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I was in the boat of "Tom why are you not posting?" but you know what I am running v5b14 on my HP micro server with four 3TB drives doing just fine like clockwork. As far as I am concerned let the man continue on his course to achieve UnRaid stability, there is more to life then an OS that handles content safe & secure, but for the life of me I can't put my finger on it what could be more important. Take it with a grain of salt  ;D

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  Seeing that you act as though you are above us, this is why we believe we have a right to question Tom's business practices.

"How is unRAID licensed?

 

The unRAID Server software is available under 3 different licenses:

 

    unRAID Server Basic - FREE! - 3 drives (2 data, 1 parity)

    unRAID Server Plus - $69/$99(for 2 keys) - 6 drives (5 data, 1 parity, 1 cache)

    unRAID Server Pro - $119/$149(for 2 keys) - 22 drives (20 data, 1 parity, 1 cache)

 

They can be purchased here. Plus key(s) can be upgraded to Pro key(s) for $59. Licenses include all future upgrades, see unRAID Licensing Questions Answered.

 

The license is controlled by a key file for the Plus and Pro versions, which is tied to a unique GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) associated with your unRAID flash drive. The unRAID software is identical with each license, only the features and drives are limited with the Plus and Basic versions. See the next question for a table of the differences.

 

The free Basic version is both a fully working 3 drive system, and a freely available demonstration version, that can easily be set up by downloading the latest software (downloads), and preparing a bootable USB flash drive (USB Flash Drive Preparation). There is no registration necessary. If you decide later to purchase a Plus or Pro license, just copy the license file to your unRAID flash drive and reboot, and the full capabilities and drives of the purchased license will then be available. Apart from the limit on the maximum number of drives, the array is the same under all licenses. No conversion of data or software is necessary. "

 

  You may want to pay extra close attention to this "Licenses include all future upgrades" So the way I see it, I have paid for upgrades, and am not asking for anything for free. If I pay Microsoft, or Apple for all future upgrades, then yes they had better make good, or I will use my RIGHT to complain in order to get what I have paid for.

 

It's the manner in which people have been acting that has been rubbing me the wrong way. When I said go elsewhere I didn't mean another section of the forum I literally meant elsewhere in general  >:(. I just find it baffling, the sense of entitlement that some of the users feel they have. They (hopefully) paid for the product, any new version past the stable version that they purchased is just icing on the cake. Does Microsoft or Apple provide them with completely new feature sets regularly through out the years free of charge? Nope, they charge you for every release of one of their operating systems (excluding SP's and some more major updates). The demands that are going on are absolutely absurd.. they have no right to demand anything of Tom other than a license when they pay for it along with the files required for installation. Anything beyond that is a bonus and a gift.

 

Yes Tom did say he'd try to make updates, but things happen, situations change. Patience is very important for small products such as this because there are no guarantees.

 

I'm done with this... *gets off his high horse* :-X

 

I hope the move is still proceeding well and look forward to the future.

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As I started my original post with "It's the manner in which people have been acting..." I did not specifically say all people, but I did "infer" some. I'm specifically speaking against those who are malicious and rather demanding. Maybe my post didn't come of as such but that is what I meant. There's posts all over the forum exhibiting this and it is very disheartening. I didn't want to specifically quote people but chose to do a generalized post.  If I were Tom, I wouldn't bother responding either because it's just rude and absurd.

 

This happens every single year and it is becoming a very stale argument because it has come up so many times. This is how this piece of software develops. You can see it plain as day with some general research. If you don't like it, then don't invest in it... although I beg you to suggest a superior alternative with these features and ease of use.

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It is good to see the amount of interest in the move and the update.

 

Users are PERFECTLY within their rights to ask for an update, please don't assume or inform them otherwise.

 

However NO MORE  arguments about rights vs. expectations that regress into flaming. It serves no purpose other than annoying users who have paid for the right to ask questions.

 

Yes there should have been an update. Yes there should have been some feedback but there hasn't been. This WILL be because of the gigantic life changing move Tom is making.

 

Feel free to +1 requests for updates if nothing else it will show how popular the product and community is.

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People have a right to be disappointed, and even frustrated.

 

However disrespecting Tom or any moderators will serve little purpose.  In fact rude behavior may encourage the attitude "it will be done when it's done" and no regular updates.  (It might cause some to regress...  How many people no longer watch the news because it is depressing?)

 

The lack of information - not the lack of releases, in my mind does hurt his credibility.

