Mea Culpa and Apology


limetech

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The world is full with people who make mistakes. Every day 24x7 and it will never stop.

True progress and understanding comes from those who honestly and without holding back in public appologise for their f-up and i can only applaud.  And its is never ever too late to appologise as long as its honest and fully from the hart.

Hope the damage done is not too big and we can move on as one big happy hacking family.

I so love unraid and all its amazing company and community developers who put time , blood and sweat in making this product great (again) for us humble end users.

Thank you all and please throw this whole ffing year in /dev/null where it belongs and lete make it an amazing 2021 to compensate.

And if we compare what happend here to the world wide pandemic and all its pain and suffering we should be able to step over this comparitively little thing right ?

 

 

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I could tell from watching this saga play out that a huge misunderstanding and lack of communication was at the root of it.  The LSIO guys were clearly blindsided after a tremendous effort on the part of those mentioned to provide a functionality in unRAID that was far more than just a niche solution.

 

I think Tom unwittingly underestimated both the effort put forth by others and the widespread appeal of the previous solution to the community and went about releasing a native solution without fully understanding the potential impact and without communicating his intentions beforehand.

 

When 6.9 was first released in beta, Jon P. was on a podcast in which it was definitely stated that, at some point, Limetech intended to integrate Nvidia drivers into unRAID.  The problem is not that this, in fact, happened; rather, the issue is with how it was done and communicated (not well).

 

Were I in the shoes of the LSIO guys (and I never will be as I do not have that skill), I can understand why they reacted in the way they did.  It was a true blindside that appeared to diminish and disrespect their effort.  Tom has acknowledged this.

 

I hope Tom's mea culpa and acknowledgement can be accepted as I do believe the fallout was 100% unintentional.  Owning up to a mistake like this and accepting responsibility is not easy, but, it was necessary and I am pleased to see he was willing to do it.

Edited by Hoopster
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As much as I felt I had to post on the beta release thread I felt the need again to post here for this very nice and sincere post. 
 

“An apology is the super glue of life. It can repair just about anything.” - Lynn Johnston

 

A great point and note on which to pivot and move on. I appreciate you for making this post Tom @limetech.

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6 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

When 6.9 was first released in beta, Jon P. was on a podcast in which it was definitely stated that, at some point, Limetech intended to integrate Nvidia drivers into unRAID.

This is true.  Unfortunately communicating development plans like this (ad hoc, not centralized) is probably not the best way to go about it.  Rest assured that Tom's post here was only the first step.  Him and I have been having conversations about how we can better engage with the community beyond just this issue.  Expect to see another post from me sometime this week with more details on this.  At the end of the day we all realize how vital our community is to our continued success.  I just hope that everyone can appreciate how big this community really is now, because managing expectations for such a large audience is a far more daunting task than it was for us back in 2014 (when I started with Lime Technology).

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2 minutes ago, jonp said:

This is true.  Unfortunately communicating development plans like this (ad hoc, not centralized) is probably not the best way to go about it.  Rest assured that Tom's post here was only the first step.  Him and I have been having conversations about how we can better engage with the community beyond just this issue.  Expect to see another post from me sometime this week with more details on this.  At the end of the day we all realize how vital our community is to our continued success.  I just hope that everyone can appreciate how big this community really is now, because managing expectations for such a large audience is a far more daunting task than it was for us back in 2014 (when I started with Lime Technology).

I think there's another issue here, this must have stuck with me because it's something that has stopped me questioning things in the past and that is that sometimes posts from the team come across as rude, dismissive or aggressive.  As a software developer myself, I understand how protective you become of your baby and how that makes you feel especially when somebody is picking it apart.

 

I'm a strong believer of write your reply once, then delete it and write a more measured response.  There's nothing worse than seeing somebody come and ask for advice to be shot down.  It's off-putting for people considering using the product when they see this happening to others.  Heat of the moment responses rarely end well.

 

I hope that the damage that has been done between yourselves and lsio can be fixed and that extends to us as end users who have seen something unfold very publicly.


We learn from our mistakes, if we don't we are doomed to failure.

 

 

 

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Not having read or participated in the thread leading to this: I have made mistakes. We have, and will, make more mistakes. I appreciate your candor, and the importance of the unRaid community. UnRaid has always been a good product with excellent community. That's what brought me to the OS, and kept me here over the years.

 

The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz 

Be impeccable with your word.

Don't take anything personally.

Don't make assumptions.

