Mea Culpa and Apology


limetech

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Let's work together to repair this relationship. I love this community and what unRAID has become.

 

Seeing it evolve over a decade shows the strength of this one united large family. 

 

Let's fix this, we are better than that. I have re-read the comments and although they are good points, this does not help us re-unite. @limetech, came through and did the initial steps with a public apology attempting to repair the relationship and yes, wounds do not heal overnight, but it is a two-way street.

 

I cannot repair it, but from a community member perspective, it hurts to see it fall apart - let's stay united and kind.  Again, we are better than this.

 

 

Edited by ezhik
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22 hours ago, hotio said:

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.

Nor does you stating something make it true either.

 

You're better than the response you gave to this.

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On 11/20/2020 at 12:20 AM, limetech said:

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.


Unpackerr dev trying to get info on the best approach to get his own template into CA...gets ignored and the responses he does get are besides the point.

 

@limetech you as a person don't need to apologize to me, you've been nothing but friendly towards me.

 

People also seem to not understand the meaning of my post, the main point I was trying to make is that people shouldn't try and guilt other people into accepting an apology, trying to make them the bad guys, because they won't respond....

 

BTW Tom you know damn well that I haven't been treated fairly here and that's also why the plan is to find a different server solution as per your suggestion... TrueNAS Scale looks promising... so I guess this will be my final post then...

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On 11/19/2020 at 11:20 PM, limetech said:

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.

This is quite the statement for a "mea culpa" thread, comes across as "sorry, but if you don't like it, GTFO." I *assume* that's not what you meant... 🙄

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9 hours ago, Rick Gillyon said:

This is quite the statement for a "mea culpa" thread, comes across as "sorry, but if you don't like it, GTFO." I *assume* that's not what you meant... 🙄

Thats also an assumption in itself. It actually came across like GTFO from the start. I guess unless Limetech will feel it, when there will be much less community development - making the platform just another storage server... well we see. I discovered Unraid - not because of limetech, but of recommendations that the community is great and supportive and all the good software is here. that i had before running on my self baked home setup. 

I consider my invest now sunk cost and wait for the first release of the above mentioned software. A quick read sounds so much better then anything i could hope for. And for me this seems more and more like a dead end, 

@limetech why aren't you happy about this vast amount of contributions? This huge amount of efforts and menpower that went into this project? Much more most likely you'd be able to finance from your cash flow? You were the ones profiting directly and the foremost of it. 
Maybe a community board would be one way trying to set things right with a community driven feature map - whereas you are contributing manpower into that map? But i guess thats too late ? 

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This post represents my own personal musings and opinion. 
 

This thread (and the broader situation) interests me on a number of levels. 
 

We (Royal we) bang on (quite rightly) about our community and how supportive, inclusive, helpful and respectful it is. Values really that any organisation in the world would be lucky for its members to behave consistent with. 
 

Saying that, this situation has shown that there is an undercurrent of what I can only call bitterness and to some extent entitlement in some community members. I don’t feel that this is across the board by any means. However, for some, there seems to be a propensity to believe the worst of every (almost like we are waiting to jump on any poorly, Ill-considered or rushed post) word posted by default rather than the positive - which given how together we are supposed to be is very surprising. 
 

There could be any number of reasons for this, whether it be the whole keyboard warrior thing, immaturity, mixture of ages of people talking to each other I just don’t know.  I think we also have to acknowledge that we are all living in unprecedented times. We are very geographically spread and some are copping it harder than others for sure but we are all in a very in normal place. 
 

I have also observed that some (whether that be due to their contribution to this forum or their development work etc.) individuals appear to think that they should be subject to a treatment different to others. I always felt that when doing something in the open source / community space the only reasonable expectation was that there was appreciation from the community for that work and that was enough. It’s volunteer work that plays second fiddle to real life (a fact that many are rightly quick to throw out when the demands of the community get to high). Irrespective of how much those developments have added value to the core product I don’t think those expectations could or should change. 
 