 

It seems his move is related to a business supported by the Unraid product.  If this huge move means a total commitment to the product, I am very optimistic in his success.  (And I'll be very happy to see that - as he seems to be a decent person with a great product.)

 

If however he continues to be absent, then he'll lose the support of many in the community, and his success will be limited.  Right now people who use the product for the most part love it - should more turn on him, like happens with this vacuum of information...  More will turn from advocates to critics, and that will not bode well for his endeavors.

 

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If however he continues to be absent, then he'll lose the support of many in the community, and his success will be limited.  Right now people who use the product for the most part love it - should more turn on him, like happens with this vacuum of information...  More will turn from advocates to critics, and that will not bode well for his endeavors.

 

Depends on what you mean by "continues to be absent".  I've been using unRAID since 2005.  Shortly after he first announced it on AVS Forums and before he had this site.  He has a history of doing this going back to January of '06.  Here's a post in that AVS Forums' thread where people start to get concerned:

 

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7122302#post7122302

 

This has happened numerous times throughout the years.  In fact if history is any indicator, it's a veritable certainty that he will disappear again.

 

The problem here, as usual in this world, is that both sides have a point but the extremists in both camps are way off the mark.  You have the PO'd few who feel they are owed something more and come out and post abrasive comments.  Then you have the other side of a few fanboy loyalists who will forever deny that there's any problem and say the others should just be quiet and be happy with what they have.  IMO both are wrong.

 

Tom ultimately owes us nothing more.  He has a stable product that performs at least as well as advertised and is offered at a fair price.  If he were to never release another update or upgrade, we would not have a valid complaint of being ripped off or undersold. 

 

With that said, consumers are not wrong for having their expectations.  In the computer world things move quickly and people are used to that. In this digital age with email, forums, texting, Twitter and Facebook it's hard for people to buy into the fact that someone is so busy that they can't be heard from.  Who doesn't have at least some down time to make a quick post at some point during most days or at least the week?  It's like when you see an old friend you haven't talked to in a while and they say, "Sorry I haven't called, but I've been sooo busy."  It's BS and we all know it.  And that's just about that concern with the lack of info from Tom.  That's not even getting into the years it's taken to get to 5.0 (and we're still not there yet).

 

I think we all have a certain love or appreciation for unRAID.  That's why we're all here.  Personally, I fall into a middle group.  I love unRAID and think it's an excellent product as-is.  BUT, I would like to see development move a little quicker.  Any development.  If all this wait is for a stabilized kernel with support for newer hardware, then why not just say that and implement an updated GUI for 4.x and above while we're waiting.  Something like speeding_ant's Simple Features GUI would be great (great work by the way speeding_ant!).  Give us some built-in support for email notifications and UPS.  I think something like that would have gone a long way in tiding people over until 5.0 does come out.  Whatever happens, I'm here for the long haul because ultimately, unRAID just works.  Just my $0.02.

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apparently no one here has gone through huge moves or have had missed programing deadlines...

 

you guys keep assuming he is MIA. what you dont see is he stops to send out new keys daily, I am sure he reads  PM's when people have major issues and offers support.

 

anyways.. bitching about it does not make it happen faster...

 

for all you know he is locked away in windowless closet testing code to make the next release. perhaps testing drivers and features while recompiling the build over and over making adjustments. trying to get his seal of approval...

 

one thing i have learned in IT. never give a set deadline... the one time you do, everything goes out the window and nothing works as it should, even if it worked fine the last 999 times...

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I must agree with Johnm, just because he's not active in the forum doesn't mean he's not working towards the new release.

 

I wasn't around for 4.7 or the promised 4.7.1, I could see how that would ruffle a few feathers, but the truth is no one knows exactly what is going on. Speculating, pointing fingers, and fussing about it is helping no one. I know that it is not the best feeling, I realize that tomorrow Tom could come on here and say he's done with unRAID and then here I am using a beta release that I paid for and its incomplete/has bugs. But then again...WD could come out and say they are tired of harddrives, or Microsoft could say they are tired of making Windows. Is it likely? No. But it could happen and it doesn't stop anyone from paying for it. Of course there are many linux users here, and many linux users pay for the distro they use, which could also stop anytime.

 

At the end of the day Lime-Tech is not a huge company, but it has a huge undertaking. We aren't talking about a group of  people making a program like sabnzbd that doesn't necessarily have to play nice with everything, we're talking about a Operating system that needs to be able to work on limitless numbers of configurations, with add-ons, scripts, and not go all to hell with every user error there is. Few people have took on a task like this and done as well with it as Tom has.

