Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?

[robi]

@marcusquinn Perhaps their dockerfiles help with packaging here or at least easier adoption from pure code sources.

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

Looks like someone else has a neat FOSS Cloudron alternative to compare and run a few apps missing here: https://github.com/meienberger/runtipi

Quite a few similar things have been shared in various posts on this forum previously. I feel collectively we could put together a pretty comprehensive list of Cloudron alternatives/ competitors, and that we should. I think I may have even previously started a thread to that end...

[jdaviescoates]

@jdaviescoates said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

I think I may have even previously started a thread to that end...

But if I did, I can't find it! Must've dreamt it

[jdaviescoates]

But I know e.g. @scooke has posted other alternatives too, like e.g. Ethibox https://github.com/ethibox/ethibox

[fbartels]

@jdaviescoates said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

and that we should

But with what goal? To make people switch away from Cloudron? Seems quite an inappropriate topic for this forum.

There for sure are quite some solutions with similar features. Some platforms are very developer centric, some platforms focus on downloading pirated content, but what most of the systems are missing is a comprehensive user management and unified login. And of course the backup and restore functionality that Cloudron provides.

What I can run with Cloudron, I run with Cloudron. And what does not work, is deployed as a separate environment.

[timconsidine]

@fbartels
I've looked at lots of other "similar" offerings.
None of them come anywhere near close to Cloudron in terms of performance, stability, value for money etc.

Being fully open source is a red-herring IMHO.
I just want Cloudron to work ... and it does.
Better than anything anywhere else. Simply no contest.
Just my 2p.

[jdaviescoates]

@fbartels said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

But with what goal? To make people switch away from Cloudron? Seems quite an inappropriate topic for this forum.

Seems like decent market research for Cloudron imho

But also just interesting alternative options for people to try/ investigate for deploying apps that aren't yet on Cloudron.

And also just because I like comprehensive lists that gather the knowledge of multiple people!

[scooke]

@marcusquinn thumbs down on the name, and the image they use isn't even a tipi. Geez.

[avatar1024]

@timconsidine said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

Being fully open source is a red-herring IMHO.

I love Cloudron, I promote it and recommend it because as you say it is the most accomplished platform in that field, plus I love the community and have massive respect for the two main developers, for their skills and the great software they make but also because of their friendly attitude, their care for customer support and the way they engage with users. Plus while Cloudron is not Free Software the code source is out there for any to inspect so that's great in terms of users knowing what the software actually does and that's good enough for me.

However, the point of Free Software is not only about how things are now but also about future proofing. Things might change in the devs' lives, they might need to move on, they might need a lump of cash cause something terrible happen and sell the company, or whatever else. And if the new devs have a different ethics what do we do? Look for another software and all the time and energy spent on Cloudron is kinda wasted and then not as many people benefit from this amazing platform? And to be honest the current situation makes it hard to recommend it and promote in some context because not everyone is just interested in the best software or value for money but also care about software license but ethical and practical reasons.

I don't have a perfect solution as I understand and respect Girish and Nebulon's current position in that they don't want someone to just fork everything and release it for free.

Maybe something could be added in the license that says the code must be made publicly available, and that if the license changes to a more restrictive one (one that removes the public release of the code), then the current license reverts to a Free Software license e.g. AGLP 3.0 or its successor. This would basically guarantee Freedom 0 and 1 and would implement some kind of (twisted) copyleft. And that would be enough to make me happy

But I don't know if that is possible at all?? I'm a legal geek but not on software license...yet Anyone know?

[jdaviescoates]

@jdaviescoates said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

a pretty comprehensive list of Cloudron alternatives/ competitors

I still think such a list would be very helpful/ useful market research (and source of inspiration for App Wishlist posts)

I just came across https://elest.io/ via a post @Sam_uk made in a thread about Keycloak.

[jdaviescoates]

@jdaviescoates said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

I still think such a list would be very helpful/ useful market research (and source of inspiration for App Wishlist posts)

I've just started such a list of Cloudron alternatives/ competitors here.

[adison]

i2think cloudron needs to be open source again. even if companies do recell it, it would be great for it to be open source to the public.
my admins are critisizing cloudron for not bein open source, and want us to stop using it untill it becomes open source or something like that.

[timconsidine]

Yawn
What makes users think they have any say or influence on what the owner does.
Woke socialism
Have all your admins open sourced their activities?

[jdaviescoates]

@adison said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

or something like that.

it is at least source available, which is a bit something like that

[marcusquinn]

@adison They can view the source code. Are they offering any code contributions to what they see?

[necrevistonnezr]

Again, I prefer a sustainable paid software with available sources over an unsustainable open source project any day of the week. Look at Hashicorp, who suddenly switched licenses to become sustainable or the gazillion of abandoned open source projects...

[jdaviescoates]

@necrevistonnezr said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

Again, I prefer a sustainable paid software with available sources over an unsustainable open source project any day of the week. Look at Hashicorp, who suddenly switched licenses to become sustainable or the gazillion of abandoned open source projects...

I don't seem them as mutually exclusive. Indeed, if Cloudron went fully open source again I don't think anyone would stop paying, but quite a few who don't subscribe now because it isn't open source may do so.

I'd keep paying for supports and timely updates, which is what we're all paying for, wouldn't you?

I should think Cloudron could relatively easily restrict timely updates to paying customers only, perhaps making them publicly freely available 6 months later or something (quite a few sustainable open source projects do stuff like this).

[ryangorley]

Open source software is abandoned all the time, but so is a lot of commercial software. Abandoned open source software can be picked up and maintained by the community, especially if the community has been involved in writing code along the way. This happens frequently. It never happens with proprietary software.

Regarding commercial viability, this isn't a guaranteed win for proprietary licensing either. Yes, restrictive licenses give creators leverage. They don't automatically give creators a user base. Good open source software spreads (that's the point!). While that doesn't necessarily give creators revenue automatically, if their user base is 1000x larger, it does give them a lot of options. Reaching people is the most expensive part of marketing; open source makes that much easier and cheaper.

There are costs to open source, obviously. Maintaining a community of contributors is a different kind of work than writing code, and it can be challenging. Some people won't pay when they don't have to. These are factors @girish and @nebulon have to take into account. But software-focused incubators like Y-Combinator continue to churn truly open source companies. I'm pretty sure it's not because they want to be nice but because the benefits outweigh the costs. They believe it will make them money.

It does seem a bit ironic for anyone using Cloudron to cast doubt on the viability of open source software, considering we only use Cloudron to run open source software. Nothing is guaranteed to work, but open source works all the time.

[malvim]

@timconsidine Sorry, but that's not it. Putting the "woke socialism" label everywhere is really not what we should do.
I've seen more entitled pro "freedom" people whine about a company not doing what they want, saying they'll call for a boycott or what have you, "vote with your wallet"-style, than anyone else.

I, too, don't like the attitude of "cloudron NEEDS to go open source bc my admins are whining about it". I'd love for cloudron to be open-source, but I understand why it's currently not, and I'm okay with it. So much so that I have been a paying customer since early 2017 on version zero dot something, and have no plans to cancel my membership anytime soon.

I'd much rather have serious, respectful, adult discussion about open source software and business models (which most people in this thread are doing) than slapping labels on others willy-nilly.

[adison]

@marcusquinn mainly, the admins are looking for sourcecode, witch they cant find. i've even searched for it this morning, but couldn't find it.
if i may ask, where is the source code?
most of the time, they hate it when they use proprietary products that don't contain any source code.
though, if they do make us stop using it, i will at least use it for my personal infrostructure.