Saying that, the community includes the company too and those expectations of appreciation for work done (especially where commercial gain is attained from that work) carries to them too. 
 

The thing that surprised me the most though (and again this could be due to the reasons above - or others) is how quick some have been to react negatively (or even just walk) but how slow some have been to react in a more positive way. Perhaps that’s human nature. 
 

As I write this I am drawing to a conclusion that we as a community perhaps need to manage our own expectations of what is reasonably expected as a community, developer or company member. This might help (or it might not) help situations like this moving forward. 

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I'm a long time user of unRAID. Over the past 2 years due to the efforts of both limetech and a host of community developers my system runs with such little intervention from me that I visit these forums very infrequently. I do occasionally log on though to see what's going on, quite upsetting to see this thread and the one proceeding. It would be fair to say that I am likely not alone in that my use of unRAID is completely dependant on community developed dockers that are pivotal in my use of the operating system. It would be a bit of a devastating blow if the relationships between the key community developers and limetech broke down and support of these community applications stopped. The increasing ease of use and quality of streaming services is already the death knell for home cooked media systems for all but die hard fans, the breakdown of the community would definitely be the nails in the coffin. 

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On 11/21/2020 at 9:10 PM, limetech said:

What do you have in mind for this?

I'm not ephigenie, but I liked the idea, so I'll give my two cents on it, for what it's worth:

 

Maybe something like a broad strokes roadmap. Nothing too concrete, but even a post with headings like:

  • Features being worked on for the next major/minor release (multiple cache pools)
  • Bugs being squashed for the next major/minor release (SSD write amplification)
  • Future possibilities currently under investigation (ZFS)

 

You could make the forum visible to community developers only. Or if you're feeling particularly transparent, forum members with enough posts that they've at least been semi-active, and around for a while. The understanding would be that anything mentioned is subject to change or reprioritisation, and that obviously certain things can't be talked about for market/competitive reasons or whatever. (or just because you don't like spilling all the beans on shiny new things)

 

This would allow you to gauge community interest (at least, the portion of the community active on the forums) around given features which might factor into prioritization. As well, it gives us members a peak at the direction unRAID is heading, and an appreciation for why so-and-so wasn't added to the latest patch, or why such-and-such a bug is still around. ;)

Edited by -Daedalus
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I'll caveat this post by saying that I've had a few interactions with @limetech over the last 10+ years, and he's always been kind, gracious and understanding.  The kind of guy you would enjoy going for a drink with and shooting the shit.

 

That said, @limetech you've now made two missteps in your posts in the last week.  It may be a consideration to either a) have a third party review your posts prior to posting (at least the non-technical ones) or b) get a community manager.  This isn't a criticism, but rather an obervation.  I sincerely believe you when you say that you meant no disrespect with your posts, but something is getting lost in translation.  Your expertise is creating this awesome OS.  Get someone whose expertise is being the conduit for this awesome community.

 

~Spritz

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I've have been following this and the other thread with very mixed feelings and I feel the community is unjustly hard towards @limetech. Sure some things could have been handled better, yet I keep the feelings that the bigger injustice is not actually committed by him.

In order to understand things better and to see things from a different perspective I personally like to make analogies. Sometimes it gives different insights into situations. And I cam up with the following for this one:

 

We have 3 parties here, The parent (@limetech), the uncle (@CHBMB and the like) and the kid (the community).

Now the situation is that the kid is asking the parent for this shiny new toy, but for whatever reason the parent is not buying the kid the toy. Maybe it is to expensive, maybe he is waiting for the birthday, whatever..

However, the uncle who hears the kid decided to get the kid this new toy, because he loved the kid and wants to please the kid.

Fast forward and the parents sees that the kid really loved the toy but unfortunately the toy has some sharp edges and the parent is afraid the kid might hurt himself hence the parent decided to order a better and safer version of the toy.