 

That being said, Tom has been "around". When I ordered my key a few weeks ago, I got it within 24 hours. When I had a question and contacted Tom, I had a reply within 12 hours, and replies to my replies within minutes.

 

Personally, I'd rather Tom be looking at thousands of lines of code right now than the forums.

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People have a right to be disappointed, and even frustrated.

 

However disrespecting Tom or any moderators will serve little purpose.  In fact rude behavior may encourage the attitude "it will be done when it's done" and no regular updates.  (It might cause some to regress...  How many people no longer watch the news because it is depressing?)

 

The lack of information - not the lack of releases, in my mind does hurt his credibility.

 

It seems his move is related to a business supported by the Unraid product.  If this huge move means a total commitment to the product, I am very optimistic in his success.  (And I'll be very happy to see that - as he seems to be a decent person with a great product.)

 

If however he continues to be absent, then he'll lose the support of many in the community, and his success will be limited.  Right now people who use the product for the most part love it - should more turn on him, like happens with this vacuum of information...  More will turn from advocates to critics, and that will not bode well for his endeavors.

 

+1

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I must agree with Johnm, just because he's not active in the forum doesn't mean he's not working towards the new release.

 

I wasn't around for 4.7 or the promised 4.7.1, I could see how that would ruffle a few feathers, but the truth is no one knows exactly what is going on. Speculating, pointing fingers, and fussing about it is helping no one. I know that it is not the best feeling, I realize that tomorrow Tom could come on here and say he's done with unRAID and then here I am using a beta release that I paid for and its incomplete/has bugs. But then again...WD could come out and say they are tired of harddrives, or Microsoft could say they are tired of making Windows. Is it likely? No. But it could happen and it doesn't stop anyone from paying for it. Of course there are many linux users here, and many linux users pay for the distro they use, which could also stop anytime.

 

At the end of the day Lime-Tech is not a huge company, but it has a huge undertaking. We aren't talking about a group of  people making a program like sabnzbd that doesn't necessarily have to play nice with everything, we're talking about a Operating system that needs to be able to work on limitless numbers of configurations, with add-ons, scripts, and not go all to hell with every user error there is. Few people have took on a task like this and done as well with it as Tom has.

 

That being said, Tom has been "around". When I ordered my key a few weeks ago, I got it within 24 hours. When I had a question and contacted Tom, I had a reply within 12 hours, and replies to my replies within minutes.

 

Personally, I'd rather Tom be looking at thousands of lines of code right now than the forums.

 

your points are all valid BUT taking 5 minutes to write one or two lines of what's happening at unRAID HQ every week or so would not derail any working schedule he has..

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I agree that taking a few minutes or a update is beneficial for moral, but in not doing so I don't believe the community should grab for pitchforks and torches just yet. The very fact that there have not been any updates means none of us know exactly what is going on.

 

I think its the speculation that is getting people so angry, not knowing what is going on but trying to guess. Its human nature to speculate, but its not always a good thing. I'd be as happy as anyone else to see an update, first thing I do when I look at a opensource/community project, or a project like unRAID where there is not a big company name with many employee's behind it, is see how active the devs are. I can't say I did so with unRAID because it fit my needs so perfectly, and after I saw the activity wasn't as high as I would hope my wallet and my heart jumped in my throat. I was asking myself if I just paid for dead software.

 

Again, I haven't been around the community enough yet so to me it doesn't seem like its been that long with no progress, so I can see how others are more agitated, but I still think the pitchforks should stay in the barn and the torches on the wall.

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your points are all valid BUT taking 5 minutes to write one or two lines of what's happening at unRAID HQ every week or so would not derail any working schedule he has..

 

MY personal experience is, getting online for five minutes is always an hour+...

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It sounds like a lot of people are getting a bit upset over things development wise with unRaid. I take it that most of the issues are related to the beta version of 5.0. I'm still running 4.7 final and only have 4 drives and decided to give version 5 a wide berth because of the fact that it was a beta version and that there was a clear warning about using it on a production system!

 

As far as regular updates goes if Joe's moved across the country then I'd expect that things are going to have to take a back seat while "Real Life" takes precedence.

 

unRaid isn't the first product of a one man company where the owner has gone AWOL see http://gizmodo.com/5884684/why-ill-never-trust-a-human-with-my-data-again for what happened to a one man web hosting company and the panic that it caused among its customers.

