First they’re always nagging you to get a subscription. Then they make system upgrades harder for free customers. Then the gatekeep you from the enterprise repositories in true RedHat fashion and have important fixes from the pve-no-subscription repository multiple times.
As long as the source code is freely available, that’s entirely congruent with GPL, which is one of the most stringent licenses. You can lay a lot of criticism on their business practices, and I would not deploy this on my home server, but it haven’t seen any evidence that they’re infringing any licenses.
Okay if you want to strictly look at licenses per si no issues there. But the rest of what I described I believe we can agree is very questionable, takes into questionable open-source.
Open source still has to exist within the framework of capitalism. I am all for building the fully automated luxury gay space communist utopia where people just build awesome software and release it for free all the time without ever having to worry about paying the bills (seriously, I would encourage every open-source advocate to think about how much more awesome stuff we would have if universal basic income was a thing), but that is simply not the world we’re in right now. They need to keep the lights on, and that means advertising their paid services.
I beg to differ. Building a business model around open source is tricky at best. There’s always tradeoffs, and their model means they have less support from the broader community as their project will be used less. It’s their choice to make and I don’t see anything questionable with it. It’s one of the stated goals of GPL to not impede business with open source.
Proxmox isn’t making you sign away rights granted by the license - that to me is questionable legally and downright bullshit morally. Again, what they’re doing is fine, even if it makes their product undesirable to me.
Thank you for putting the word out on Incus as an alternative to Proxmox, one that is likely to fit the needs of many that are ill served by Proxmox. But besmirching their reputation on moral grounds doesn’t do anyone any favors. It ends up soiling the reputation of Incus as a side effect, even.
besmirching their reputation on moral grounds doesn’t do anyone any favors.
I’m not sure if you came across my other comment about Proxmox (here) but unfortunately it isn’t just “besmirching their reputation on moral grounds”.
Also, I would like to add that a LOT of people use Proxmox to run containers and those containers are currently LXC containers. If one is already running LXC containers why not have the full experience and move to LXD/Incus that was made by the same people and designed specifically to manage LXC and later on VMs?
After all Proxmox jumps through hoops when managing LXC containers as they simply retrofitted both their kernel and pve-container / pct that were originally developed to manage OpenVZ containers.
I’m not sure if you came across my other comment about Proxmox (here) but unfortunately it isn’t just “besmirching their reputation on moral grounds”.
I have, and was based on that I wrote what I did. I still think those choices are business decisions that are not against open source, neither the letter or the spirit of the licenses. It seems you disagree.
Also, I would like to add that a LOT of people use Proxmox to run containers and those containers are currently LXC containers. If one is already running LXC containers why not have the full experience and move to LXD/Incus that was made by the same people and designed specifically to manage LXC and later on VMs?
Why not, indeed? I thanked you before for raising awareness for that. Please keep up. It’s really the “Proxmox is fake open source” discourse I take issue with. I think it would be more helpful if you said “and you get all security updates for free with Incus, unlike Proxmox.” It’s a clear, factual message, devoid of a value judgement. People don’t like to be told what to think.
Also it’s weird that you take issue with Proxmox but not LXD. From what I read in the Incus initial announcement, what Canonical did with LXD is barely legal and definitely against the spirit of its license. Incus is a drop in replacement. Why even bring LXD up?
And, as far as micro to small installations go, TrueNAS is another alternative that plays well with open source (AFAIK). Unlikely to be used specifically for VMs or containers, but it’s a popular choice for home servers for a reason.
To sum it up: I’m trying to provide some constructive criticism of your approach. But I’m just an internet stranger so… You do you. I hope you think about it, though.
Also it’s weird that you take issue with Proxmox but not LXD. From what I read in the Incus initial announcement, what Canonical did with LXD is barely legal and definitely against the spirit of its license. Incus is a drop in replacement. Why even bring LXD up?
Mostly because we’re on a transition period from LXD into Incus. If you grab Debian 12 today you’ll get LXD 5.0.2 LTS from their repositories that is supported both by the Debian team and the Incus team. Most online documentation and help on the subject can also be found under “LXD” more easily. Everyone should be running Incus once Debian 13 comes along with it, but until then the most common choice is LXD from Debian 12 repositories. I was never, and will never suggest anyone to install/run LXD from Canonical.
It’s really the “Proxmox is fake open source” discourse I take issue with. I think it would be more helpful if you said “and you get all security updates for free with Incus, unlike Proxmox.” It’s a clear, factual message, devoid of a value judgement. People don’t like to be told what to think.
I won’t say I don’t get your point, I get it, I kinda pushed it a bit there and you’re right. Either way what stops Proxmox from doing the same thing BCM/ESXi did now? We’re talking about a for profit company and the alternative Incus sits behind the Linux Containers initiative that is effectively funded by multiple parties.
And, as far as micro to small installations go, TrueNAS is another alternative that plays well with open source (AFAIK). Unlikely to be used specifically for VMs or containers, but it’s a popular choice for home servers for a reason.
Yes, TrueNAS can be interesting for a lot of people and they also seem to want to move into the container use-case with TrueNAS Scale but that one is still more broken than useful.
What stops Proxmox is the same thing “stopping” Canonical. The next day there’ll be a fork and anyone can start selling pro support for it, further encroaching in their business model.
Regarding TrueNAS, there’s nothing broken. You can can sideload both containers and VMs. You can say it’s inconvenient, but again, it’ll be suited for some people, not so much for others.