However, when the parent tells the kid it ordered this new toy the uncle hears the parent and flies into a rage because the parent did not tell the uncle that he/she was going to buy the new toy and the uncle thinks the parents is ungrateful because he/she did not even thank the uncle.

In his rage therefore the uncle takes the toy away from the kid even before the new toy arrived (it is after all still in beta). Not only that but takes away the other toys he got the kid as well and says he is never going to give the kid any more toys. All this to punish the parent.

 

Now with this analogy, ask yourself.

Is the reaction of @CHBMB (the uncle) proportionate and justified? Does a parent (@limetech) need to inform the uncle of these kind of things? Sure it is nice, but is it really needed? Do you think it is right for the uncle to punish the kid? Should the parent even be grateful that the uncle presents the kid a toy with sharp edges (I know I wouldn't).

 

The only one the uncle should expect thanks from i.m.o is the kid. The community is and was grateful. Yet @CHBMB is the one who decided to punish the community and take away their toy because of his hurt feelings. Yet the only one who gets shit is @limetech. If I where him I would be more than a little pissed and disappointment and I think it shows in his messages.

Please read my analogy again and ask yourself who in the story did anything to hurt the kid? The parent or the uncle?

 

And please also think about the fact that we have no way of knowing if @limetech was not going to thanks @CHBMB for the work in an official release note, which this wasn't.

 

Now I do think the parent should have said something to the uncle. And I also am a bit disappointment to learn that even though UnRaid builds heavy on the community there is no special channel in place to facilitate communication with reliable community develops. Considering how well the development of both UnRaid and the community add-ons go together I kind of assumes something was already in place. However it seems this is something that is considered and worked on now.

But in everything that happened, this simple miscommunication seems far the lesser evil here. And I do think it might be good that the community asks itself again who really is to blame for taking away it's shining toy with sharp edges and if it is reasonable to have this reaction.

 

But that's just my 2 cents.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, TheIstar said:

I've have been following this and the other thread with very mixed feelings and I feel the community is unjustly hard towards @limetech. Sure some things could have been handled better, yet I keep the feelings that the bigger injustice is not actually committed by him.

In order to understand things better and to see things from a different perspective I personally like to make analogies. Sometimes it gives different insights into situations. And I cam up with the following for this one:

 

We have 3 parties here, The parent (@limetech), the uncle (@CHBMB and the like) and the kid (the community).

Now the situation is that the kid is asking the parent for this shiny new toy, but for whatever reason the parent is not buying the kid the toy. Maybe it is to expensive, maybe he is waiting for the birthday, whatever..

However, the uncle who hears the kid decided to get the kid this new toy, because he loved the kid and wants to please the kid.

Fast forward and the parents sees that the kid really loved the toy but unfortunately the toy has some sharp edges and the parent is afraid the kid might hurt himself hence the parent decided to order a better and safer version of the toy.

However, when the parent tells the kid it ordered this new toy the uncle hears the parent and flies into a rage because the parent did not tell the uncle that he/she was going to buy the new toy and the uncle thinks the parents is ungrateful because he/she did not even thank the uncle.

In his rage therefore the uncle takes the toy away from the kid even before the new toy arrived (it is after all still in beta). Not only that but takes away the other toys he got the kid as well and says he is never going to give the kid any more toys. All this to punish the parent.

 

Now with this analogy, ask yourself.

Is the reaction of @CHBMB (the uncle) proportionate and justified? Does a parent (@limetech) need to inform the uncle of these kind of things? Sure it is nice, but is it really needed? Do you think it is right for the uncle to punish the kid? Should the parent even be grateful that the uncle presents the kid a toy with sharp edges (I know I wouldn't).

 

The only one the uncle should expect thanks from i.m.o is the kid. The community is and was grateful. Yet @CHBMB is the one who decided to punish the community and take away their toy because of his hurt feelings. Yet the only one who gets shit is @limetech. If I where him I would be more than a little pissed and disappointment and I think it shows in his messages.

