New pricing structure charging for updates?

[Napoleon]

I was about ready to buy a 2nd license to split the server in 2 and noticed the new pricing structure. Are updates not essential security protection? Doesn't this ultimately mean it would leave a bunch of machines vulnerable? Or the other option being we have to pay a yearly subscription (or 5x the amount of the last purchase) to get that?

Am I missing something here? 

I remember paying for JRiver only to be told if I wanted the bugs which rendered my version near useless fixed I had to pay again for the new version. Felt a pretty scummy thing to do at the time, that was a while back. They're still around it seems.

Edited April 23 by Napoleon

[itimpi]

28 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

Am I missing something here? 

It is not quite that simple.

 

You get any security updates that are available for the release you are on at the end of the years paid update period.  What you do not get is security updates that are only available in future releases.

 

As an example Limetech says that if when your update support period expires you are on 7.0.x then you get all updates for the 7.0.x releases even though you have not taken out another years of updates support.   While Limetech is working on and releasing the next release beyond your current one (i.e. 7.1.x releases) then they will (if possible apply patches to the 7.0.x releases.   Once they start releasing the second release beyond yours (i.e. the 7.2.x releases) then the 7.0.x releases will no longer get any more updates.

 

At any point you can decide to take out another year of update support and then you the update to the release current at that time, and after another year the same principle as outlined above applies (which could be you being on a later release than you started the year on).

 

[Napoleon]

This still sounds like the older versions will be left vulnerable in the future unless we pay more money for the new updated version?

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, Napoleon said:

This still sounds like the older versions will be left vulnerable in the future unless we pay more money for the new updated version?

Yes, but it is unreasonable to expect a small company like Limetech to continue to support obsolete versions of their software forever

 

i think the Limetech policy is significantly more generous than I have seen offered on many other products..

[MAM59]

Paying for updates is nothing bad. You cannot expect any company to work for free for you for decades. They have to pay their employees, the rooms, the hardware...

This does not work by selling licenses anmore after a time. The market is satuated somedays and improvements are hard to be built in after a while.

So a wise company thinks about opening "new markets" long before they become bankrupt.

If "once a year" is too much (I look at Adobe Elements, which are resold every year but the addons are marginally or do not help you at all), "once every major version" will be much less frequent (until they run low on money and just bump up the version number someday...).

 

You with your old version are in a quite nice position, you will get unlimited updates for the old version, can take a look at them and decide later on, if you need them for the new server too (aka, spend the money AFTER you have reviewed it).

 

[Napoleon]

21 hours ago, itimpi said:

Yes, but it is unreasonable to expect a small company like Limetech to continue to support obsolete versions of their software forever

 

i think the Limetech policy is significantly more generous than I have seen offered on many other products..

Personally, I think its unreasonable to hold the security of our systems hostage to a subscription. This is an OS, security should be a priority.

XP got 13 years of security updates, Vista 10, 7 got 11 years and 10 got 10 years.

Not sure what you mean about others. Truenas, Proxmox, Xigma, Snapraid and OMV are all free for consumers, some with higher prices for the enterprise sector.

[Napoleon]

18 hours ago, MAM59 said:

Paying for updates is nothing bad. You cannot expect any company to work for free for you for decades. They have to pay their employees, the rooms, the hardware...

This does not work by selling licenses anmore after a time. The market is satuated somedays and improvements are hard to be built in after a while.

So a wise company thinks about opening "new markets" long before they become bankrupt.

If "once a year" is too much (I look at Adobe Elements, which are resold every year but the addons are marginally or do not help you at all), "once every major version" will be much less frequent (until they run low on money and just bump up the version number someday...).

 

You with your old version are in a quite nice position, you will get unlimited updates for the old version, can take a look at them and decide later on, if you need them for the new server too (aka, spend the money AFTER you have reviewed it).

 

How are they working for free if I've paid for it? Regardless I don't expect anyone to work for free, just hate the subscription model everyone seems to be pushing at the moment. By comparison the competition is free and there are at least 5 alternatives. 

Adobe is the most pirated software in the world because of their pricing, but it is also an industry standard. Unraid is not.

Nice position untill they decide to introduce Unraid 7 and tell me my lifetime purchase is obsolete? Sounds like that is what's in the post.

Edited April 24 by Napoleon

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, Napoleon said:

Nice position untill they decide to introduce Unraid 7 and tell me my lifetime purchase is obsolete? Sounds like that is what's in the post

Except that Limetech has already explicitly said that they intend a Lifetime subscription to remain valid forever and they do not intend to do that behavior of a 'new' version' that you then have to pay for.  Unraid 7 and Unraid 8 were given as examples of free upgrades for lifetime licences in the various podcasts on this subject.

[Napoleon]

Fair enough. Not about to start listening to podcasts on the subject. Shame they've gone this route, I'd love to see the numbers from whoever proposes these subscription based models as I can't help but imagine alienating whatever % of the customer base that also hate subscriptions isn't a good move for long term business. 

[primeval_god]

4 hours ago, Napoleon said:

Personally, I think its unreasonable to hold the security of our systems hostage to a subscription. This is an OS, security should be a priority.

This is a NAS appliance OS security has never been a priority. Ok thats not entirely true (said mostly for effect) but the fact is that the unRAID OS has always been slow to get security updates (except for the occasional critical issue), has a fairly lax security model, and is intended to run on a home network with no exposure to the outside internet.

 

4 hours ago, Napoleon said:

Truenas, Proxmox, Xigma, Snapraid and OMV are all free for consumers, some with higher prices for the enterprise sector.

unRAID is a consumer product only with no enterprise level.

[Napoleon]

Saying it is intended to run with no exposure to the outside internet when there is quite literally an app store with hundred of apps to allow just that is a bit odd, don't you think?

Point of this post is to show the range of licenses is lacking and consumers are fed up of subscriptions. You can see that with all the recently successful ones like Netflix, Amazon and Spotify all increasing prices or adding adverts to keep their CEOs bonuses fresh.

 

Why not offer a 6 disk lifetime license? Or even a 0 disk, docker service only? Surely that is better than loosing customers to the competition? I'm about to go to the efforts of learning another software because of this and I bet many others have since also.

Edited May 8 by Napoleon

[primeval_god]

4 hours ago, Napoleon said:

Saying it is intended to run with no exposure to the outside internet when there is quite literally an app store with hundred of apps to allow just that is a bit odd, don't you think?

The app store is not a built in component, it is community run and none of the apps are officially endorsed by unRAID. That said the important thing is that the unRAID host os not be exposed directly to the internet. Containerized apps are safer to expose (behind proper authentication) as they run isolated from the host os. The recommendation though has always been to use a VPN to access your home network and access all your services.  

[itimpi]

4 hours ago, Napoleon said:

 

Saying it is intended to run with no exposure to the outside internet when there is quite literally an app store with hundred of apps to allow just that is a bit odd, don't you think?

 

Normally this is used in the context of being careful about allowing inbound connections to the server so that bad actors on the internet can access the server, not outbound ones as used by Community Applications.