I said and others too, there is other ways to do money instead. If you prefer to have less customer with that pricing model, then it's your choice. Ultimately, this will lead customer to the exit.

Lifetime licenses are not sustainable. 

 

But I do agree that update roadmap will need to be less opaque to allow users to see what they are paying for. This is going from an enthusiast platform to a commercial endeavor and that comes with more responsibility. 

 

That said, pricing is reasonable and extensions are 39/year which is not very much, you buy hundreds of dollars of hard drives, and server hardware, and don't have 39/year to support the software? Change is hard but imo this is a good step. Also this literally affects none of us, we are all legacy, so Im not sure why anyone's complaining. 

[Jclendineng]

On 3/20/2024 at 12:44 PM, SBehnke said:

Am I the only one here who is interested in the revenue only generated by the announcing of the new paying model?

@limetech: I am not asking for the totals but it would be interesting to hear how many more or less licenses have been sold since the announcement and how many upgrades (Basic>Plus>Pro) have been sold compared to the time before the announcement?

I guess the "wow, the upgrades in the future have to be paid for in blood"-panic-upgraders raised noticeable your income.

Oh, while I am reading what I have written: I also have to upgrade asap , I can't see any blood.

 

Sven

Honestly galaxy brain marketing 

[guybrush2012]

Was a solution found with the CA plugin? Or are the apps no longer usable once the subscription has expired.

 

[Kilrah]

25 minutes ago, guybrush2012 said:

Was a solution found with the CA plugin? Or are the apps no longer usable once the subscription has expired.

 

It's got nothing to do with the new licensing, CA just doesn't support <6.12 anymore. The CA support thread has a link to install an earlier version.

Edited March 23 by Kilrah