Please read my analogy again and ask yourself who in the story did anything to hurt the kid? The parent or the uncle?

 

And please also think about the fact that we have no way of knowing if @limetech was not going to thanks @CHBMB for the work in an official release note, which this wasn't.

 

Now I do think the parent should have said something to the uncle. And I also am a bit disappointment to learn that even though UnRaid builds heavy on the community there is no special channel in place to facilitate communication with reliable community develops. Considering how well the development of both UnRaid and the community add-ons go together I kind of assumes something was already in place. However it seems this is something that is considered and worked on now.

But in everything that happened, this simple miscommunication seems far the lesser evil here. And I do think it might be good that the community asks itself again who really is to blame for taking away it's shining toy with sharp edges and if it is reasonable to have this reaction.

 

But that's just my 2 cents.

 

 

This is a wonderful post, written with insight, sensitivity and purpose. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I read it a few times, I hope others do the same. 

Edited by danioj
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Arrived late to the party. Love the software, enjoy the community, and respect for all involved. 

Only thing I can throw out there is an old saying, "Start with the end."

Without getting too much on the granola bandwagon.

Simply picturing being at the ideal destination and plotting backwards of the steps which were taken to get there may provide some potential insight.

 

Very similar to the previous post(s) it does seem that we have distinct layers (management/community developers/users). 

If projected 1 year out in the best case scenario, how would that look for each layer? 

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7 hours ago, TheIstar said:

there is no special channel in place to facilitate communication with reliable community develops.

We do have a special forum board called "The Lab" which is available to Community Dev's and Moderators where we can and do talk about development, though we (Lime Tech, Inc) need to do a better job at posting roadmaps in there (working on it).  There is another board called "The Bar" where Moderators can hang out and discuss forum issues.  Finally @SpencerJ servers role of "Community Manager", though in this particular case I thought it best to address the Community directly myself.

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4 hours ago, limetech said:

We do have a special forum board called "The Lab" which is available to Community Dev's and Moderators where we can and do talk about development, though we (Lime Tech, Inc) need to do a better job at posting roadmaps in there (working on it).  There is another board called "The Bar" where Moderators can hang out and discuss forum issues.  Finally @SpencerJ servers role of "Community Manager", though in this particular case I thought it best to address the Community directly myself.

Then I stand corrected. And thank you for doing so.

 

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5 hours ago, limetech said:

We do have a special forum board called "The Lab" which is available to Community Dev's and Moderators where we can and do talk about development, though we (Lime Tech, Inc) need to do a better job at posting roadmaps in there (working on it).  There is another board called "The Bar" where Moderators can hang out and discuss forum issues.  Finally @SpencerJ servers role of "Community Manager", though in this particular case I thought it best to address the Community directly myself.

Where is this special board? I can't find it in the forum overview.

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29 minutes ago, saarg said:

Where is this special board? I can't find it in the forum overview.

 

Sent you a PM. If you can't access it please Let one of the Admins know. Could be a simple permission issue if you don't see it. 

 

For other Devs its at the very bottom of the Company Main Forum section just incase you just happen to over look it. ;)

 

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I come here to see what's new in development and find that there is a big uproar. Hate to say it, but I've been here a long time and community developers come and go and that's just the way it is. This unRAID product opens the door to personalizations, both private and shared. Community developers do leave because they feel that unRAID isn't going in the direction they want it to go or that the unRAID developers aren't listening to them even though there is no obligation to do so. Some leave in a bigger fuss than others. The unRAID developers do the best they can at trying to create a product that will do what the users want. They also do their best to support the product and the community development. The product is strong and the community support is strong and new people willing to put in time supporting it will continue to appear. 

 

Maybe some hint of what was coming might have eased tensions, but I just can't get behind users taking their ball and going home because unRAID development included something they used to personally support. That evolution has happened many times over the years, both incrementally and in large steps. That's the nature of this unRAID appliance type OS as it gets developed.

