this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
92 points (97.9% liked)

Selfhosted

39158 readers
382 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

tldr is that you can hide the button that asks for payment and it says "purchase immich" instead of "purchase liscence"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The technicality of usage rights is irrelevant, the developer is asking you to pay a set price that they've set as the total they would like to be reimbursed for providing the development service. That's not a contribution, that's a purchase. They're generous people though, so they won't restrict your use of the software if you choose not to pay.

Maybe you make donations to FOSS developers regularly. Unfortunately, I did not in the past. While I always intended to, it just slipped through the cracks. After running in to FUTO and the software they sponsor, I've been motivated to donate to or purchase much of the free software I'm using, and it's entirely because of the way they approach their relationship with the user.

If you feel like that's a dark pattern, or that your payment would only be purchasing an empty NFT, then I guess that's your choice. But purchasing FOSS applications provides an incredibly important line of support to developers who stem the tide of surveillance capitalism and the digital abuse that big tech has filled our world with. Call it a donation, contribution or purchase price. In any case you are exchanging value for something that has made your life better and supporting the person who made that possible.

Maybe it would help to view the cost of Immich as purchasing a ethics NFT. Sure, you have no observable difference in the material world, but you as a person have affirmed your ethical values through reciprocal action with someone who shares those values 😉

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Technicality of usage rights is very relevant, framing as a purchase where it actually isn't is dishonest and the fact that they make more money being dishonest doesn't make it right. Other than that you used an awful lot of words to basically agree with me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I've basically agreed with you this whole time, see my initial comment regarding the difference between the previous comtribution model and the new request for purchase:

Yeah, functionally it's the same.

However we're drawing different conclusions about the situation. You say it's misleading and morally wrong to refer to "buying" this software, I say it isn't and that it's actually a helpful perceptual change in fostering support from their users.

I don't really think there's anything else to say beyond that. If you don't like how Immich is handling their software, don't use it.