Always do your best.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1878424319/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_0cVSFbT2A83HE

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Ever since I started using unraid (2010, v4.7), the community is what has been the leader in adding enhancements/value/features to unraid. Initially unraid didn't do much more than being a NAS, which was exactly what it was designed to do. But the community was the ones who started to build plugins and guides on how to use them to add way more functionally then the core function of just a NAS. That's not to say limetech was lacking really. They did and do build a rock solid NAS and that was the motto for the longest time. But a lot of user, and definitely myself wanted to keep utilizing the hardware more and more, way beyond just a NAS. The community really thrived at that. I've been able to add much more functionality to my system, learn and use more and more programs thanks to unraid/limetech and the community. 

 

I've really enjoyed the community here, it has felt small and personable and while its growing it still has the small tight knit feeling. A place where people give great support and never makes anyone feel like they have asked a stupid question. Unraid is where I've learned a lot of things about linux dockers etc. Again thanks to the community.

 

I'm sure I'm just stating the obvious here at this point. Not to say unraid is worthless without the community but it is what helps or maybe even the cause to why it thrives. 

 

On a somewhat selfish note, I have very much benefited from the work of all the community devs especially @CHBMB and @bass_rock with their work on the nvidia plugin. For the people that use it, it was a huge breath of fresh air for older systems running plex. And it is definitely not exclusive to older systems. I also used the DVB drivers that was built by them. Unraid/limetech really didn't seem interested, at the time in providing support for the nvidia drivers and @CHBMB and the @linuxserver.io team saw how much the "niche" (I honestly don't think it's that niche) of people really wanted and would really benefit from it. I was ecstatic when it as finally released. I'm not sure where the notion came that the "third party" kernel was unstable as @CHBMB and the @linuxserver.io team work really hard at releasing good dockers/plugins etc. With very good support and documentation. It's such a no brainer when going into CA Apps and seeing something maybe by @linuxserver.io, it's always what I'll install given the choice.

I had mentioned this in the request thread for GPU drivers in the kernel to @limetech that having the ability for hardware acceleration in plex via nvidia cards would attract users. I'm sure it did and likely attracted users for other reasons once @CHBMB and @bass_rock got it working. Limetech didn't ever comment in that thread and from what I remember was not at all interested at the time in pursuing it, at least from what I could tell from public information. Yet @CHBMB and @bass_rock worked hard to make it happen and as I mentioned I'm sure that created revenue for limetech and I know made many people happy.

I'm glad limetech has decided to build in the feature and support it at the company level. And really this should be a big win for both @limetech and @CHBMB
. For limetech because it's a great added feature and for CHBMB to give him a break from having to support that plugin which was clearly a lot of work. Maybe even freeing up his time to work on other great things for the community. While I'm glad he is finally getting a break. I do hope he and any other developers that may have decided to leave come back, as I do really appreciate their work.

I also hope that this situation actually ends up being more positive then negative. It looks like limetech as learned more now, then they I'm sure already knew, how valuable their community developers are. And hopefully more communication will help build a stronger better relationship with the community and its developers, because the combination of the limetech team and the community developers has created a ever evolving fastastice product.

 

Thank you to both the limetech team, the community and all the community developers.

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I have a suggestion around long term credit for community members. Often I see companies have a credits section where they acknowledge the open source projects that enable their product/service.

Maybe unRaid could maintain a credits/origins page where they acknowledge the projects that help brought unRaid to where it is today but also the people. To use the example of @CHBMB his work (along with others I am sure) lead to people being able to use DVB with unRaid for years before it was more officially supported, their work paved the way for the features we have now. They did the hard work so we don't have to.

 

The page could be on the website and built in to unRaid and would be a permanent record/thanks to the people that brought this software forward and to which we all owe some thanks.

 

Apologies if this has been suggested before or already exists.

To all the people that have gone above and beyond for the community in the past you have my thanks, I cannot list everyone sorry.

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10 minutes ago, Dimtar said:

Maybe unRaid could maintain a credits/origins page where they acknowledge the projects that help brought unRaid to where it is today but also the people.

So there is actually a credits page in the Unraid webGui, but right now we only list the people who've directly contributed to code that lives inside the OS itself, not plugins, containers, or other 3rd party modifications.  But having a place on either the website or another spot that can showcase our community and the developers that participate here isn't a bad idea!