 

There is no place for lingering bad feelings and continuing resentful posts. Hopefully, the people upset can realize that the unRAID developers are simply trying to create a better product, that they let you update for free, without any intent to purposely stomp on community developers.

 

 

 

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On 11/21/2020 at 10:10 PM, hotio said:

 TrueNAS Scale looks promising... so I guess this will be my final post then...

Sad to see you go also, however TrueNAS SCALE will be THE platform for storage and containers, and it's free. I hope the introduction of SCALE makes the devs of Unraid look at what got them here, which is community apps. I'd argue most people are here because of Invader Ones videos on docker apps or other community developed features. Poor attitudes and inclusiveness towards devs means they won't contribute their free time enhancing your paid product.. Telling people to also look for another platform if they don't like it here is pretty poor, seeing as though without your community you're just another storage platform and not a "one stop shop".

 

Anyways, time will tell. There has been some great recommendations made in this thread, lets see what the devs do with them. 

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On 11/21/2020 at 7:10 PM, hotio said:

  TrueNAS Scale looks promising... so I guess this will be my final post then...

Ooo, this has just prompted me to look at the TrueNAS website.  Promises NFSv4 support!  Perhaps, after more than ten years using unRAID, and putting up with regular failures with NFSv3 shares, it's time to consider moving on!

Edited by PeterB
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11 hours ago, Zyk said:

TrueNAS SCALE

 

Just went there to look. That's what I found:

 

Quote

*TrueNAS SCALE is in early development [...]

 

It took me 30 seconds to find out that this is nothing I can consider right now. Will be ready in the same timeframe like muItiple array pools in Unraid I guess ;-)

 

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13 hours ago, hawihoney said:

 

Just went there to look. That's what I found:

 

 

It took me 30 seconds to find out that this is nothing I can consider right now. Will be ready in the same timeframe like muItiple array pools in Unraid I guess ;-)

 

Good thing I said it WILL be and not IS the best platform. It was announced like 4 months ago and already has working alphas out. The roadmap has a production release date of Q2 next year iirc. The product is made by iXSystems who are the ones who have been making FreeNAS, now called TrueNAS. They are re-writing the stack of TrueNAS to separate out the storage middleware so that is can be moved from FreeBSD to Linux, in their case, Debian since they merged ZFS codebases so ZFS development is the same across FreeBSD and Linux globally now. 

 

I'm not sure the focus on multiple array pools come into your statement? Multiple array pools, while nice, are not the be all and end all of storage. Unraid is targeted at home and SOHO users, TrueNAS SCALE is firmly targeted at enterprise, so adoption is going to be significantly higher, especially since it will be free for anyone to use. There is a reason Unraid is suddenly pushing hard into the nvidia gpu support after years of letting the community handle it, because that will be a product differentiator that SCALE won't do. Unraid won it's current market share because it's an easy to use docker interface that had pooled drives and supported cache disks and the fantastic community. Without the community apps guy,  Space Invader One and devs offering support in the forums Unraid simply would not be in the position it is in.  

 

I would argue there are multiple things, such as NFS4, ZFS and SAS support that Unraid could have done years ago to be in a better position but that's just my opinion. It will be interesting to see what happens when Unraid changes to it's subscription payment model the dude talked about in that podcast and all the USB drives people have licensed eventually die forcing them to subscribe, I wonder if they will - or will they find an alternative platform.  

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Zyk said:

 It will be interesting to see what happens when Unraid changes to it's subscription payment model the dude talked about in that podcast and all the USB drives people have licensed eventually die forcing them to subscribe, I wonder if they will - or will they find an alternative platform.  

NFI how you have jumped to that conclusion

Quote

Any future subscription offerings will be for new Unraid products and services separate from our current core OS licenses and will not affect current users. Your Unraid license will still include all future upgrades and features and you will still be able to purchase licenses for a one-time fee.

https://unraid.net/blog/the-past-present-and-future-of-unraid-on-the-selfhosted-podcast

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