Nothing that is more questionable than lxd, which now requires a contributor license agreement, allowing canonical to not open source their hosted versions, despite lxd being agpl.
Thankfully, it’s been forked as incus, and debian is encouraging users to migrate.
Yes, the people running the original LXC and LXD projects under Canonical now work on Incus under the Linux Containers initiative. Totally insulated from potential Canonical BS. :)
The move from LXD to Incus should be transparent as it guarantees compatibility for now. But even if you install Debian 12 today and LXD from the Debian repository you’re already insulated from Canonical.
What about Proxmox makes its license questionable?
First they’re always nagging you to get a subscription. Then they make system upgrades harder for free customers. Then the gatekeep you from the enterprise repositories in true RedHat fashion and have important fixes from the
pve-no-subscriptionrepository multiple times.As long as the source code is freely available, that’s entirely congruent with GPL, which is one of the most stringent licenses. You can lay a lot of criticism on their business practices, and I would not deploy this on my home server, but it haven’t seen any evidence that they’re infringing any licenses.
Okay if you want to strictly look at licenses per si no issues there. But the rest of what I described I believe we can agree is very questionable, takes into questionable open-source.
“How dare this business try to make money?!!”
Open source still has to exist within the framework of capitalism. I am all for building the fully automated luxury gay space communist utopia where people just build awesome software and release it for free all the time without ever having to worry about paying the bills (seriously, I would encourage every open-source advocate to think about how much more awesome stuff we would have if universal basic income was a thing), but that is simply not the world we’re in right now. They need to keep the lights on, and that means advertising their paid services.
I beg to differ. Building a business model around open source is tricky at best. There’s always tradeoffs, and their model means they have less support from the broader community as their project will be used less. It’s their choice to make and I don’t see anything questionable with it. It’s one of the stated goals of GPL to not impede business with open source.
Proxmox isn’t making you sign away rights granted by the license - that to me is questionable legally and downright bullshit morally. Again, what they’re doing is fine, even if it makes their product undesirable to me.
Thank you for putting the word out on Incus as an alternative to Proxmox, one that is likely to fit the needs of many that are ill served by Proxmox. But besmirching their reputation on moral grounds doesn’t do anyone any favors. It ends up soiling the reputation of Incus as a side effect, even.
I’m not sure if you came across my other comment about Proxmox (here) but unfortunately it isn’t just “besmirching their reputation on moral grounds”.
Also, I would like to add that a LOT of people use Proxmox to run containers and those containers are currently LXC containers. If one is already running LXC containers why not have the full experience and move to LXD/Incus that was made by the same people and designed specifically to manage LXC and later on VMs?
After all Proxmox jumps through hoops when managing LXC containers as they simply retrofitted both their kernel and
pve-container/pctthat were originally developed to manage OpenVZ containers.I have, and was based on that I wrote what I did. I still think those choices are business decisions that are not against open source, neither the letter or the spirit of the licenses. It seems you disagree.
Why not, indeed? I thanked you before for raising awareness for that. Please keep up. It’s really the “Proxmox is fake open source” discourse I take issue with. I think it would be more helpful if you said “and you get all security updates for free with Incus, unlike Proxmox.” It’s a clear, factual message, devoid of a value judgement. People don’t like to be told what to think.
Also it’s weird that you take issue with Proxmox but not LXD. From what I read in the Incus initial announcement, what Canonical did with LXD is barely legal and definitely against the spirit of its license. Incus is a drop in replacement. Why even bring LXD up?
And, as far as micro to small installations go, TrueNAS is another alternative that plays well with open source (AFAIK). Unlikely to be used specifically for VMs or containers, but it’s a popular choice for home servers for a reason.
To sum it up: I’m trying to provide some constructive criticism of your approach. But I’m just an internet stranger so… You do you. I hope you think about it, though.
Mostly because we’re on a transition period from LXD into Incus. If you grab Debian 12 today you’ll get LXD 5.0.2 LTS from their repositories that is supported both by the Debian team and the Incus team. Most online documentation and help on the subject can also be found under “LXD” more easily. Everyone should be running Incus once Debian 13 comes along with it, but until then the most common choice is LXD from Debian 12 repositories. I was never, and will never suggest anyone to install/run LXD from Canonical.
I won’t say I don’t get your point, I get it, I kinda pushed it a bit there and you’re right. Either way what stops Proxmox from doing the same thing BCM/ESXi did now? We’re talking about a for profit company and the alternative Incus sits behind the Linux Containers initiative that is effectively funded by multiple parties.
Yes, TrueNAS can be interesting for a lot of people and they also seem to want to move into the container use-case with TrueNAS Scale but that one is still more broken than useful.
What stops Proxmox is the same thing “stopping” Canonical. The next day there’ll be a fork and anyone can start selling pro support for it, further encroaching in their business model.
Regarding TrueNAS, there’s nothing broken. You can can sideload both containers and VMs. You can say it’s inconvenient, but again, it’ll be suited for some people, not so much for others.
Nothing that is more questionable than lxd, which now requires a contributor license agreement, allowing canonical to not open source their hosted versions, despite lxd being agpl.
Thankfully, it’s been forked as incus, and debian is encouraging users to migrate.
But yeah. They haven’t said what makes proxmox’s license questionable.
Yes, the people running the original LXC and LXD projects under Canonical now work on Incus under the Linux Containers initiative. Totally insulated from potential Canonical BS. :)
The move from LXD to Incus should be transparent as it guarantees compatibility for now. But even if you install Debian 12 today and LXD from the Debian repository you’re already insulated from Canonical.