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11 hours ago, limetech said:

Those following the 6.9-beta releases have been witness to an unfolding schism, entirely of my own making, between myself and certain key Community Developers.  To wit: in the last release, I built in some functionality that supplants a feature provided by, and long supported with a great deal of effort by @CHBMB with assistance from @bass_rock and probably others.

 

Not only did I release this functionality without acknowledging those developers previous contributions, I didn't even give them notification such functionality was forthcoming.

 

To top it off, I worked with another talented developer who assisted with integration of this feature into Unraid OS, but who was not involved in the original functionality spearheaded by @CHBMB.

 

Right, this was pretty egregious and unthinking of me to do this and for that I deeply apologize for the offense.  The developers involved may or may not accept my apology, but in either case, I hope they believe me when I say this offense was unintentional on my part.  I was excited to finally get a feature built into the core product with what I thought was a fairly eloquent solution.  A classic case of leaping before looking.

 

I have always said that the true utility and value of Unraid OS lies with our great Community.  We have tried very hard over the years to keep this a friendly and helpful place where users of all technical ability can get help and add value to the product.  There are many other places on the Internet where people can argue and fight and get belittled, we've always wanted our Community to be different.

 

To the extent that I myself have betrayed this basic tenant of the Community, again, I apologize and commit to making every effort to ensure our Developers are kept in the loop regarding the future technical direction of Unraid OS.

 

sincerely,

Tom Mortensen, aka @limetech

 

This is the best way I have seen someone react to a misunderstanding/internet drama. Well done!

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13 hours ago, Dimtar said:

The page could be on the website and built in to unRaid and would be a permanent record/thanks to the people that brought this software forward and to which we all owe some thanks.


This is a great idea on so many levels, but this list in all fairness would be HUGE and I know for a fact people would get left out simply by accident. Use me for example. I’ve requested features that have been made into plugins and then later became a standard function of unRAID. Who gets the credit? Me, the plug-in author or limetech for making it a standard feature? I don’t want anything personally 😃
 

Not to sound corny because it does. I feel like WE ARE ALL unRAID. The simple reason we come here daily to check on things, post up bug reports or simply thank somebody brings something to the table every single day. I’ve had every single problem resolved in the forum because somebody else had the same question and it was answered by a community member which resulted in a quick search either in the forum, reddit or Google search. Hands down the best group of people I’ve ever been associated with in any hobby/project.  Have you seen one single person ever say RTFM here? “Read the $&*+!? Manual.” I’ve seen that in many Linux forums. It’s not tolerated here because mutual respect of each other just doesn’t allow it.  


What you are suggesting is a really nice and generous idea I just don’t know how it would be accommodated across the board. 

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Unraid is nothing without the community (addons). 

Please change the general attitude dramatically in terms of approach to critics or enhancements from the community. 
We are paying to keep the development going to include those enhancements and make sure everything is updated & stable.
The community is what is making this project strong. 
 

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1 hour ago, ephigenie said:

Unraid is nothing without the community (addons). 
 

 

I had typed and re-read and re-typed what I said below because I wanted to make sure I said what I meant.  

I’d like to 100% agree with you on this, but I can’t completely, but I do to a point. You have to remember unRAID is partially open source which allows the community to add on to it. Those addons make unRAID very appealing and more popular than most mass storage options and at one time addons were mostly considered hacks. 
 

 @limetech has spent 1000’s of hours improving security, improving the interface and implementing many many requests alongside what the community has done. Drivers, new kernels, VM, Docker support and many many other things have been implemented to support all of our needs and for more flexibility for add ons. I’ve heard Tom say time and time again. “User data protection is foremost the most important thing.”

 

Tom put out a really Heartfelt apology and you can tell he really meant it. Don’t believe me try PM him sometime he’s one of the most generous guys I’ve ever chatted with. When I use the word Community I mean everybody from Tom to the newest member who just joined I hope everybody else thinks the same. 

 

I like to think of it like this.  4people in the car. 
 

1 Driver making sure we arrive safe. 
2 Navigator edging the driver to a destination

3 Backseat passenger are we there yet?

4 I want! I want! I want!

 

All of us fit in at least one many of those seats. As long as we are all willing to ride in the car together there is no where we can’t take unRAID. Anybody have a School Bus handy? 😃 

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Acting uncharacteristically extreme sometimes when we get hurt is very human and understandable and my personal opinion is that is what a few of the fellas at @linuxserver.iodid after the exchanges on the previous thread. 
 