 

I'm sure Tom's working on things so I'm cool with that  8) and if not then I'll just start looking at the alternatives instead.

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I didn't know about Tom's tendency to disappear from the forums for weeks- sometimes even months- on end when I bought my unRAID license.  I don't know what Tom's life situation is with Lime Tech (e.g., is it his full time job?), but frankly I don't particularly care.  By his own admission, the unRAID 5 development process has been a bit of a mess.  Updates, whether in the form of new builds or forum posts, have been few and far between throughout unRAID 5 development.  That seems to be Tom's typical behavior. I saw that a little bit during unRAID 4.x.x development too.  I got the impression that was common before my time, too.

 

I think its important for small companies like Lime Tech to keep their customers and users informed.  These are the kinds of companies that can disappear overnight.  I saw that with SageTV and Dragon Global (the former actually announced their dissolution, whereas the latter just stopped updating the software and disappear from their forums).  Why shouldn't I be concerned about that happening with Lime Tech?  The usual reply from the regulars around here is that it would only take a few of them a week to reverse engineer the closed-source portions of the code.  That doesn't make me feel that much better.

 

So, if Tom ever reads this, let me say this.  Due to your lack of updates and common disappearances, I lost confidence in you and your company long ago.  I have a great deal of confidence and faith in the community, but for me that's not enough.  Except for a few quirks and bugs, unRAID works reasonably well for my purposes.  But, because of my lack of confidence in you, I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending unRAID to anyone I know.  I can tell from the user stats on the forums that you check in the forums much, much more often than you post.  I really don't think its unreasonable to expect you to post a few sentences every now and then with an update.  Based on the comments in this thread (and comments in many other threads in the past), I think you can see it would go a long way in easing our concerns.

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I don't think Tom disappears. I think he prioritizes support issues that the community can not assist with.

He logs in fairly often. He asked us to assist in moderating because the board was moving too fast for him to see the whole picture. He may still be dealing with the move and traveling between cities.

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I don't think Tom disappears. [snip] He may still be dealing with the move and traveling between cities.

 

From the outside, it's hard to tell what he is doing.  Is he coding?  Working another job?  Losing interest?  All we can see is the last time he's logged in. 

 

Ordinarily, I would cut someone in the middle of a move more slack.  But, its been two and a half weeks since he said he would post weekly updates.  We can see he's logged in since that time.    The previous update said he wanted to finish 5.0 by the end of February.  I don't really care that he missed his goal of getting 5.0 done, but I am annoyed he didn't bother to give us the update he said he would.

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I'd like to add my name to the list of users who are more frustrated by the constant whining about lack of updates than by the actual lack of updates. 

 

I find it a little disturbing that some folks actually check in on how frequently people look at the forum and talk about what people are doing with their time.  Maybe Tom has another job; is that our business?  Did you get what you paid for?  I did, even though I have to admit I spent extra money upgrading to the pro version rather than buying it the first time. 

 

I am dependent on the 5beta version; due to my hardware I can't run 4.7, and now I have 3 tb drives it doesnt matter anyway.  But from my point of view, I took the risk of upgrading to 5beta, knowing potential consequences, and I got what I paid for.  I would DEFINITELY like to have an official 5.0 release asap, but there's nothing I can do about it.

 

You guys writing long letters criticizing Tom need to consider the possibility that he's spending time reading your whining instead of doing things that will help you.  Why not take a positive approach or say nothing at all.  Perhaps offer to help, if you are able to. 

 

The attitude and nature of the community are dependent upon the behavior of each member of the community, not on Tom.  I'd like to hear what's going on every once in a while too, but problems that people have seem to get addressed, and the software works as advertised for the most part. 

 

Give Tom a break, please, or at least post it in the lounge.  There is no worse breach of protocol than to post rants in the beta release threads, and I feel there are some posters here who should grow up in that regard.

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I do agree that this subject matter should probably be in the lounge (or not at all like this) however, this isn't in the beta release thread, and it's in a thread where a statement of upcoming expectations were hinted at.

 

I've left it here without moderation so that Tom can read how the customers feel.

 

Some of the remarks disturb me also, but I have to consider, without customers communicating how they feel, how would any vendor know?

 

Don't be surprised or upset if the subject is split or removed since it really doesn't add much helpful content to the community.

 

What I'll ask from the community members to consider before posting remarks is,

Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?

Keep it kind and constructive.

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