I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of this post by @limetech and therefore was hoping there would be some return comms from @linuxserver.io to do their part in repairing this bridge.  
 

It might be nice if those who “retired” or decided they were now “out” or were “quitting unRAID work” came back.  It might also be nice that if some of the support threads that were locked are now unlocked, some links reinstated where appropriate, edited posts that now read “Depreciated” are replaced with more helpful information and we can start a joint and peaceful transition to the new official unRAID build with appropriate guidance for the community members that might have missed the recent exchanges. 

Personally, at very least I’d like to see an acknowledgment of this post from the team if they are just not quite ready to move on yet - which is also understandable - wounds don’t often heal overnight. 

 

Paraphrasing @aptalca, no one likes a one way street. 

If virtual hands could be shaken here ... in an ideal world (for me) publicly then the symbiotic unRAID centric relationship between a big community contributor and the company can continue and we all move on together!

 

🙂

 

Edited by danioj
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2 hours ago, danioj said:

I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of this post by @limetech and therefore was hoping there would be some return comms from @linuxserver.io to do their part in repairing this bridge.

Tom has done all he could be expected to do in this situation.  Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back.  He has acknowledged that the rift was entirely of his making and has outlined every misstep he made which caused the situation. 

 

Some of the LSIO guys impacted by this are probably taking a break to let things simmer down and consider what, if anything, should be their public response post-apology. It may in fact be best to let it alone publicly for a while.  If the schism is repaired behind the scenes and (and as alluded to by Jon P.) steps are taken to "better engage with the community beyond just this issue" then I think that will be at least one silver lining in this rather large storm cloud and perhaps some of the additional steps mentioned by @danioj can be taken.

 

EDIT:  BTW, I support the sentiment expressed by danioj but I suspect those impacted most might also be taking some time to measure their response.

Edited by Hoopster
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In a world where most of the people are even unable to admit mistakes and never apologize for anything I highly appreciate @limetech statement.
Everybody doing mistakes on a daily basis and nobody is protected against that - PERIOD!
 

IMHO -- True stature shows itself in small things and an apologize was stated.

Now its time that the devs show true greatness and accept Toms apologize. 

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Although I can't speak for my fellow team members, decisions like these usually aren't taken by a single event, in most cases it's just the final drop...not saying it was like that in this case....but don't start "expecting" stuff in return just because a cheap apology was made.

 

Some new developers trying to get into the Unraid community are belittled and left hanging without a proper response, you don't see them getting an apology....

 

IMO, the backlash was just too big in this case and that's why you get this nice apology, just simple business damage control at its finest. Don't let that be a reason to guilt others into doing things they maybe want/don't want to do.
 

Enjoy the post while it lasts...

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1 minute ago, hotio said:

Although I can't speak for my fellow team members, decisions like these usually aren't taken by a single event, in most cases it's just the final drop...not saying it was like that in this case....but don't start "expecting" stuff in return just because a cheap apology was made.

 

Some new developers trying to get into the Unraid community are belittled and left hanging without a proper response, you don't see them getting an apology....

 

IMO, the backlash was just too big in this case and that's why you get this nice apology, just simple business damage control at its finest. Don't let that be a reason to guilt others into doing things they maybe want/don't want to do.
 

Enjoy the post while it lasts...

Unhelpful, inflammatory, provoking and downright unnecessary. Also, if I was to define the set of values that makes this community group so strong I would say there isn’t a word in your post that would align with them. 

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9 minutes ago, danioj said:

Unhelpful, inflammatory, provoking and downright unnecessary. Also, if I was to define the set of values that makes this community group so strong I would say there isn’t a word in your post that would align with them. 

Could be, maybe my welcome party has given me a bad aftertaste, then again it's just your opinion and we all have one.

Having said that, it doesn't make it any less true.

Edited by hotio
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1 hour ago, hotio said:

Some new developers trying to get into the Unraid community are belittled and left hanging without a proper response, you don't see them getting an apology....

Please point one of these out to me.  FWIW I haven't received any email or PM from someone trying to be a Comm Dev with unanswered technical questions.  I don't have a lot of time to monitor the entire forum.  Mostly these days I monitor Prerelease and any topics which are specifically brought to my attention.

 

Also I've always said that Unraid is not for everyone.  We really have tried hard though to remain friendly and cooperative.  If you feel like you have not been treated fairly, I apologize for that and suggest perhaps a different server solution would be better for you to be involved with.

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